The Way of the Traitor

Samurai Sano Ichiro, our guide through the intricacies of life and death in 17th-century Japan in Laura Joh Rowland's evocative and accessible mysteries  is called the Shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People. All of these skills--plus a strong sense of survival--are needed in this story about what happens when Dutch traders arrive in Nagasaki in 1690. The foreigners are isolated in a small section of the city, and most ordinary citizens are forbidden to make contact with them--on penalty of beheading.

The Concubine's Tattoo

Rowland once again delivers a mystery laden with details of period and place, with strong portrayals of palace intrigue in 17th-century Japan. Sano Ichiro has risen to the rank of Most Honorable Investigator for the shogun in 1690 Japan. As his fourth adventure (after 1997's The Way of the Traitor) begins, he is marrying the beautiful Lady Ueda Reiko. The wedding is interrupted by the sudden death of Hamune, one of the shogun's concubines, the victim of poisoned ink that Hamune used to give herself an intimate tattoo. Sano's investigation requires extraordinary skill and care, for failure in a case involving the shogun's household could mean his death.

The Burning Girl

Mark Billingham - The Burning Girl

Jessica Clarke had been set alight twenty years ago. Her attacker, quickly tracked down and eager to confess, was still in jail, his career as a hitman for North London gangs now well behind him. So who is harassing Carol Chamberlain, the arresting officer in that case, and claiming that he is one who burned the girl? Now retired, Carol turns to DI Tom Thorne for help.

Dellar Hugh, Darryl Hocking, Walkley Andrew. Innovations - A Course in Natural English - Advanced (MP3)

Innovations is a new five-level general English course for classes looking for new material with a fresh approach. Based on a language-rich, lexical/grammatical syllabus, it starts from the kinds of natural conversations that learners want to have.

Lazybones

Mark Billingham - Lazybones

Someone - a woman or somebody pretending to be a woman, is writing to convicted rapists in prison, befriending them and then brutally killing them when they are released. DI Tom Thorne must discover the link between these killings and a murder/suicide that took place twenty-five years before; a tragedy to which the only witnesses were two small children, now adults and nowhere to be found. How can you escape a past that will do a lot more than just catch up with you? And how can Thorne catch a killer, when he doesn't really care about the victims?