Derek Jacobi

In London, a woman parliamentarian's daughter is kidnapped and a newspaper editor with whom the parliamentarian had an affair receives a call, threatening the girl's life unless he admits paternity. Inspector Lynley suspects the girl is behind it.

Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history. Could such a sensitive, noble face actually belong to one of the worlds most heinous villainsa venomous hunchback who may have killed his brothers children to make his crown secure? Or could Richard have been the victim, turned into a monster by the usurpers...

Days after the encounter at the Swiss waterfall that claimed the lives of Sherlock Holmes and criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty, Pinkerton detective agent Frederick Chase and Scotland Yard Inspector Athelney Jones, a devoted student of Holmes's methods of investigation and deduction, must track down a sinister figure who is determined to stake his claim as Moriarty's successor.

"Regarded as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the intrigues, bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. He records the activities of the wise Augustus and his villainous wife Livia, the sadistic Tiberius and the insane excesses of Caligula. Written in the form of Claudius' autobiography, this is the first part of Robert Graves's brilliant account of the madness and debauchery of ancient...

Margaret Atwood's dystopian masterpiece, The Handmaid's Tale, has become a modern classic-and now she brings the iconic story to a dramatic conclusion in this riveting sequel. More than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge,...

15,000 people each year die, of snakebites in the Indian sub-continent and one million people worldwide are bitten by snakes. Understanding nature's chemical arsenal is vital to scientists, and to human life. Venom combines the latest research, remarkable natural history footage, state-of-the-art film techniques and high drama to uncover the astonishing power of nature's offensive chemicals, and how science is racing to combat them.

"Cornwall, 1910. On a remote tidal island, the Viscount of Tithe Hall is absorbed in feverish preparations for the apocalypse that he believes will accompany the passing of Halley's Comet. The Hall must be sealed from top to bottom—every window, chimney, and keyhole closed off before night falls. But what the pompous, dishonest Viscount has failed to take into account is the danger that lies within... By morning, he will be dead in his sealed...

Childhood sweethearts Alan and Celia, both widowed and in their 70s, fall for each other all over again when they are reunited on the internet after nearly 60 years. Their relationship is a celebratory tale of the power of love at any age. But this is also a story about family, and with family comes baggage. Celia's respectable, head teacher daughter Caroline is juggling bringing up two boys and dealing with her husband's infidelity, while Alan's...

Nobody Owens, known as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a graveyard, being raised by ghosts, with a guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor the dead. There are adventures in the graveyard for a boy--an ancient Indigo Man, a gateway to the abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible Sleer. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, he will be in danger from the man Jack--who has already killed...

The war against the Germans won, Emperor Aurelius chooses the victorious General Maximus as his successor to the Roman empire. Commodus, Aurelius' heir, is jealous of this and enslaves Maximus to the gladiatorial arenas.