An Air That Kills

'Andrew Taylor is a master story-teller' Daily Telegraph From the No.1 bestselling author of The Ashes of London and Fire of Court, this is the first instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series Workmen in the small market town of Lydmouth are demolishing an old cottage. A sledgehammer smashes into what looks like a solid wall. Instead, layers of wallpaper conceal the door of a locked cupboard which holds a box - and in the box is the skeleton of a young baby. Items within the box suggest that the baby was entombed early in the nineteenth century, but when another man is also found dead, the evidence suggests that the baby's death is more recent and that a killer is on the loose. For Journalist Jill Francis, newly arrived from London, this looks like her first story to chase ... 'The most under-rated crime writer in Britain today' Val McDermid 'Captures perfectly the drab atmosphere and cloying morality of the 1950s . . . Taylor is an excellent writer. He plots with care and intelligence and the solution to the mystery is satisfyingly chilling'The Times 'There is no denying Taylor's talent, his prose exudes a quality uncommon among his contemporaries' Time Out 'Andrew Taylor is a master story-teller' Daily Telegraph

From the Edgar-Award winning author of Beast in View, this landmark novel of domestic suspense is a gripping tale of ordinary lives ripped apart by lust, deceit, adultery, conspiracy and betrayal. On a Saturday night in April, Ron Galloway's friends have all arrived at his Ontario lakeside vacation lodge for a boys' weekend without their wives. But as the night wears on and the host himself doesn't arrive, the party turns sour. Then Ron Galloway's suspicious wife, convinced he is having an affair and trying to track him down, arrives on the scene, followed by the police. It is clear something is very wrong. In the hours and days that follow Ron Galloway's disappearance, the secret of an ugly infidelity comes to light, tearing apart Galloway's circle of friends and destroying two marriages. Did Ron Galloway commit suicide to escape his own unforgivable betrayals? What sinister set of circumstances brought him to his desperate end, and how will his survivors cope with the truth without tearing one another apart?

Mark Langworthy has just returned home after a stint as a colonial administrator in India. Once a promising writer, his dreams and idealism have been extinguished, and he returns stricken with malaria and fatigued in both body and spirit. When he meets his nephew, Paul, an ingenuous orphan of eighteen and an aspiring writer, Mark sees in the boy a chance for redemption. Over the course of an English summer they form a close though sometimes difficult friendship, but when Paul begins a love affair with one of his uncle's former acquaintances, Anne, things begin to unravel. A series of circumstances threatens the bond they have developed, and when Anne suggests that Mark's interest in Paul may not be what it seems, both Mark and Paul will have to come to terms with their feelings and discover the true nature of love and friendship. Published in 1948, An Air That Kills is the third of Francis King's more than thirty novels. Widely acclaimed as one of the finest novelists of his generation, King displays in this early work all the imaginative energy and ardour of a young writer dealing with a theme which he clearly felt profoundly. This 60th anniversary edition includes a new introduction by the author.

Schneider and McCumber reveal how the asbestos poisoning of Libby, Montana, uncovered a national scandal.

"The story is told through the eyes of the men and women who fought back - among them, Gayla Benefield, a bartender who watched more than forty members of her family die or become sickened from asbestos; Les Skramstad, a miner and cowboy who worked on the mountain and carried the poison home; and Paul Peronard, a courageous EPA investigator who battled not only one of the world's most powerful corporations, but his superiors in Washington. This is the first book to reveal how deeply the fibers of asbestos have embedded themselves into the texture of America: how many people have died or are dying of preventable exposure, how the industry and government repeatedly ignored and concealed the danger, and how, for many Americans, the dying is not over."--BOOK JACKET.

In this series a contemporary poet selects and introduces another poet of a different generation whom they have particularly admired. This selection of A.E. Housman poems are selected by Alan Hollinghurst.