Item category 1: Classic

Who is Pietr the Latvian? Is he a gentleman thief? A Russian drinking absinthe in a grimy bar? A married Norwegian sea captain? A twisted corpse in a train toilet? Or is he all of these men? In Simeon's first novel featuring Maigret, the laconic detective is taken from grimy dive bars to luxury h...

England in the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey's clerk, and later his successor. Cromwell is a w...

An early morning call to a dying millionaire throws private eye Philip Marlowe into West Hollywood's hidden world of blackmail, menace and muscle. Knowing he must protect this man's daughters Marlowe didn't realise he would become so involved.

In the opening volume of Proust's great novel, the narrator travels backwards in time in order to tell the story of a love affair that had taken place before his own birth. Swann's jealous love for Odette provides a prophetic model of the narrator's own relationships. All Proust's great themes - ...

Through the hostile landscape of the Texas-Mexico border wanders the Kid, a fourteen year-old Tennessean who is quickly swept-up in the relentless tide of blood. But the apparent chaos is not without its order: while Americans hunt Indians - collecting scalps as their bloody trophies - they too a...

An adapted, easy-to-read edition with engaging illustrations throughout. When the time comes for Aladdin to become a tailor like his parents, he refuses to learn one end of a needle from the other. He would rather spend his time playing in the streets, which is where the mysterious Ja'far finds h...