Scandal At The Savoy

The rich and famous are converging on the iconic Savoy Hotel in swinging '60s London--including a famous Broadway producer with anger issues, a demanding Indian raja, and a gorgeous film star with certain kinky predilections. All is as it should be--until the murder of a showgirl threatens to scandalize the hotel. The list of suspects includes Priscilla Tempest, the trouble-prone Canadian head of the Savoy press office. Clearing her name would be easy enough, if only she hadn't spent the night of the murder with a certain beguiling Canadian prime minister. Blackmailed by a Scotland Yard detective, wooed by a notorious gangster and hounded by the press, Priscilla must use wit and resourcefulness to survive the treacherous upper echelons of London society and find a killer. This is the thrilling sequel to Death at the Savoy, described by Publishers Weekly as "light, frothy...perfect escapist fare."

The rich and famous are converging on the iconic Savoy Hotel in swinging ’60s London—including a famous Broadway producer with anger issues, a demanding Indian raja, and a gorgeous film star with certain kinky predilections. All is as it should be—until the murder of a showgirl threatens to scandalize the hotel. The list of suspects includes Priscilla Tempest, the trouble-prone Canadian head of the Savoy press office. Clearing her name would be easy enough, if only she hadn’t spent the night of the murder with a certain beguiling Canadian prime minister. Blackmailed by a Scotland Yard detective, wooed by a notorious gangster and hounded by the press, Priscilla must use wit and resourcefulness to survive the treacherous upper echelons of London society and find a killer. This is the thrilling sequel to Death at the Savoy¸ described by Publishers Weekly as “light, frothy…perfect escapist fare.”

On a stiflingly hot July night in 1923, a 22 year-old millionaire Egyptian playboy was shot dead by his beautiful French wife at the Savoy Hotel in London. The notoriety surrounding the couple, set against the backdrop of this luxurious hotel, provoked a welter of publicity and speculation which filled the papers for months.

The captivating story of the famed Savoy Hotel’s founders, told through three generations—and one hundred years—of glamour and high society. For the gondoliers-themed birthday dinner, the hotel obligingly flooded the courtyard to conjure the Grand Canal of Venice. Dinner was served on a silk-lined floating gondola, real swans were swimming in the water, and as a final flourish, a baby elephant borrowed from London Zoo pulled a five-foot high birthday cake. In three generations, the D'Oyly Carte family and London's Savoy Hotel pioneered the idea of the luxury hotel and the modern theater, propelled Gilbert and Sullivan to lasting stardom, made Oscar Wilde a transatlantic celebrity, inspired a P. G. Wodehouse series, and popularized early jazz, electric lights, and Art Deco. Following the history of the iconic Savoy Hotel through three generations of the D'Oyly Carte family, The Secret Life of the Savoy brings to life the extraordinary cultural legacy of the most famous hotel in the world.

An atmospheric, entertaining new mystery series introducing a plucky Canadian heroine and set in the world’s most famous hotel. It’s 1968. London is in full swing and the Savoy Hotel is at the height of its legendary glitz and glamour, welcoming the rich, famous and aristocratic into its rarified world of perfection. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are squabbling in the American Bar while Noël Coward drinks champagne. Royals wait upstairs in luxurious suites for discreet encounters. In short, all is as it should be at the Savoy. If only it weren’t for the dead body in Room 705. Could it be murder at the Savoy? Impossible! Who could have done such a thing? Suspicion falls upon Priscilla Tempest, the quick-witted Canadian head of the Savoy press office who has a penchant for champagne, the wrong sort of men—and trouble. When it is discovered that Priscilla had been with the deceased—a notorious international arms dealer—the night before he was found dead, she is questioned by Scotland Yard Inspector Robert “Charger” Lightfoot and is suddenly under the unforgiving eye of her boss, the Savoy’s straitlaced general manager, Clive Banville. Her job on the line, her life in danger, Priscilla must elude the police and the general manager’s duplicitous wife, ward off the amorous advances of a famous drunken actor, and discover whether that really was a member of the royal family seen leaving the victim’s suite shortly before his body was discovered. Death at the Savoy is an intoxicating blend of mystery, suspense and humour. And it’s just the beginning!

“Reading Nanaimo Girl is like enjoying a martini or three with Auntie Mame. The stories are colourful, global, boozy and just cheeky enough to make you envious — and at the same time a little concerned.” — Dana Gee, Vancouver Sun Born in Nanaimo, British Columbia in the 1930s, Prudence Emery was expected to do the right things, but shattered family expectations by going to art school in London, England, where studies sometimes took a back seat to partying. And then she found herself in the world of celebrities. From Expo 67 in Montreal to the press office at London's Savoy Hotel, Prudence met the likes of Twiggy, Noël Coward, Louis Armstrong, Petula Clark, Liza Minelli, and Edward Albee. She escorted David Frost to an interview with Sheikh Mujibar Rahman and arranged for Pierre Trudeau to attend a party where he met Barbra Streisand for the first time. It was a world so rich with stories that the Canadian Press wrote, "If ever a job was tailor-made for a book of memoirs, Prudence Emery has it." But it was just the beginning. A new career as a film publicist spanned decades and introduced her to some of Hollywood's biggest names, from Sophia Loren to Jennifer Lopez, from Peter O'Toole to Matt Damon. She worked with Nicolas Cage when he was a nervous teenager and later when he was an outgoing superstar. And she was a frequent colleague of famed director David Cronenberg. Nanaimo Girl is the story of a life well lived and an encouragement to all, young and old, to get out, defy expectations, and have a rip-roaring good time.

Financial fraud is a serious and seemingly intractable problem. Financial scandals regularly punctuate newspaper headlines and regulators and auditors appear bereft of effective responses. But has this always been the case?This book quantifies financial crime in the UK using three centuries of data. It demonstrates how financial fraud and scandal vary according to systematic economic and institutional arrangements. In doing so, it retells the history of British capitalism, from the mercantilism of the eighteenth century to the financial capitalism of the twenty-first century, illustrating the often negative consequences of economic ideology, policy and structure. It identifies periods when fraud has been less problematic and contrasts these with times when it has surged. The variation of outcomes reflects the balance of power between the state, industrial and financial sectors, the provision of credit through risky lending, and the effectiveness of audits. 'Rogue traders' and other flawed individuals are frequently the focus of blame narratives constructed with the intention of deflecting comprehensive systematic reforms.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, London was gripped by the supposed curse of Tutankhamun, whose tomb in the Luxor sands was uncovered in February 1923 by the British archaeologist Howard Carter. The site was plundered, and over the next few years more than twenty of those involved in the exhumation or in handling the contents of the tomb perished in strange and often terrifying circumstances, prompting the myth of the 'Curse of Tutankhamun'. Nowhere - particularly London's West End - appeared to be safe for those who had provoked the ire of the Egyptian death gods. A blend of meticulous research and educated conjecture, historian and screenwriter Mark Beynon turns armchair detective as he uncovers a wealth of hitherto unpublished material that lays bare the truth behind these fatalities. Could ' London's Curse' be attributed to the work of a macabre mastermind? It soon becomes apparent that these deaths were not only linked by the ominous presence of Tutankhamun himself, but also by a murderer hell-bent on retribution and dubbed by the press as 'The Wickedest Man in the World'.