Bøker av Douglas Thompson

Tells the essential truth of the death of Marilyn Monroe at the hand of Robert Kennedy, Attorney General of the United States

April Ashley was a trailblazing figure in the fight for trans visibility and acceptance, one of the first British people to undergo gender-reassignment surgery, in 1960 - this is her remarkable story

The astonishing true story of the Scottish coal miner's daughter who fought the Mafia-backed creators of the world's biggest financial fraud - and helped the FBI to convict them.

Thomas Tellman, an RAF pilot who disappeared pursuing a UFO in 1948, unexpectedly returns entirely un-aged to a small town on Scotland's north-east coast. He finds that his 7-year-old daughter is now a bed-bound 87-year-old woman suffering from dementia. She greets him as her father but others assume she is deluded and that Thomas is an unhinged impostor or con man. While Thomas endeavours to blend in to an ordinary life, his presence gradually sets off unpredictable consequences, locally, nationally and globally. Members of the British Intelligence Services attempt to discredit Thomas in advance of what they anticipate will be his public disclosure of evidence of extra-terrestrial activity, but the local community protect him. Thomas, appalled by the increase in environmental damage that has occurred in his 80 year absence, appears to have returned with a mission: whose true nature he guards from everyone around him. Douglas Thompson's thought-provoking novel is unashamedly science-fiction yet firmly in the tradition of literary explorations of the experience of the outsider. He weaves together themes of memory loss and dementia, alienation, and spiritual respect for the natural world; while at the same time counterposing the humanity inherent in close communities against the xenophobia and nihilistic materialism of contemporary urban society. Of all the book's vivid characters, the fictional village of Kinburgh itself is the stand-out star: an archetypal symbol of human community. In an age of growing despair in the face of climate crises, Stray Pilot offers a passionate environmental allegory with a positive message of constructive hope: a love song to all that is best in ordinary people.

Drawing on recently released secret files, an astonishing look at the extent to which Frank Sinatra's life and career were inextricably linked with the Mafia, and how a number of innocent people died, simply because they knew Sinatra, or had upset him.

Now Profumo is dead, I can finally reveal the truth about the most shocking scandal in British politics.

Scott Malthrop is a murderer with a difference: his entire house is filled with an enormous device gradually assembled by him and his father over four decades. Known only as "e;The Machine"e; the device seems to transport Malthrop to different locations in space and time by feeding off his memories and a vast array of sentimental objects and trophies taken by Malthrop from his own past and that of his victims. As Malthrop's experiments become ever more violent and life-threatening, they cause distortions in the surrounding quantum fabric, and spark off pursuit from two very different directions: a local Police Inspector and two "e;Angels"e; sent back from the end of time.

In the city of Sylvow, brother and sister Claudia and Leo Vestra made a childhood promise to each other: he would look after the plants and she would look after the animals. Unlike most promises, both of these were kept - each in their own way. Claudia is now a vet - looking after pampered pets or putting down strays and leading a mundane life in the city. Leo, on the other hand, disenchanted with modern urban life, has abruptly abandoned his wife and disappeared into the surrounding forest, his only contact with the outside world being a sequence of dramatic and prophetic letters - increasingly convinced that a semi-sentient natural world is preparing to rebel against its human irritants. Nature is a strange thing - although we have done an amazing job of cataloguing and observing it, we still know very little about it. Nature always surprises - and always changes, especially under an external influence such as humanity's devastating effect on the environment. This book follows its cast of characters through a spectacular clash between everyday life and life on the evolutionary scale - as society dissolves and is stripped away under the onslaught of surreal environmental disaster. Douglas Thompson has dug deep into the inevitable guilt that we all feel, as a culture/species, for the disastrous state of civilization and its effect on both ourselves and the world around us - in the process touching on elements as diverse as literary surrealism, philosophical tract, horror, disaster novel and visionary science fiction.

Invitations to John Aspinall and John Burke's illegal gambling parties were the most sought after in 1950s London - only the wealthy and well-connected were allowed past their door. When the police finally arrested them, Aspinall and Burke challenged the law - and won. As a result gambling was legalised. Which interested crime boss Billy Hill and his lieutenant Bobby McKew, because suddenly clubs sprang up everywhere and Billy had a foolproof way of fixing the cards. He also had his eye on the ultimate prize, Aspinall's exclusive new club, The Clermont... Revealing for the first time how Aspinall and Hill plotted to steal a fortune, based on testimony from Burke and McKew, The Hustlers is a riotous journey back to 50s and 60s London. With a cast of characters that ranges from safecracker Eddie Chapman to the reckless Earl of Derby, from croupier Louis the Rat to unlucky Lord Lucan, it vividly recreates the exploits of the gamblers and gangsters whose lives collided in the clubs and pubs of Mayfair. 'a fascinating glimpse into a bygone world . . . when chemmy parties took London by storm and toffs were often found to be rubbing shoulders with gangsters' Daily Express