Penguin

Can it really be true that 'golf' stands for 'Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden'? Or that 'rule of thumb' comes from an archaic legal principle that a man may chastise his wife, but only with a rod no thicker than his thumb? These and hundreds of other stories are commonly told and retold whenever people meet. They grow up in part because expressions...

Off the coast of Somalia a battered, old freighter is boarded by pirates whose sights are set on a hefty ransom . . . But these pirates have made a mistake. For this rusting freighter is none other than Juan Cabrillo's secretive, state-of-the-art fighting ship Oregon. And Cabrillo is about to turn the tables on a deadly Somali pirate captain. One...

As Morgan's relationship with Hunter deepens, she should be happy, but instead she is in great danger. Members of the Amyranth coven are still trying to track her down to destroy her, while Hunter is receiving strange messages from someone - could it be his father? Erin Murphy, a blood-witch expert in magickal defences arrives from Scotland to...

Patrick Hennessey is a graduate in his 20s. He reads Graham Greene, listens to early-90s house on his iPod and watches Vietnam movies. He has also, as an officer in the Grenadier Guards, fought in some of the most violent combat the British army has seen in a generation. This is the story of how a modern soldier is made, from the testosterone-heavy...

A secret scroll remains hidden deep in an ancient sanctuary. It is guarded by a sacred order who await to unleash its true powers and bring doomsday upon mankind. Only one man - Dr. Thomas Lourds, the world's foremost scholar of ancient languages, who we first met in the bestselling novel The Atlantis Code - can safely bring this secret scroll to...

"Midnight in Peking" is a gripping true murder mystery by Paul French. The international bestseller - as heard on BBC radio 4. "A first-rate murder story, a thrilling narrative. Hurtles along from one cliffhanger to the next". ("Spectator"). Peking, 1937: The teenage daughter of a British consul is brutally slaughtered. The police investigation is...