The Oxford Brotherhood

Mathematics student G is trying to resurrect his studies, which is proving difficult as he finds himself - and not for the first time - drawn into investigating a series of mysterious crimes. When Kristen, a researcher hired by the Lewis Carroll Brotherhood, makes a startling new discovery concerning pages torn from Caroll's diary, she hesitates to reveal to her employers a hitherto unknown chapter in his life. Oxford would be rocked to its core if the truth about Lewis Carroll's relationship with Alice Liddell - the real Alice - were brought to light. After Kristen is involved in a surreal accident and members of the Brotherhood are anonymously sent salacious photographs of Alice, G joins forces with Kristen as they begin to realise that dark powers are at work. More pictures are received, and it becomes clear that a murderer is stalking anyone who shows too much interest in Carroll's life. G must stretch his mathematical mind to its limits to solve the mystery and understand the cryptic workings of the Brotherhood. Until then, nobody, not even G, is safe. A thrilling novel from the author of The Oxford Murders, inspired by true, strange stories from Caroll's life, The Oxford Brotherhood is sure to make you curiouser and curiouser.

Mathematics student G is trying to resurrect his studies, which is proving difficult as he finds himself - and not for the first time - drawn into investigating a series of mysterious crimes.When Kristen, a researcher hired by the Lewis Carroll Brotherhood, makes a startling new discovery concerning pages torn from Caroll's diary, she hesitates to reveal to her employers a hitherto unknown chapter in his life. Oxford would be rocked to its core if the truth about Lewis Carroll's relationship with Alice Liddell - the real Alice - were brought to light.After Kristen is involved in a surreal accident and members of the Brotherhood are anonymously sent salacious photographs of Alice, G joins forces with Kristen as they begin to realise that dark powers are at work. More pictures are received, and it becomes clear that a murderer is stalking anyone who shows too much interest in Carroll's life. G must stretch his mathematical mind to its limits to solve the mystery and understand the cryptic workings of the Brotherhood. Until then, nobody, not even G, is safe. A thrilling novel from the author of The Oxford Murders, inspired by true, strange stories from Caroll's life, The Oxford Brotherhood is sure to make you curiouser and curiouser.

It's the midsummer ball at Oxford, and a group of men and women - friends since university days - have gathered under the stars. Included in this group is David Crimond, a genius and fervent Marxist. Years earlier the friends had persuaded David to write a philosophical and political book on their behalf. But opinions and loyalties have changed, and on this summer evening the long-resting ghosts of the past come careering back into the present.

The dictionary focuses primarily on the 19th and 20th centuries, stressing topics of most interest to Westerners. What emerges is a highly informative look at the religious, political, and social spheres of the modern Islamic world. Naturally, readers will find many entries on topics of intense current interest, such as terrorism and the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, the PLO and HAMAS. But the coverage goes well beyond recent headlines. There are biographical profiles, ranging from Naguib Mahfouz (the Nobel Prize winner from Egypt) to Malcolm X, including political leaders, influential thinkers, poets, scientists, and writers. Other entries cover major political movements, militant groups, and religious sects as well as terms from Islamic law, culture, and religion, key historical events, and important landmarks (such as Mecca and Medina). A series of entries looks at Islam in individual nations, such as Afghanistan, the West Bank and Gaza, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the United States, and the

Amanda Podany here takes readers on a vivid tour through a thousand years of ancient Near Eastern history, from 2300 to 1300 BCE, paying particular attention to the lively interactions that took place between the great kings of the day. Allowing them to speak in their own words, Podany reveals how these leaders and their ambassadors devised a remarkably sophisticated system of diplomacy and trade. What the kings forged, as they saw it, was a relationship of friends-brothers-across hundreds of miles. Over centuries they worked out ways for their ambassadors to travel safely to one another's capitals, they created formal rules of interaction and ways to work out disagreements, they agreed to treaties and abided by them, and their efforts had paid off with the exchange of luxury goods that each country wanted from the other. Tied to one another through peace treaties and powerful obligations, they were also often bound together as in-laws, as a result of marrying one another's daughters. These rulers had almost never met one another in person, but they felt a strong connection--a real brotherhood--which gradually made wars between them less common. Indeed, any one of the great powers of the time could have tried to take over the others through warfare, but diplomacy usually prevailed and provided a respite from bloodshed. Instead of fighting, the kings learned from one another, and cooperated in peace. A remarkable account of a pivotal moment in world history--the establishment of international diplomacy thousands of years before the United Nations--Brotherhood of Kings offers a vibrantly written history of the region often known as the "cradle of civilization."

Art imitates life. Or does it? One sleepy Sunday morning in Buenos Aires, the protagonist of Martinez's brilliant new mystery finds himself unexpectedly tangled up in the story of Luciana, a former authors' assistant whom he has not seen for at least ten years, and Kloster, a rival writer - only far more successful; bestselling, in fact. What he discovers will make him question everything he had always believed - taken for granted - about chance and calculation, cause and effect. Luciana is desperate. In the decade since she last had anything to do with either of the writers, nearly all her close family have died, in highly unusual circumstances. And Luciana or her sister could be next. Luciana's convinced that her one-time employer Kloster is behind the deaths, punishing her for her part in the break-up of his marriage in a murderous frenzy of revenge worthy of one of his own prodigiously successful crime novels. But which comes first, murder or novel? Clever and gripping, THE BOOK OF MURDER is a chilling crime story in which the line between fact and fiction suddenly seems blurred.