Spitfire Pilot is the exhilarating and moving memoir of D. M. Crook, an airman in the legendary 609 Squadron - one of the most successful RAF units in the Battle of Britain. Beginning with his fond recollections of his halcyon days in training - acrobatics, night flying and languorous days spent playing sport and nights off visiting Piccadilly Circus - Crook goes on to recount in thrilling detail the dogfights, remarkable victories and tragic losses which formed the daily routine of Britai...

"A brilliant first-hand account of the life of a fighter pilot" in World War II ( The Spectator).Spitfire Pilot was written in 1940 in the heat of battle, when the RAF stood alone against the might of Hitler's Third Reich. It is a tremendous personal account of one of the fiercest and most idealized air conflicts—the Battle of Britain—seen through the eyes of a pilot of the famous 609 Squadron, which shot down over one hundred planes in that epic ...

While resisting eviction from the Queensland family property at the start of the Great Depression, Emma McKenna's father is shot dead. Emma is left destitute, with her crippled mother and twelve-year-old twin brothers to care for. But she is not easily defeated and fights back.In her struggle to survive she must overcome, heartless wealthy relatives, racial bigotry, child abuse, corrupt financiers and choose between the love of two very different men: one a wealthy Sydney lawyer inv...

For over a century and a half scholars have debated whether or not the legend of Robin Hood was based on an actual outlaw and, if so, when and where he lived. One view is that he was not a legend as such but a myth: an idea, rather than a person who could possibly be identified in historical records and placed in a real historical and geographical context. Other writers have gone even further, arguing that he is a literary concoction, with no traceable original, and that seeking to pin him...

The conservative, thoughtful, thrifty investor’s guide to building a real-estate empire.Profitable real-estate investing opportunities exist everywhere as long as you know what to look for and understand how to make prudent deals that transform property into profits. David Crook, of The Wall Street Journal, shows how to make safe and sane investments that ensure a good night’s sleep as your real-estate portfolio grows, your properties appreciate and your income increases. ...

The bombing of Darwin by the Japanese in 1942 was Australia's Pearl Harbor. Faith and her brother, Joe, escape the devastation and chaos aboard Joe's island trading ketch, Faraway, along with Joe's lifelong friend Koko, an Australian-born Japanese fleeing internment.They are soon separated by the fortunes of war and face their own personal battles against espionage and injustice: Joe in a special army unit serving in the inhospitable wilds of the Northern Territory against a brutal,...

Occupied Holland 1943. The entire extended Jewish family of brave thirteen-year-old Anna Millstrom is killed by the Germans. Anna escapes the carnage and hides in an old windmill. An RAF Lancaster bomber comes down in Holland. Two members of the crew survive, Australian pilot Jack (Roo) Reilly and American Solomon (Sol) Abrahams. They too, hide in the windmill from the Germans. To save Anna and the badly wounded Roo, Sol creates a diversion and is captured by the Germans and sent to Auschw...

The early wealth of Queensland depended on slavery, known in Australia as Blackbirding. South Sea islanders were tricked or forced aboard slave ships, then sold to the highest bidder and forced to cut cane on the northern sugar plantations.Beautiful young Kiri, destined for slavery is rescued from her fate by half-breed Ben Luk, a prospector who plans to become a respectable businessman in Brisbane after acquiring wealth in the Palmer River goldfields.However racial prejudice...

"Spitfire Pilot" was written in 1940 in the heat of battle when the RAF stood alone against the might of Hitler's Third Reich. It is a tremendous personal account of one of the fiercest and most idealised air conflicts - the Battle of Britain - seen through the eyes of a pilot of the famous 609 Squadron, which shot down over 100 planes in that epic contest.David Moore Crook, DFC (1914 - 1944) was a British fighter pilot and flying ace of the Second World War.After attending...

The search for the legendary Great South Land began in 1557 when Alvaro de Mendaña led the first Spanish voyage of exploration deep into the uncharted waters of the South Pacific.In his wake came the English corsairs, Francis Drake and the bloodthirsty Thomas Cavendish, commissioned by Queen Elizabeth to seek out Terra Australis and plunder Spanish interests anywhere in the world. Then came the Dutch and the Portuguese. But Terra Australia eludes them all.Tumara and Naomi are...

1873... A landslide at a diamond mine in Africa leaves autocratic British army major, Spencer Shackerly, badly injured and in a deep coma. He awakens to find himself a helpless cripple and his military career over. Holding Lieutenant Jeffrey Guest responsible for his plight, he is determined to have the young officer face a court martial.Jeffrey Guest has since returned to England, planning to marry his childhood sweetheart. On his wedding day he is blamed for the death of a soldier...

In the cutthroat pharmaceutical industry, two rival American companies race to be the first to register patents for a vaccine for malaria worth billions of dollars. When drug company employee, Paula Martin, suspects vital research has been stolen from her company by a rival firm owned by the man she holds responsible for her father's suspicious death, she becomes embroiled in the dark, dangerous world of corporate espionage where the high stakes quickly escalate out of control.