David Rintoul

Alexander McCall Smith gives us another installment in this popular series. Anything could happen to Bertie and the gang, especially with an invitation to one of Scotland's premier jazz festivals.

Captain Blackwood of the Royal Marines rejoins his ship in the August of 1850, anxious to get back into action. 'Per Mare-Per Terram' is the Marines' motto, and in the heat of Africa, Blackwood and his men learn to obey it without question. Originally published: London: Hutchinson, 1982

Would you sacrifice yourself to save thousands of others? In the Summer of 1940, after the Nazi occupation of Poland, an underground operative called Witold Pilecki accepted a mission to uncover the fate of thousands of people being interred at a new concentration camp on the border of the Reich. His mission was to report on Nazi crimes and raise a secret army to stage an uprising. The name of the detention centre -- Auschwitz. It was only after arriving...

It is 1938 and the final days of the British Empire. In a bungalow high up in the green hills above the plains of Ceylon, under a vast blue sky, live the Ferguson family - Bella, a precocious eight year old, her father Henry - owner of Pitlochry, a tea plantation - and her mother Virginia. The story centres around the Pavilion in the Clouds, set in the idyllic grounds carved out of the wilderness. But all is not as serene as it seems. Bella is suspicious...

As the Second World War progresses, the destruction of Allied shipping mounts. Fighter pilot Tim Rowan is posted to an escort carrier to help guard the precious convoys. His adventures take him first to the Arctic and then the Indian Ocean.

The waiting room stands on a crumbling railway platform at the edge of a retired rock star's vast estate. Isolated by a moat of thorny wilderness, it used to be a playground for his children. Until a terrifying spectre frightened them away.