| LIST A (continued) Death of an Englishman It was a very inconvenient time for murder. Florence was full of Christmas shoppers and half the police force was already on holiday. At first it seemed quite an ordinary murder. Of course, there are always a few mysteries. In this case, the dead man had been in the habit of moving his furniture at three o’clock in the morning. Naturally, the police wanted to know why. The case became more and more complicated. But all the time, the answer was right under their noses. They just couldn’t see it. It was after all, a very ordinary murder. Far from the madding crowd Bathsheba Everdene is young, proud, and beautiful. She is an independent woman and can marry any man she chooses – if she chooses. In fact she likes her independence, and she likes fighting her own battles in a man’s world. But it is never wise to ignore the power of love. There are three men who would very much like to marry Bathsheba. When she falls in love with one of them, she soon wishes that she had kept her independence. She learns that love brings misery, pain and violent passions that can destroy lives. Wuthering heights The wind is strong on the Yorkshire moors. There are few trees, and fewer houses, to block its path. There is one house, however, that does not hide from the wind. It stands out from the hill and challenges the wind to do its worst. The house is called Wuthering Heights. When Mr Earnshaw brings a strange, small, dark, child back home to Wuthering Heights, it seems he has opened his doors to trouble. He has invited in something that, like the wind, is safer kept out of the house. |
| The moonspinners When Nicola arrives in Crete a day early, she gets more than just an extra day of holiday. She comes to a village where no one can be trusted, and she becomes involved in a murder mystery that puts her own life in danger. This story is set in a small village in the mountains of Crete. This is an island where people have strong feelings, where arguments begin suddenly, and end quickly. And Nicola has arrived in the middle of an argument that could end very quickly – with a gun. The big sleep General Sternwood has four million dollars, and two young daughters, both pretty and both wild. He’s an old, sick man, close to death, but he doesn’t like being blackmailed. So he asks private detective Philip Marlowe to get the blackmailer off his back. Marlowe knows the dark side of life in Los Angeles well, and nothing much surprises him. But the Sternwood girls are a lot wilder than their old father realizes. They like men, drink, drugs – and it’s not just a question of blackmail. Great expectations In a gloomy, neglected house Miss Havisham sits, as she has sat year after year, in a wedding dress and veil that were once white, wand are now faded and yellow with age. Her face is like a death’s head, her dark eyes burn with bitterness and hate. By her side sits a proud and beautiful girl, and in front of her, trembling with fear in his thick country boots, stands young Pip. Miss Havisham stares at Pip coldly, and murmurs to the girl at her side : “Break his heart, Estella. Break his heart !” |
| The enemy On a beautiful summer evening in the quiet town of Marlow, a young woman is walking home from church. She passes a man who is looking at the engine of his cat. He turns round, smiles at her … and throws acid into her face. Then her father, the scientist George Ashton, disappears. And her sister, Penny, discovers that her husband-to-be, Malcolm, is a government agent. Why has Ashton disappeared, and why is Malcolm told to hunt for him ? Who is George Ashton , anyway ? And who is the enemy ? The eagle of the ninth In the second century AD, when the Ninth Roman Legion marched into the mists of northern Britain, not one man came back. Four thousand men disappeared, and the Eagle, symbol of the Legion’s honour, was lost. Years later there is a story that the Eagle has been seen again. So Marcus Aquila, whose father disappeared with the Ninth, travels north, to find the Eagle and bring it back, and to learn how his father died. But the tribes of the north are wild and dangerous, and they hate the Romans … |