Simon Prebble

Here is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of Stevens, the perfect butler, and of his fading, insular world in post-World War II England. Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman, " Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about...

An astonishing tip from a grateful ex-convict seems implausible--but Inspector Ian Rutledge is intrigued and brings it to his superior at Scotland Yard. Alan Barrington, who has evaded capture for ten years, is the suspect in an appalling murder during Black Ascot, the famous 1910 royal horserace honoring the late King Edward VII. His disappearance began a manhunt that consumed Britain for a decade. Now it appears that Barrington has returned to England,...

After a chance encounter with assassin Yassen Gregorovich in the South of France, teenage spy Alex Rider investigates international pop star and philanthropist Damian Cray whose new video game venture hides sinister motives involving Air Force One, nuclear missiles, and the international drug trade.

After being told that his father was an assassin for a criminal organization, fourteen-year-old Alex goes to Italy to find out more and becomes involved in a plan to kill thousands of English school children.

Fourteen-year-old Alex continues his work as a spy for the British MI6, investigating an exclusive school for boys in the French Alps.

"It's back to Corduroy Mansions--the slightly dilapidated but well-lived-in mansion block in London's hip Pimlico neighborhood--for the third installment in Alexander McCall Smith's newest popular series. There's never a dull moment for the residents of Corduroy Mansions: Berthea Snark is still at work on her scathing biography of the only loathsome Liberal Democrat member of Parliament--her own son, Oedipus; literary agents Rupert Porter and Barbara...

Fourteen-year-old Alex faces more dangers in his work as a spy for the British organization MI6, this time joins forces with America's CIA to stop a man who has a nuclear weapon and a grudge against the world.

"Claudine Burroughs--who works with William Monk's wife Hester at the women's clinic--expects nothing but an unbearably boring several hours from a Christmas party she attends with her husband. However, when an endearingly romantic poet has his prostitute companion crash the glittering event--and the woman winds up dead--Claudine has more on her hands than she bargained for. Feeling sorry for the poet, she sets out to uncover the truth about what...

While working with the Australian Secret Service on a dangerous mission, teenaged spy Alex Rider uncovers information about his parents.

On the north coast of Cornwall, an apparent act of mercy is repaid by an arrest for murder. Four young women have been accused of the crime. A shocked father calls in a favor at the Home Office. Scotland Yard is asked to review the case. Inspector Ian Rutledge is not the first Inspector to reach the village, however. Following in the shoes of a dead man, he is told the case is all but closed. Even as it takes an unexpected personal turn, Rutledge...