Angels And Demons

In this vast and vivid panorama of history, Martin Meredith, bestselling author of The State of Africa, follows the fortunes of Africa over a period of 5,000 years. With compelling narrative, he traces the rise and fall of ancient kingdoms and empires; the spread of Christianity and Islam; the enduring quest for gold and other riches; the exploits of explorers and missionaries; and the impact of European colonisation. He examines, too, the fate of modern African states and concludes with a glimpse into their future. This is history on an epic scale.

Den Laurey, the leader of one of the country’s most violent biker gangs, should have been behind bars. But thanks to a daring escape on the L.A. freeway, several US marshals are dead and Laurey is riding free. Tim Rackley, back on the service’s warrant squad, is in hot pursuit of the outlaw and his ruthless gang–with a media whirlwind and the entire Los Angeles law enforcement community dogging him. Tim’s search leads him into a dark world of deception, of criminals and undercover cops, and drugs and mutilation. With the stakes rising, Tim must unravel a horrifying secret and confront a deadly terror that reaches from the back alleys of Mexico to the poppy fields of Afghanistan–and threatens to explode on the dark streets of L.A.

Bruno Salvador, known to friends and enemies alike as Salvo, is the ever-innocent, twenty-nine-year-old orphaned love-child of a Catholic Irish missionary and a Congolese headman’s daughter. Educated first at mission school in the East Congolese province of Kivu, and later at a discreet sanctuary for the secret sons of Rome, Salvo is inspired by his mentor Brother Michael to train as a professional interpreter in the minority African languages of which, almost from birth, he has been an obsessive collector.

Soon a rising star in his profession, he is courted by City corporations, hospitals, law courts, the Immigration services and – inevitably – the mushrooming overworld of British Intelligence. He is also courted – and won – by the all-white, Surrey-born Penelope, star reporter on one of our great national newspapers, whom with typical impulsiveness he promptly marries. Yet even as the story opens, a contrary and irresistible love is dawning in him.

Despatched to a no-name island in the North Sea to attend a top-secret meeting between Western financiers and East Congolese warlords, Salvo is obliged to interpret matters never intended for his re-awoken African conscience.

Cabrillo and his motley crew aboard the clandestine spy ship Oregon have made a very comfortable and very dangerous living working for high-powered Western interests. But their newest clients have come from the Far East to ask for Cabrillo’s special brand of assistance: a consortium of Japanese shipping magnates whose fortunes are being threatened by brutal pirates trolling the waters of Southeast Asia.

Normally, such attacks on the high seas are limited to smaller ships and foreign-owned yachts-easy targets on the open ocean. Now, however, giant commercial freighters are disappearing. But when Cabrillo confronts the enemy, he learns that the pirates’ predations hide a deadly international conspiracy-a scheme of death and slavery that Juan Cabrillo is going to blow out of the water.