Long Time Dead
by Tony Black

Gus Dury is back on the drink. While in hospital after a hit-and-run accident, his best friend, Hod, asks him to investigate the ritual, on-campus hanging of an Edinburgh University student. The murder victim's mother is a high-profile actress, who has promised a big-money reward. Gus, desperate for money, goes undercover at the university, taking a janitor's job, and soon uncovers a similar ritualistic hanging which took place in the 70s. Few of the students are prepared to talk about it – until another one of their group turns up dead by the same method. But Gus now moves into very dangerous waters as he begins to discover what and who is really behind it all – and he becomes the next target for the executioner.

Loss
by Tony Black

Gus Dury is a changed man. He is off the Edinburgh streets and back with estranged wife, Debs. He has promised her that he won’t get involved in any more dodgy cases which the police can’t or won’t solve. And above all, he’s off the drink. In his pocket at all times is a half bottle of scotch, but although the label is worn to shreds, he has never so much as loosened the cap.

Then his brother Michael is found dead with a bullet in his heart and Gus’ life begins to unravel all over again. How can he keep the promises he has made and still avenge his brother’s murder?

Loss, Tony Black’s third novel about washed-up hack turned private investigator Gus Dury, is absolutely gripping – a labyrinth of violence, secrets and emotion. A true rollercoaster of a read.

Lyttelton's Britain: A User's Guide to the British Isles as heard on BBC Radio's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
by Iain Pattinson

The I’m Sorry I Haven't a Clue team of Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor, in the company of their esteemed chairman Humphrey Lyttelton, have been recording their BBC radio show around the UK for longer than any of them can remember ... that’s about week – or twenty minutes in the case of Barry Cryer. At each venue Humph would present a short history of the location, written by Iain Pattinson, to the mutual delight of the audience, the team and their delightful scorer Samantha (who somehow always found time for a rewarding poke in the area’s backstreets). We are privileged to present, in gazetteer form, the very best of Humph’s local histories from Radio 4’s multi award-winning ‘antidote to panel games’. As accurate as Wikipedia and as comprehensive as Reader’s Digest, this unique guide tells you everything you never knew you wouldn’t ever need to know about the background and inhabitants of Britain’s most prominent towns and cities.

The intelligent reader will waste no time in adding it to their collection.

Bristol
It was from Bristol in 1497 that John Cabot set off to find a new route to the Spice Islands by sailing north-west. He instead discovered a strange, hostile world which he named ‘Newfoundland’, until the natives explained that they actually called it ‘Swansea’.

Nottingham
It’s well documented in official records that the city’s original name was ‘Snottingham’ or ‘home of Snotts’, but when the Normans came, they couldn’t pronounce the initial letter ‘S’, so decreed the town be called ‘Nottingham’ or the ‘home of Notts’. It’s easy to understand why this change was resisted so fiercely by the people of Scunthorpe.

Brighton
A settlement is first recorded in Brighton as long as ago as 3000BC, when Celtic Druids practised their ancient worship of oaks, mistletoe and virgins, and indeed, oaks and mistletoe are still plentiful in Brighton.

Lyttelton's Britain: A User's Guide to the British Isles as heard on BBC Radio's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
by Iain Pattinson

The I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue team of Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor, in the company of their esteemed chairman Humphrey Lyttelton, have been recording their BBC radio show around the UK for longer than any of them can remember … that’s about a week – or twenty minutes in the case of Barry Cryer. At each venue Humph would present a short history of the location, written by Iain Pattinson, to the mutual delight of the audience, the team and their delightful scorer Samantha (who somehow always found time for a rewarding poke around the area’s backstreets).

We are privileged to present, in gazetteer form, the very best of Humph’s local histories form Radio 4’s multi award-winning ‘antidote to panel games’. As accurate as Wikipedia and as comprehensive as Reader’s Digest, this unique guide tells you everything you never knew you wouldn’t ever need to know about the background and inhabitants of Britain’s most prominent towns and cities. The intelligent reader will waste no time in adding it to their collection.

Bristol
It was from Bristol in 1497 that John Cabot set off to find a new route to the Spice Islands by sailing north-west. He instead discovered a strange, hostile world which he named ‘Newfoundland’, until the natives explained that they actually called it ‘Swansea’.
Nottingham
It’s well documented in official records that the city’s original name was ‘Snottingham’ or ‘home of Snotts’, but when the Normans came, they couldn’t pronounce the initial letter ‘S’, so decreed the town be called ‘Nottingham’or the ‘home of Notts’. It’s easy to understand why this change was resisted so fiercely by the people of Scunthorpe.
Brighton
A settlement is first recorded in Brighton as long as ago as 3000 BC, when Celtic Druids practised their ancient worship of oaks, mistletoe and virgins, and indeed, oaks and mistletoe are still plentiful in Brighton.

Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History
by Robert M. Edsel

From 1943 to 1951, 350 or so men and women from thirteen Allied nations served as the men and women of the Monuments, Fine Arts & Archives section (MFAA) of the Allied armed forces, the eyes, ears and hands of the first and most ambitious effort in history to preserve the world’s cultural heritage in times of war. They were known simply as Monuments Men. But during the thick of the fighting in Europe, from D-Day to V-E Day, when Germany surrendered, there were only 65 Monuments Men in the forward operating area. Sixty-five men to cover thousands of square miles, save hundreds of damaged buildings and find millions of cultural items before the Nazis could destroy them forever.

Monuments Men is the story of eight of these men in the forward operating theatre: America’s top art conservator; an up-and-coming young museum curator; a sculptor; a straight-arrow architect; a gay New York cultural impresario; and an infantry private with no prior knowledge of or appreciation for art, but first-hand experience as a victim of the Nazi regime.

They built their own treasure maps from scraps and hints: the diary of a Louvre curator who secretly tracked Nazi plunder through the Paris rail yards; records recovered from bombed out cathedrals and museums; overheard conversations; a tip from a dentist while getting a root canal. They started off moving in different directions, but ended up heading for the same place at the same time: the Alps near the German-Austrian border in the last two weeks of the war, where the great treasure caches of the Nazis were stored: the artwork of Paris, stolen mostly from Jewish collectors and dealers; masterworks from the museums of Naples and Florence; and the greatest prize of all, Hitler’s personal hoard of masterpieces, looted from the most important art collections and museums in Europe and hidden deep within a working salt mine - a mine the Nazis had every intention of destroying before it fell into Allied hands.

How does the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History end? As is often the case, history is often more extraordinary than fiction.