City Of Shadows

Alongside debates over rising inequalities, the stubbornness of urban poverty, globally, has emerged as a major academic and policy concern. Urban poverty policy positions are typically framed by paradigms of basic services and welfare. In the backdrop of Bangalore's evolution into India's silicon valley, the book presents research spanning old, inner city slums, new migrant settlements in urban peripheries, slum development projects, and garment export and construction workers, highlighting that intergenerationally, the urban poor remain tied to traditional low paying occupations, or, get incorporated into new urban growth channels (export industries, low end services) under highly unfavourable terms and conditions. Using the concepts of the old and the new poor, to explore channels of inclusion and exclusion, the book underscores that the poor's vulnerabilities are defined by different regimes of informality. Debates on the urban poor's political agency are used to problematize informality's complex relationship to contemporary theories of class.

Berlin, 1922: A city of fading beauty plagued by unemployment and rampant inflation becomes home to a growing number of refugees. Esther Solomonova survives by working as secretary to her fellow Russian émigré, "Prince" Nick, a scheming cabaret owner. Always on the prowl for a deal, Nick smells money when he hears of a woman in an asylum claiming to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of the Russian Czar, the lone member of her family to escape assassination by the Bolsheviks. Enlisting a highly suspicious Esther, Nick plans to prepare the woman—known as Anna Anderson—to claim the Romanov fortune. But Anna is being hunted. Or so she claims. At first Esther believes Anna’s fears to be just in her imagination—until innocent people around them begin to die. Together with a German police officer, a dogged inspector named Schmidt, Esther tries to discover who wants Anna dead—and why. Yet the deeper she and Schmidt dig, the more they realize that their own lives are at risk. Deeply atmospheric, peopled with rich, complex characters, City of Shadows is an enthralling novel.

Longlisted for the CWA John Creasy New Blood Dagger Award 2013 and shortlisted for CWA Endeavour Historical Dagger Award 2014 ‘She looked up at the terraced house, with the closed shutters and the big room at the end of the long unlit corridor where the man who smiled too much did his work. She climbed the steps and knocked on the door...’

In this all-new Counterfeit Lady Novel from USA Today bestselling author Victoria Thompson, newlywed Elizabeth Miles must use her unlawful skills to expose a dangerous charlatan. Elizabeth Miles Bates has returned from her honeymoon with Gideon and is taking great pride in having completely forsaken her disreputable past. Then her friend Anna Vanderslice begs her to use her talents to save her widowed mother from an unscrupulous medium. Since the war and the flu epidemic left so many families in mourning, séances have come back into vogue as desperate families long to communicate with their loved ones. Anna's mother has been attending séances in hopes of connecting with her son, David, who died of influenza. Anna had thought it a heartbreaking but harmless activity, but she's just learned that Mrs. Vanderslice is paying the medium ever-increasing sums of money in her eagerness to make contact. Since David's death has already caused Anna and her mother financial hardship, Mrs. Vanderslice's obsession is in danger of ruining them. Madame Ophelia is working with a group of con artists to fleece as many grieving New Yorkers as possible before moving on to another city. Several of Mrs. Vanderslice's friends, as well as some of Gideon's clients, have already been victims. Elizabeth knows that simply exposing the medium as a fraud will not be enough to recoup the stolen money; the only way is to con the medium and her cohorts. But will Elizabeth's family help her when it means betraying other con artists? Elizabeth recruits Gideon, her aunt Cybil, and her partner, Zelda, to lend a hand. Can Elizabeth and her gang of amateurs fool the professionals? Or will speaking to the dead lead to deadly consequences?

Look, but don't touch. Touch, but don't feel. Feel, but never ever love. From the moment Alina touches London's hottest fae superstar, breaking one of the laws founded to protect all of her kind, her fate – and the fae – close in. Below ground, the fae High Queen plots to claim the city as her own and places her pawns, ready for the battle to come. A battle she cannot lose, but for one small problem – Alina. There are four ancient keepers powerful enough to keep the queen in her prison. Three are dead. One remains ... And to fight back, Alina risks sacrificing everything she has come to love. This New Adult urban fantasy is packed with action and suspense and will have you yearning for more forbidden fae romance.

The extensive collection of police forensic negatives casts a fascinating light on the shadowy underworld of Sydney between the wars. In the mugshots we encounter people of that world - thieves, breakers, receivers, 'magsmen', false pretenders, 'hotel barbers', dope users, prostitutes, makers of false oaths - and the occasional murderer. And within this medium of crime and accident scene photographs we are able to view, sometimes in extraordinary detail, their physical milieu - the mean kitchens, bedrooms and parlours, the pubs, boarding houses, corner shops and residentials, the garages, back lanes and byways of a city that is both eerily strange but all too familiar.

From NYT bestselling author Brent Weeks comes the first novel in his breakout fantasy trilogy in which a young boy trains under the city's most legendary and feared assassin, Durzo Blint. For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art -- and he is the city's most accomplished artist. For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he's grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly -- and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint. But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins' world of dangerous politics and strange magics -- and cultivate a flair for death.

Liam O'Connor should have died at sea in 1912. Maddy Carter should have died on a plane in 2010. Sal Vikram should have died in a fire in 2026. But all three have been given a second chance - to work for an agency that no one knows exists. Its purpose: to prevent time travel destroying history . . . Hunted by cyborg assassins from the future, the TimeRiders must abandon New York and go on the run. They escape to Victorian London and the streets where Jack the Ripper roams. But, before they can establish their new base, they make their most shattering discovery yet - and it will change everything . . . ** Book six in the bestselling TimeRiders series by Alex Scarrow. ** Victorian London's Jack the Ripper get a time-travel makeover! ** Perfect for fans of Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes. ** TimeRiders (Book 1) won the Red House Book Award older readers category, and was Penguin UK's first ever number one on the iBookstore.