Assassins

This exceptional Egyptian novel – as mesmerising as it is controversial – caused an unprecedented stir when it was first published in Arabic.

Welcome to the Yacoubian Building, Cairo: once grand, now dilapidated, and full of stories and passion. Some live in squalor on its rooftop while others inhabit the faded glory of its apartments and offices. Within these walls religious fervour jostles with promiscuity; bribery with bliss; modern life with ancient culture. At ground level, Taha, the doorman’s son, harbours career aspirations and romantic dreams – but when these are dashed by unyielding corruption, hope turns to bitterness, with devastating consequences.

Alaa Al Aswany’s superb novel about Egypt’s many contradictions is at once an impassioned celebration and a ruthless dissection of a society dominated by dishonesty.

He was one the best Marine snipers in Vietnam. Today, twenty years later, disgruntled hero of an unheroic war, all Bob Lee Swagger wants to be left alone and to leave the killing behind.

But with consummate psychological skill, a shadowy military organization seduces Bob into leaving his beloved Arkansas hills for one last mission for his country, unaware until too late that the game is rigged.

The assassination plot is executed to perfection—until Bob Lee Swagger, alleged lone gunman, comes out of the operation alive, the target of a nationwide manhunt, his only allies a woman he just met and a discredited FBI agent.

Now Bob Lee Swagger is on the run, using his lethal skills once more—but this time to track down the men who set him up and to break a dark conspiracy aimed at the very heart of America.

The Third Reich is in its death struggle . . . A brilliant international thriller from the No 1 bestselling author.

In Washington, word is received that an elite member of the Nazi High Command is willing to defect and divulge information that will shorten the war. But his deflection entails the release of the ultra-top-secret file on the Scarlatti Inheritance – a file whose contents will destroy many of the Western world’s greatest and most illustrious reputations if they are made known . . .

‘The Scarlatti Inheritance’ is a spellbinding story of international terror and intrigue, greed and cunning, suspense and murder.

One man’s journey in the footsteps of a great explorer into the heart of Africa.

When he himself was a young man, Thesiger led an expedition to explore the course of the Awash river in Ethiopia. Every westerner that had gone before him had been killed by local tribesmen. Needless to say, he survived.

In Praise of Savagery is a highly original book that defies classification but is always effortlessly readable.