Дело шпиона Дрейфуса, которое расследовалось и слушалось во Франции, конец 19 века.
The gaudy years of the Restoration are long gone and Robert Merivel, physician and courtier to King Charles II, sets off for the French court in search of a fresh start. But royal life at the Palace of Versailles – all glitter in front and squalor behind – leaves him in despair, until a chance encounter with the seductive Madame de Flamanville, allows him to dream of a different future. But will that future ever be his? Summoned home urgently to attend to the ailing King, Merivel finds his loyalty and skill tested to their limits.
Холодной и снежной ночью 1910-го года родилась Урсула Тодд, третий ребенок зажиточного английского банкира и его супруги. К несчастью, девочка умерла прежде, чем успела сделать свой первый вздох. И ту же самую холодную и снежную ночь, Урсула Тодд родилась, испустила громкий вопль и вступила в жизнь, которую, в конце концов, можно назвать необычной. По мере того как она растет она также и умирает. Неоднократно, самыми разными способами. Очевидно у истории (а так же у Кейт Аткинсон) есть на девушку планы: В Урсуле заложено никак не меньше, чем судьба всей цивилизации.
1866 год. Уолтер Муди отправляет на золотые прииски Новой Зеландии, чтобы испытать удачу и попытаться заработать состояние. Однако на месте он знакомится с советом, состоящим из двенадцати мужчин. Они пытаются разгадать серию нераскрытых преступлений. Богатый человек пропал без вести, шлюха попыталась покончить жизнь самоубийством, а в доме пьяницы обнаружено огромное состояние. Уолтеру Муди вскоре предстоит стать частью тайны, столь же сложной и изысканной, как ночное небо.
On the morning after harvest, the inhabitants of a remote English village
awaken looking forward to
a hard-earned day of rest and feasting at their landowner's table. But the sky is marred by two
conspicuous columns of smoke, replacing pleasurable anticipation with alarm and suspicion.
One smoke column is the result of an overnight fire that has damaged the master's outbuildings. The
second column
rises from the wooded edge of the village, sent
up by newcomers to announce their presence. In the minds of the wary villagers a mere coincidence of events appears to be unlikely, with violent confrontation looming as the unavoidable outcome. Meanwhile, another newcomer has recently been spotted taking careful notes and making drawings of the
land. It is his presence more than any other that will threaten the village's entire way of life.
In effortless and tender prose, Jim Crace details the unraveling of a pastoral idyll in the
wake of economic progress. His tale is timeless and unsettling,
framed by a beautifully evoked
world that will linger in your memory long after you finish reading.
A veritable account of Fair Helen of Kirkconnel Lea, scrieved by Harry Langton.
Harry Langton is called back to the country of his childhood to aid an old friend, Adam Fleming, who believes his life is in danger. He's fallen for Helen of Annandale and, in turn, fallen foul of his rival, Robert Bell: a man as violent as he is influential. In an ungovernable land where minor lairds vie to rule and blood feuds are settled by the sword, Fleming faces a battle to win Helen, and to stay alive.
Entrusted as guard to the lovers' secret trysts, Langton is thrust into the middle of a dangerous triangle - and soon discovers Helen is not so chaste as she is fair. But Langton has his own secrets to keep - and other masters to serve. Someone has noticed his connections, and recruited him in their bid to control the hierarchy of the Border families; someone who would use lovers as pawns in the serious game of power and dynastic supremacy.
Striking like a sword into the extraordinary history of the Borderlands, Greig's vital prose renders the Border Ballad Fair Helen of Kirkconnel Lea as a breathless romance, a stirring adventure, and a memento mori. Gutsy, atmospheric and wry as ever, he shines a candle-light on the dark days of a lawless land, and the real woman behind the legend often called the Scottish Romeo & Juliet. Here it is brilliantly re-presented as the source of an equally famed, more complex drama.
1900. Young pianist Catherine Wainwright flees the fashionable town of Dayton, Ohio in the wake of a terrible scandal. Heartbroken and facing destitution, she finds herself striking up correspondence with a childhood admirer, the recently widowed Oscar Williams. In desperation she agrees to marry him. But when Catherine travels to Oscar's farm on Galveston island, Texas - a thousand miles from home - she finds she is little prepared for the life that awaits her. The island is remote, the weather sweltering, and Oscar's little boy Andre is grieving hard for his lost mother. And though Oscar tries to please his new wife, the secrets of the past sit uncomfortably between them. Meanwhile for Nan Ogden, Oscar's housekeeper, Catherine's sudden arrival has come as a great shock. For not only did she promise Oscar's first wife that she would be the one to take care of little Andre, but she has feelings for Oscar which she is struggling to suppress. And when the worst storm in a generation descends, the women will find themselves tested as never before ...From the author of The Personal History of Rachel Dupree, shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers and longlisted for the Orange Prize, The Promise is a heart-breaking story of love, loss and buried secrets, which confirms Weisgarber as one of the most compelling literary voices writing today.
Дело шпиона Дрейфуса, которое расследовалось и слушалось во Франции, конец 19 века.