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'On hearing of Kitty Keenan's admittance to hospital, her grown-up son Rory returns to Ireland to comfort his father and await the diagnosis . . . Rory's narrative, charting the steady decline of her health, is interspersed with a series of flashbacks . . . through which Kitty emerges larger than life. For Rory, these snapshots of the past are part of the process of unpicking the odd tangle of love and petty grievances that characterise familial relationships. Mulrooney's ability to make sense of the contradictions in clear, precise prose is the most remarkable achievement of the novel. A beautifully observed study of reconciliation, 'Araby' makes astute points about conflict and shifting values between generations. 'JAMES EVE, 'The Times''Kitty is a magnificent diva of discontent: contradictory, ludicrous, sharp-witted, thick-skinned, the sort of character best enjoyed from a distance . . . The narrative of her decline and death is worked with frequent flashbacks to Kitty's heyday, and her enthusiasm for Catholicism, medicament, hobbies and quarrelling . . . What is admirable about Mulrooney's writing is the way she manages to keep the tone bouyant, while alluding to many heartbreaking strands of family history. For both Kitty and Rory, this is a story of gallant survival. 'RUTH PAVEY, 'Independent''Mulrooney has a real gift for dialogue, the words and phrases ring true and make her characters wonderfully real . . . A tenderly funny and genuinely moving piece. I loved it.'FIONA MORROW, 'Time Out''An amusing, totally unsentimental slice of life and a chilling meditation on morality . . . Never angst-ridden or moralistic (a mixture of black comedy, affection and over-the-top farce) . . . I really enjoyed this truthful and affecting novel. 'BOOKS IRELAND'Wonderful'MAEVE BINCHY

Born illegitimate in 1876 on the San Francisco waterfront, Jack London became a legend before he was out of his teens: as oyster pirate, seal-hunter, hobo, Klondike goldminer in Alaska, and spectacular drinker. On publication of 'The Call of the Wild' in 1903, he soon became the most highly publicised writer in the world."A well-paced, unstuffy and engaging account of one of this century's most paradoxical literary figures ... We cannot help but read on, compelled at least in part by morbid curiosity to find out how a great man could be brought so low."PAUL WATKINS, 'Times Literary Supplement'"Money, love passion is the troika that powers [Kershaw's] book ... Everyone who met Jack London felt his largeness of spirit. Kershaw's triumph is to evoke this in a racy narrative that gulps the same air as London's fiction ... Kershaw's brilliant portrait ripples ... his compelling book fits its subject marvellously."JAMES WOOD, 'Guardian'"I read this fascinating book at a gulp, appalled and admiring all at the same time. The energy, dynamism and sheer bursting life-force of Jack London bowls you over."ROBERT CARVER, 'Scotsman'

The third novel from the acclaimed author of The Pied Piper's Poison and The Resurrection Club Leaving behind a dowdy northern winter for the warming delights of the French Riviera, Martin and his three student friends soon find their feet, turning a tidy profit as beach-bum salesmen and taking to the joys of life by the Mediterranean with relish. Martin soon gets addicted to those delights, jacks in his degree and goes down deeper into a life less ordinary ? scuba-diving, bed-hopping and bar-keeping his way into corners and out again. Out on the high seas, on board the laden 'Anne', ship's surgeon Martin is looking for the fresh start a life on the ocean wave can afford a man with a problematic past. As his captain steers his precious cargo ? but not his crew ? to safety through a raging, swelling storm and onward to the riches of the uncharted African coast, Martin comes to realize that down deeper lie secrets, desires and freedoms of uncanny power. The laws seem different out on the ocean, criss-crossing the Mediterranean or hugging Africa's shore, couriering yachts or cocaine, trafficking in spices or more human contraband. Living outside the dry land's dry laws is liberating, but, as Martin discovers, the lawgivers and the lawkeepers always turn up, looking for their justice. Christopher Wallace, the prize-winning author of The Pied Piper's Poison and The Resurrection Club, tells an exhilarating pair of stories that reflect off each other like the sun off the sea to illuminate just how a man ? with all his principles and compromises, desires and doubts ? can find honour and more in piracy.

An authoritative and entertaining account by one of our most talented writers of the courageous and unusual women who have been the backbone of the British Empire and foreign service. 'English ambassadresses are usually on the dotty side and leaving their embassies drives them completely off their rockers' ? Nancy Mitford From the first exploratory expeditions into foreign lands, through the heyday of the British Empire and still today, the foreign service has been shaped and run behind the scenes by the wives of ambassadors and minor civil servants. Accompanying their spouses in the most extraordinary, tough, sometimes terrifying circumstances, they have struggled to bring their civilization with them. Their stories ? from ambassadresses downwards ? never before told, are a feast of eccentricity, genuine hardship and genuine heroism, and make for a hilarious, compelling and fascinating book.