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Showing posts from July, 2018

'In Cold Blood' by Truman Capote

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  Controversial and compelling, In Cold Blood  reconstructs the 1959 murder of a Kansas farmer, his wife and children. Truman Capote's comprehensive study of the killings and subsequent investigation explores the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime and the effect it had on those involved. At the centre of his study are the amoral young killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, who, vividly drawn by Capote, are shown to be reprehensible, yet entirely and frighteningly human.  The book that made Capote's name, In Cold Blood  is a seminal work of modern prose, a remarkable synthesis of journalistic skill and powerfully evocative narrative.

'Jamaica Inn' by Daphne Du Maurier

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After the death of her mother, Mary Yellan crosses the windswept Cornish moors to Jamaica Inn, the home of her Aunt Patience. There she finds Patience a changed woman, downtrodden by her domineering, vicious husband Joss Merlyn. Mary discovers that the inn is a front for a lawless gang of criminals, and is unwillingly dragged into their dangerous world of smuggling and murder. Despite herself, she becomes powerfully attracted to a man she dares not trust - Joss Merlyn's brother. Before long Mary will be forced to cross her own moral line to save herself.

'Going Postal' by Terry Pratchett

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Moist von Lipwig is a con artist... ...and a fraud and a man faced with a life choice: be hanged, or put Ankh-Morpork's ailing postal service back on its feet. It's a tough decision. But he's got to see that the mail gets through, come rain, hail, sleet, dogs, the Post Office Workers' Friendly and Benevolent Society, the evil chairman of the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company, and a midnight killer. Getting a date with Adora Belle Dearhart would be nice, too.