Excavating at ancient Corinth in Greece, American archaeologist Zack Devlin and his team discover a dead Italian soldier from World War II. This discovery leads to the unraveling of a plot that was conceived decades ago and if realized would alter the balance of power in Europe and throw the world into a perilous state of danger and instability. As the impending coup launches, a team of criminals set out to hunt Devlin down and kill him. Devlin, determined to stop the plotters, flees from ...

The Making of London explores the rich history of the Metropolis from the Roman settlement established 2,000 years ago in the area that came to be known as the 'Square Mile' and traces the process whereby it eventually emerged as the world's greatest city. London became the capital and seat of government of Britain, a center of culture, entertainment and retailing, a major port and industrial center and world leader in international trade, commerce and finance. The focus is largely on cent...

This unique social history examines 200 years of controversy surrounding British Railways—from the dawn of industrialization to contemporary light rail.During the Industrial Revolution, the power of landowning aristocrats was challenged by the emergent wealth and influence of the urban middle class. There was no greater symbol of this seismic shift in society than the British Railways Companies. Railways, with their powers of compulsory purchase, intruded brutally ...

Tyburn is synonymous with the idea of execution - over 50,000 people died there between the twelfth century and 1783. Among those who met their end at Tyburn were William Wallace, the Scottish patriot, Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be one of the Princes in the Tower and the hated Jonathan Wild, perhaps London's first master criminal. Alan Brooke and David Brandon tell the story of how Tyburn came to be the place of execution and of the rituals and spectacle assoc...

Ghosts traditionally make their presence felt in many ways, from unexplained footfalls and chills to odours and apparitions. This fascinating volume takes a look at some of the strange and unexplained hauntings across Britain's railway network: signals and messages sent from empty boxes; trains that went into tunnels and never left; ghostly passengers and spectral crew; the wires whizzing to signal the arrival of trains on lines that have been closed for years.... Based on...

London's Underground is associated with a multitude of ghostly stories and sightings, particular stations and abandoned lines, many of which are in close proximity to burial sites from centuries ago. This chilling book reveals well-known and hitherto unpublished tales of spirits, spectres and other spooky occurrences on one of the oldest railway networks in the world. The stories of sightings include the ghost of an actress regularly witnessed on Aldywch Station a...

Between 1835 and the 1850s, railway mania blossomed around Britain. Crime emerged as the railways developed, at first opportunistic crimes such as fare evasion and robberies, but gradually more inventive forms evolved, notably the minor clerk Redpath in the 1850s, whose shameless cooking of the books to live the high life exposed the lack of any kind of accountancy across the railway industry. The first train murder was not until the 1840s, and sparked great fear of foreig...

This book contains all manner of grim and ancient punishments from London's long and bloody history. Over the centuries, many hundreds have expired inside the capital's dank, rat-infested cells, or whilst 'dancing the Tyburn jig' at the end of a swinging rope, and many of the sites in this book have become bywords for infamy. From the Tower and Newgate prison to the Clink and the Fleet, this book explores London's criminal heritage; also including the stocks and pillories ...

London: City of the Dead is a groundbreaking account of London's dealing with death, covering the afterlife, execution, bodysnatching, murder, fatal disease, spiritualism, bizarre deaths and cemeteries. Taking the reader from Roman London to the 'glorious dead' of the First World War, this is the first systematic look at London's culture of death, with analysis of its customs and superstitions, rituals and representations.The authors of the celebrated ...

Tyburn Fields is the best known site of execution in London, but London may be aptly named the executioner's city, so many were the places where executions could and did occur.London:The Executioner's City reveals the capital as a place where the bodies of criminals defined the boundaries of the city and heads on poles greeted patrons on London Bridge. The ubiquity of crime and punishment was taken for granted by countless generations of the capital's inha...

In the hierarchal structure that pervaded a stately home in England in the 1930s, a poverty-stricken maid, Jane Hennessey, extorts money from her employer, Lady Caroline Melchester. Carolines affair with her employee, Ashley Brownlow, has consequences that changes lives forever. Charlottes last words implore her brother Ashley to reconcile with Lady Caroline. His grief obscures her words because his lovers apathy hastened his beloved sisters death. At the outbreak of World War Two, with hi...

The 1960s was one of the most tumultuous and divisive decades in world history. In London’s east end, Jude and Anna, two young lovers born in poverty, struggle to forge a worthwhile future. Jude Croaker’s mother had always told him that his father was a Lord, the Marquess of Melchester. Jude and Anna’s discovery of who his father is leads them both into dishonesty and deceit. Blackmail and death thwart their attempts to lift themselves out of poverty. Anna’s fate depends upon the actions o...