Olivier Norek: Former police officer, writer on SPIRAL and a million-copy bestseller "Exhilarating . . . This is not conventional crime" Barry Forshaw, FT When a routine kidnapping case goes badly wrong, Capitaine Vincent Coste breaks his golden rule: he starts to take things personally. And with his career hanging by a thread - his resignation letter parked in his superior's desk draw - he is plunged into his most testing ordeal yet. A raid on the vault at the Bobigny law courts. Five vital pieces of evidence swiped. Four men who can no longer be held: an armed robber, a foreign legionnaire, a kidnapper and a paedophile. But what is the connection between them? With Coste and his team at a loss, it's the moral outrage of another criminal that will throw up a lead: one they'll follow to their breaking point - and beyond. What readers are saying about Olivier Norek You can see the similarities with the TV series Spiral, which can only be a major positive! A hard hitting and gritty French crime read that makes an impact. A great thriller, sardonic, humorous, dark. I loved this book. Well written and had an authentic feel to it. A complete page turner. Translated from the French by Nick Caistor

A survivor of the atomic bombs dropped in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Mr Watanabe has evaded the memory for most of his nomadic life. When the 2011 earthquake strikes, triggering the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the past becomes the present, and Mr Watanabe begins a journey that will change everything. Written with intimacy and compassion, Fracture is a remarkable novel about collective trauma, love and the complexities of human life.

Nick Caistor has lived for several years in Buenos Aires as well as visiting it often over the past three decades. He has reported on Argentina for the BBC and is a translator as well as the author of several books on Latin America. The architect Le Corbusier once called Buenos Aires the capital of an imaginary empire . From its foundation in the sixteenth century, Argentina's main city has been a place of the imagination as well as the scene of many striking historical events. From foreign invasions to more modern-day coups d etat and dictatorships, the city's turbulent history has been paralleled by a vibrant popular culture born out of the hardships of immigration and longing for a lost homeland. This cultural guide looks at the impact of history and the efforts of men and women to build a city that would fulfil their dreams, as well as bringing today s Buenos Aires vividly to life for the visitor. From the new skyscrapers along the front of the huge river of silver to the picturesque portside Las Boca where hundreds of thousands of immigrants first faced a new continent, Buenos Aires has created its own legend, lived out today in tango bars, on football pitches, in cafes where intense debates take place, or people simply watch the ever-changing parade of passing inhabitants. Nick Caistor takes the reader to the insider s Buenos Aires. He shows how the past has shaped its streets, how Argentine politics has left its mark on almost every corner, how each wave of new inhabitants has added to the city s cultural mix. He explores the complex legacy of Spanish colonialism and Peronism as well as considering the city's representation by writers from Darwin and Humboldt to Borges and Cortazar. Analysing the foundations of Porteno culture, he reveals a city obsessed by nostalgia yet rich in music, dance and spectacle.

A community devoured by greed, cowardice and fear. A man persecuted by the ghosts of his painful past. A young woman searching for happiness. In one eventful week, each of them will face questions of life, death and power, and each of them will have to choose their own path. Will they choose good or evil?

The remote village of Viscos is the setting for this extraordinary struggle. A stranger arrives, carrying with him a backpack containing a notebook and eleven gold bars. He comes searching for the answer to a question that torments him: Are human beings, in essence, good or evil? In welcoming the mysterious foreigner, the whole village becomes an accomplice to his sophisticated plot, which will forever mark their lives.

In this stunning new novel, Paulo Coelho dramatizes the struggle within every soul between light and darkness, and its relevance to our everyday struggles: to dare to follow our dreams, to have the courage to be different and to master the fear that prevents us from truly living. 'The Devil and Miss Prym' is a story charged with emotion, in which the integrity of being human meets a terrifying test.

"His books have had a life-enhancing impact on millions of people".
THE TIMES

When Pepe Carvalho's uncle asks him to find his son, Raul, in Buenos Alres, Pepe is reluctant. All he knows about Argentina is 'tango, Maradona, and the disappeared' and he has no desire to find out more. But family is family and soon Carvalho is in Buenos Alres, getting more caught up in Argentina's troubled past than is good for anybody. As he gets nearer to finding Raul, he begins to realise the full impact of the traumas caused by a military junta who went so far as to kidnap the children of the political activists they tortured. A few excellent tangos, bottles of Mendoza Cabernet Sauvignon and a sexy semiotician are no compensation for the savage brutality Carvalho experiences in his attempt to come to grips with Argentina's recent history.

Shortlisted for the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize A novel of philosophy and love, politics and waltzes, history and the here-and-now, Andrés Neuman's Traveller of the Century is a journey into the soul of Europe, penned by one of the most exciting South-American writers of our time. 'Every year hundreds of books are published but rarely comes a book that reminds us of why we loved reading in the first place, that innermost quest for words and dreams. Traveller of the Century is a literary gem' Elif Shafak A traveller stops off for the night in the mysterious city of Wandernburg. He intends to leave the following day, but the city begins to ensnare him with its strange, shifting geography. When Hans befriends an old organ grinder, and falls in love with Sophie, the daughter of a local merchant, he finds it impossible to leave. Through a series of memorable encounters with starkly different characters, Neuman takes the reader on a hypothetical journey back into post-Napoleonic Europe, subtly evoking its parallels with our modern era. At the heart of the novel lies the love story between Sophie and Hans. They are both translators, and between dictionaries and bed, bed and dictionaries,they gradually build up their own fragile common language. Through their relationship Neuman explores the idea that all love is an act of translation, and that all translation is an act of love. 'A beautiful, accomplished novel: as ambitious as it is generous, as moving as it is smart' — Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Guardian A big, utterly captivating murder mystery and love story, full of history and politics and the hottest sex in contemporary fiction — Daily Telegraph 'A thought-provoking historical romance, in which sex and philosophy mingle to delightful effect.' — �ngel Gurría Quintana, Financial Times, Best Books of 2012 Novel of the century — Lawrence Norfolk Andrés Neuman (b.1977) was born in Buenos Aires and later moved to Granada, Spain. Selected as one of Granta magazine's Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists, Neuman was included in the Hay Festival's Bogotá 39 list. He has published numerous novels, short stories, essays and poetry collections. He received the Hiperión Prize for Poetry for El tobogán, and Traveller of the Century won the Alfaguara Prize and the National Critics Prize in 2009.

A sweeping historical epic by an author whose novels have sold over 6 million copies worldwide. A ruined merchant sets sail to seek his fortune in the 19th century Spanish Empire. Haunted by his lost wealth, he gambles the last of his money on what will become the greatest adventure of his life. When Mauro Larrea meets Soledad Montalvo, wife to a London wine merchant, she drags him into a most unexpected future, from the new Mexican republic to magnificent colonial Havana; and from the West Indies to the Andalusia of the 1860s, when the wine trade with England made the small city of Jerez legendary. A Vineyard in Andalusia is a novel that speaks of glories and defeats, of silver mines, family intrigues, vineyards, cellars, and splendid cities of faded grandeur. This is a story of courage before adversity, and of a destiny altered for good by the force of passion.

A passenger liner runs aground on the muddy banks of the Rio de la Plata. One by one, its passengers are abducted by Buenos Aires' criminal classes. As the kidnapping of three foreign businessmen sends stock markets into freefall, the job of solving the chaos falls onto the weary shoulders of Deputy Inspector Walter Carroza of the serious-crime squad. But top of his agenda is former Miss Bolivia Ana Torrente. Why are the bodies of the men who try to take her to bed always found minus a head?

"Eduardo Mendoza is one of contemporary Spain's most important writers."--"The New York Times Book Review"

"Wonderfully inventive and hilarious."--"Guardian"

Released from an asylum to help with a police enquiry, the quick-witted and foul-smelling narrator delves deep into the underworld of 1970s Barcelona to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a teenage girl from a convent school, aided only by his prostitute sister Mercedes.

Eduardo Mendoza was born in 1943 in Barcelona. He spent some years in New York, where he worked at the United Nations as an interpreter. His other novels include "No Word From Gurb," published by Telegram in 2007.

Clarke, a nineteenth-century English naturalist, roams the pampas in search of that most elusive and rare animal: the Legibrerian hare, whose defining quality seems to be its ability to fly. The local Indians, pointing skyward, report recent sightings of the hare but then ask Clarke to help them search for their missing chief as well. On further investigation Clarke finds more than meets the eye:in the Mapuche and Voroga languages every word has at least two meanings.Witty, very ironic, and with all the usual Airian digressive magic, The Hare offers subtle reflections on love, Victorian-era colonialism, and the many ambiguities of language.

Snared between two cultures and two loves, one man is forced to choose... 1564, the Kingdom of Granada. After years of Christian oppression, the Moors take arms and daub the white houses of Sierra Nevada with the blood of their victims. Amidst the conflict is young Hernando , the son of an Arab woman and the Christian priest who raped her. He is despised and regularly beaten by his own step-father for his 'tainted' heritage. Fuelled with the love of the beautiful Fatima, Hernando hatches a plan to unite the two warring faiths - and the two halves of his identity...

____________________ THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER: 2 million copies sold worldwide! A charming, feel-good and universal story of one woman's journey from boredom and dissatisfaction to happiness and fulfilment . . . ______________________ At thirty-eight and a quarter years old, Camille has everything she needs to be happy, or so it seems: a good job, a loving husband, a wonderful son. Why then does she feel as if happiness has slipped through her fingers? All she wants is to find the path to joy. When Claude, a French Sean Connery lookalike and routinologist, offers his unique advice to help get her there, she seizes the opportunity with both hands. Camille's journey is full of surprising adventures, creative capers and deep meaning, as she sets out to transform her life and realize her dreams one step at a time . . . __________________ If you liked The Happiness Project, The Little Paris Bookshop or Eat, Pray, Love, you'll love this.

"Literary Prozac."--"Cosmopolitan"

"Eduardo Mendoza is one of contemporary Spain's most important writers."--"The New York Times Book Review"

"An accomplished literary novelist who knows how to entertain."--"Kirkus Reviews"

A shape-shifting extraterrestrial named Gurb has assumed the form of Madonna and disappeared in Barcelona's back streets. His hapless commander, desperately trying to find him, records the daily pleasures, dangers, and absurdities of our fragile world, while munching his way through enormous quantities of "churros." No stone is left unturned in the search for his old pal Gurb.

Will Barcelona survive this alien invasion? Will the captain ever find his subordinate? Are there enough "churros" in Barcelona to satisfy his intergalactic appetite?

Eduardo Mendoza was born in 1943 in Barcelona. He spent some years in New York working as an interpreter for the United Nations before returning to his native city. His other novels include "The Truth About the Savolta Case," "The City of Marvels," and "The Year of the Flood."

On the morning of February 6, 1999, Buenos Aires police officers shot and killed seventeen-year-old Victor Manuel Vital, better known as Frente, while he was unarmed, hiding under a table, and trying to surrender. Widely known and respected throughout Buenos Aires's shantytowns for his success as a thief, commitment to a code of honor, and generosity to his community, Frente became a Robin Hood--style legend who, in death, was believed to have the power to make bullets swerve and save gang members from shrapnel. In Dance for Me When I Die-first published in Argentina in 2004 and appearing here in English for the first time-Cristian Alarcon tells the story and legacy of Frente's life and death in the context of the everyday experiences of love and survival, murder and addiction, and crime and courage of those living in the slums. Drawing on interviews with Frente's friends, family, and ex-girlfriends, as well as with local thieves and drug dealers, and having immersed himself in Frente's neighborhood for eighteen months, Alarcon captures the world of the urban poor in all of its complexity and humanity.

A searing family drama from one of Latin America's most original voicesOne trip. Two love stories. Three voices.
Lito is ten years old and is almost sure he can change the weather when he concentrates very hard. His father, Mario, anxious to create a memory that will last for his son's lifetime, takes him on a road trip in a truck called Pedro. But Lito doesn't know that this might be their last trip: Mario is gravely ill. Together, father and son embark on a journey takes them through strange geographies that seem to meld the different parts of the Spanish-speaking world. In the meantime, Lito's mother, Elena, restlessly seeks support in books, and soon undertakes an adventure of her own that will challenge her moral limits. Each narrative--of father, son, and mother--embodies one of the different ways that we talk to ourselves: through speech, through thought, and through writing. While neither of them dares to tell the complete truth to the other two, their individual voices nonetheless form a poignant conversation.
Sooner or later, we all face loss. Andres Neuman movingly narrates the ways the lives of those who survive loss are transformed; how that experience changes our ideas about time, memory, and our own bodies; and how the acts of reading, and of sex, can serve as powerful modes of resistance. "Talking to Ourselves" presents a tender yet unsentimental portrait of the workings of love and family; a reflection both on grief and on the consolation of words. Neuman, the author of the award-winning "Traveler of the Century," displays his characteristic warmth, bittersweet humor, and wide-ranging intellect, giving us the rich, textured, and strikingly different voices and experiences of three singular characters while presenting, above all, a profound tribute to those who have ever had to care for a loved one.

Rebelde the snail can't stop asking his fellow molluscs awkward questions, starting with: why are we so slow? When he is finally banished from the snail community because of this, he is forced to travel the world alone. As he explores in his slow snail-like way, Rebelde makes new friends and goes on plenty of adventures, gaining wisdom from every new encounter. But when he finds out his friends are in danger, he decides to rush home to warn them. Will he get there in time to save them? Luis Sepulveda's bestselling The Story of a Snail Who Discovered the Importance of Being Slow is a wonderful ode to diversity and unity, celebrating the importance of being slow in a world obsessed with speed.

On the morning of February 6, 1999, Buenos Aires police officers shot and killed seventeen-year-old Victor Manuel Vital, better known as Frente, while he was unarmed, hiding under a table, and trying to surrender. Widely known and respected throughout Buenos Aires's shantytowns for his success as a thief, commitment to a code of honor, and generosity to his community, Frente became a Robin Hood--style legend who, in death, was believed to have the power to make bullets swerve and save gang members from shrapnel. In Dance for Me When I Die-first published in Argentina in 2004 and appearing here in English for the first time-Cristian Alarcon tells the story and legacy of Frente's life and death in the context of the everyday experiences of love and survival, murder and addiction, and crime and courage of those living in the slums. Drawing on interviews with Frente's friends, family, and ex-girlfriends, as well as with local thieves and drug dealers, and having immersed himself in Frente's neighborhood for eighteen months, Alarcon captures the world of the urban poor in all of its complexity and humanity.

"Slick, sick and not for the faint-hearted. It will make you cry out (for more)" - Mark Sanderson, The Times "Exhilarating . . . This is not conventional crime" Barry Forshaw, Independent Introducing Olivier Norek: Former police officer, writer on Spiral and an award-winning, million-copy bestseller. A corpse that wakes up during the autopsy. A case of spontaneous human combustion. There is little by the way of violent crime that Capitaine Victor Coste has not encountered in his fifteen years policing France's most notorious suburb - but nothing like this. As he struggles to find a link between the cases, he receives a pair of anonymous letters highlighting the fates of two women whose deaths were never explained - two more blurred faces among the ranks of the lost and the damned. Why were their murders not investigated? Coste is not the only one asking that question. Someone out there believes justice is best served on a cold mortuary slab. What readers are saying about The Lost and the Damned You can see the similarities with the TV series Spiral, which can only be a major positive! A hard hitting and gritty French crime read that makes an impact. A great thriller, sardonic, humorous, dark. I loved this book. Well written and had an authentic feel to it. A complete page turner. Translated from the French by Nick Caistor

There are things he does alone, and things that he alone does.

Jacques Anquetil was a cyclist with an aristocratic demeanor and a relaxed attitude to rules and morals. His womanising and frank admissions of doping appalled 1960s French society, even as his five Tour de France wins enthralled it.

Paul Fournel was besotted with him from the start ("Too young to understand, I was nevertheless old enough to admire") and followed Anquetil's career with the passion of a fan and the eye of a poet.

In this stunningly original biography of a complex and divisive character, Fournel - author of the seminal Vélo (or Need for the Bike)- blends the story of Anquetil's life with scenes from his own, to create a classic of cycling literature.

In the late '60s, Juli?n R?os began work on what would have been his very first novel, but fearing that it wouldn't pass the stringent Spanish censorship under Franco, decided not to submit the completed book to publishers. Soon distracted by what would be his magnum opus -- the "Larva" series -- the manuscript was set aside and forgotten, until the author found and dusted it off almost fifty years later. Quite unlike his later postmodernist work, the short and bitter "Procession of Shadows" is filled with stories of love, war, and vengeance, focusing on the tiny, remote village of Tamoga -- a place where vendettas are passed down from generation to generation, and where violence has left its traces in every corner. A "Winesberg, Ohio" for the end times, "Procession of Shadows" shows us a very different side of the usually playful R?os: dark, direct, and pitiless.