AUTHOR OF THE BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB HIT BETTER OFF DEAD 'Terrifically fun and explosively propulsive' Gregg Hurwitz, author of Orphan X From bestselling author Tom Wood comes a unique and gasp-inducing Victor thriller that turns all your expectations on their head . . . Former CIA agent Antonio Alvarez has been tracking a vicious murderer for years, a nameless hitman responsible for numerous homicides. Once, the Agency deflected him away from his search, but now promotion has given him a second chance to right the past. Only problem is, the killer has vanished. Thousands of miles away, the professional known as Victor has stopped working - recently he began to care; he made mistakes. But there's another assassin, Raven, who needs his help - and she is hard to refuse . . . Enter a world of betrayal, tension and twists perfect for fans of Gregg Hurwitz (Orphan X, The Nowhere Man), James Swallow (Nomad, Exile) and Terry Hayes (I Am Pilgrim, Day of the Locust). 'Great, page-turning stuff' James Swallow, author of Nomad and Exile 'Very Few British writers are as good at the action thriller' Sunday Express

SOMEONE'S SET HIM UP SOMEONE'S GOING TO DIE When Victor is arrested for a murder that, for once, he didn't commit, escape must surely be inevitable for a hitman of his ferocity. Yet someone wants Victor put away, and he finds himself behind bars, incarcerated by police who have no idea of the monster they are dealing with and have, apparently, tamed. Quickly, however, his fellow prisoners realise that he's not trapped in there with them: they are in a cage, with the most dangerous of enemies. And Victor has a traitor to find.

One day a man arrives in town. Unassuming. Quiet. The assassin known as Victor is hiding out in a small motel in Canada after a job across the border. A few days laying low and he'll be gone and leave no trace behind. He doesn't count on getting to know a mother and her boy who reminds him of his own troubled childhood. When both vanish, only Victor seems to notice. Once he starts looking for them, he finds himself at odds with the criminals who own the town. They want him gone. Only Victor's going nowhere until he discovers the truth and to them he's just a quiet man asking the wrong questions. But that quiet man is a dangerous man.

He is darkness. She wants him dead. In a city starved of light, she might just succeed. She moves like a shadow; she kills silently: Raven. This elegant assassin has been on the run for years. This time though, she has picked the wrong target. The hitman known only as 'Victor' is as paranoid as he is merciless, and is no stranger to being hunted. He tracks his would-be killer across the globe, aiming not only to neutralise the threat, but to discover who wants him dead. The trail leads to New York... And then the lights go out. Over twelve hours of unremitting darkness, Manhattan dissolves into chaos. Amid looting, conspiracy and blackout, Victor and Raven play a vicious game of cat and mouse that the city will never forget.

Victor, a hitman without a conscience protects a human rights lawyer in Better Off Dead, the BBC Radio 2 Simon Mayo Book Club pick. A hitman must be anonymous, amoral... and alone Victor is the face in the crowd you don't see, a perfect assassin with nothing to live for. But when an old friend turns to him for help, he finds he can't refuse. For once his objective isn't to kill, but to protect. Hunted through the streets of London by ruthless enemies, Victor needs to be more than just a bodyguard... but his every move leads danger closer to the very person he's vowed to defend. Published in the US as No Tomorrow.

'Terrifically fun and explosively propulsive' Gregg Hurwitz, author of Orphan X For years, two sisters have vied for the turf of their dead crime boss father. Across the streets of Guatemala City, bodies have piled up; the US Drug Enforcement Agency, operating far from its own borders, is powerless to stop the fighting. But now one sister has a weapon that could finally win the war - a cold, amoral hitman known, fittingly, as 'Victor'. Freed from previous employers the CIA and MI6, Victor is a killer for-hire whose sense of self-preservation trumps all else. Yet as betrayal and counter-betrayal unspool in the vicious family feud, Victor finds himself at the centre of a storm even he could be powerless to stop. Acclaimed bestseller Tom Wood blows the completion away with his twisting, relentless new thriller, perfect for fans of Gregg Hurwitz (Orphan X, The Nowhere Man), James Swallow (Nomad, Exile) and Terry Hayes (I Am Pilgrim, Day of the Locust). 'Great, page-turning, with a hard edge' James Swallow, author of Nomad 'Great insights into the tradecraft and psychology of the professional hunter' Sunday Times 'Very few British writers are as good' Sunday Express

Victor is the perfect killer. He has no past. He will stop at nothing. And he can find you anywhere. In sweltering Algiers, ultra-efficient hitman Victor executes a fellow assassin. But when the CIA comes calling, Victor must pose as his victim to identify the dead man's next mark, a mission that takes him across Europe to the bloody streets of Rome. Working alongside a group of vicious mercenaries, Victor faces an impossible choice: to do what's right, or to sacrifice the only thing he cares about . . . his life. Full of white-hot tension and edge-of-the-seat action, The Game will surprise you at every turn.

His name is a cover He has no home And he kills for a living Victor is an assassin, a man with no past and no surname. His world is one of paranoia and obsessive attention to detail; his morality lies either dead or dying. No one knows what truly motivates the hunter. No one gets close enough to ask. When a Paris job goes spectacularly wrong, Victor finds himself running for his life across four continents, pursued by a kill squad and investigated by secret services from more than one country. With meticulous style, Victor plans his escape . . . and takes the fight to his would-be killers. In this first novel in the explosive Victor the Assassin series, it's not about right and wrong - only about who lives and who dies.

An impossible mission, for a man who barely exists The mysterious assassin known only as Victor is locked in an uneasy alliance with the CIA. And he has a list: three names, three victims. Worst of all, Victor is given just two days to take down his targets, forcing him to compromise his usual extreme care. With each name Victor crosses off his list, the game grows far more complex - and far more lethal. A conspiracy begins to unwind and suddenly this perfect assassin becomes the perfect target. Zooming from Moscow to London and Washington, and loaded with suspense, twists and sex appeal, The Enemy is a high-octane thrill-ride ideal for fans of Lee Child.

This book describes the state-of-the art instruments for measuring the solar irradiance from soft x-ray to the near infrared and the total solar irradiance. Furthermore, the SORCE mission and early results on solar variability are presented along with papers that provide an overview of solar influences on Earth. This collection of papers provides the only detailed description of the SORCE mission and its instruments.

AUTHOR OF THE BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB HIT BETTER OFF DEAD From hot thriller author Tom Wood comes the latest breathtaking Victor novel - The Day of the Jackal meets Jason Bourne, with a thoroughly modern twist. 'Terrifically fun and explosively propulsive' Gregg Hurwitz, author of Orphan X Even a killer can be a hero If the assassin known only as Victor once had a moral compass, it is long since buried, along with his many victims. Yet some men are so evil even Victor accepts they must die for reasons other than just money. One such is Milan Rados, a former commander in the Serbian army who has escaped trial at The Hague to become a formidable criminal power. Tracking down and killing this brutal man will win Victor a reprieve for his own recent crimes on British soil. But Victor isn't the only one who wants Rados dead. A woman, whose family was butchered on the tyrant's orders, will do anything to see Rados' blood spilled on the snow of Eastern Europe. Now Victor has an unlikely ally - but an army stands between them and justice.

SOMEONE'S SET HIM UP SOMEONE'S GOING TO DIE When Victor is arrested for a murder that, for once, he didn't commit, escape must surely be inevitable for a hitman of his ferocity. Yet someone wants Victor put away, and he finds himself behind bars, incarcerated by police who have no idea of the monster they are dealing with and have, apparently, tamed. Quickly, however, his fellow prisoners realise that he's not trapped in there with them: they are in a cage, with the most dangerous of enemies. And Victor has a traitor to find.

They want an eye for an eye. He'll fight to the last drop is spilled. The incredible latest novel in the most visceral, action-packed series around sees the assassin Victor fighting enemies on all sides, with no allies in sight. To make amends for past mistakes, the enigmatic assassin known only as Victor is now in servitude to the world's most dangerous criminal enterprise, the Russian Mafia. Although a hired gun without loyalties, Victor never picks a fight he cannot win so he intends to pay off his debt, however long it takes. Yet when his new employer is shot dead in London, Victor has both the means and the motive to make him the most likely suspect. With a turf war breaking out in the power vacuum, and enemies on all sides, either Victor discovers who the real murderer is or suffer the full wrath of the Mafia's vengeance.

Late spring in Oslo, Ontario. The annual Ibsen Festival begins with auditions, then rehearsals, and, finally, performances.

This year, the Ibfest features productions of five classic plays: The Twins, a renaissance play in the, er, tradition of Shakespeare; Virtue Slandered, a restoration comedy in the, um, fashion of Sheridan; The Raj, a nineteen century look at those quirky, madcap, but well-meaning Brits in a backward society (it's a musical ); Pantilous in Crete, a classic Greek tragedy about an Athenian, having offended Zeus, who is doomed to live a life of horrors; and the Canadian classic, Frozen Wheat, about a Quebucois couple stranded on the prairies in the dead of winter, their son growing up Anglais, their daughter pregnant, with relatives from Newfoundland causing havoc and humorous but touching situations.

The actors in the company include (among many others) Dirk Hart, the gorgeous American film star, making an attempt at serious theatre; Simon Webber-Douglas, Canadian-born but British-trained, which makes him almost good; and Julia Hudson, talented, Canadian-born and trained, and the target of the Ibfestos sarcasm, sadism, and cruelty.

Antony Manley-Dunn presides over the Ibfest as one imagines Cecil Rhodes did the continent of Africa.

Claptrap is a grand satire of the colonial mentality that governs the theatre festivals of Canada. Anyone who has worked at, performed in, been to, or even heard about the Stratford or Shaw festivals will laugh heartily and with recognition.

Although a play, Claptrap reads much like a comic novel; here is Tom Wood's description of the development of the festival:

Oslo's biggest claim to fame before the Festival was the Hastverk Fish Pickling Plant (Herring and Smelt). When the town was floundering in the early 1960s, the city fathers hit upon the idea of having a summer festival of Norwegian culture. Dancing, food, sports, and the community players performed A Doll's House at the town hall. The cultural festival failed miserably, but the play was a modest success. The town fathers decided to follow in the footsteps of two other theatrical festivals and gussied up the town to look more period. 1850s Norway, to be exact. Local businesses slapped on facades and adopted Ibsenesque names: the hair salon became Hedda Hair; the pub, Gabbler's; the funeral parlor, Ghosts; the hotel and convention centre, Gynt Pier Inn.