Kirjahaku

Invitations to John Aspinall and John Burke's illegal gambling parties were the most sought after in 1950s London - only the wealthy and well-connected were allowed past their door. When the police finally arrested them, Aspinall and Burke challenged the law - and won. As a result gambling was legalised. Which interested crime boss Billy Hill and his lieutenant Bobby McKew, because suddenly clubs sprang up everywhere and Billy had a foolproof way of fixing the cards. He also had his eye on the ultimate prize, Aspinall's exclusive new club, The Clermont... Revealing for the first time how Aspinall and Hill plotted to steal a fortune, based on testimony from Burke and McKew, The Hustlers is a riotous journey back to 50s and 60s London. With a cast of characters that ranges from safecracker Eddie Chapman to the reckless Earl of Derby, from croupier Louis the Rat to unlucky Lord Lucan, it vividly recreates the exploits of the gamblers and gangsters whose lives collided in the clubs and pubs of Mayfair. 'a fascinating glimpse into a bygone world . . . when chemmy parties took London by storm and toffs were often found to be rubbing shoulders with gangsters' Daily Express

By turns wistful, haunting and macabre, 'The Sleep Corporation' is a major collection of thirty-one stories by Douglas Thompson, a self-proclaimed 'Glasgow Surrealist' and one of the most original and individual voices to have emerged in the field of British speculative and dark fiction over the last fifteen years. "Thompson is a short story writer and novelist of almost unparalleled skill. This is an extraordinarily gifted writer whose lines are infused with poetry" Charles Packer - Sci Fi Online

Baron Armand Bless (c), a 300-year-old vampire, leaves his native land to visit the Maine coast where his need for blood results in the death of several young women. In the small town of Rams Head, Maine, the attacks of the women and the death of one by exsanguination, involves the police chief, Dave Collins. Baffled by the nature of the attacks he is unable to solve, he calls on his old Vietnam commander, Ian Rawlins, to help him with the investigation. A young French heiress, Azur Bless (c), arrives in Rams head with her cat, Saki, after she inherits a mansion on an island known as Dark Island. Unbeknownst to her, the mansion is the Vampire's lair. She meets and precipitately falls in love with Rawlins. This incurs the jealousy and subsequent pursuit of Azur by the angry Baron. As the plot evolves and delves into vampirism, they need the expertise of Dr. Morreau, an authority on the Undead. This is a tale of unrelenting passion and high adventure on a stormy windswept sea, culminating in a confrontation with the Baron on Dark Island, with three friends and a cat attempting to save Azur from the Vampire's evil exploitation.

Apoidea... When the bees were wiped out, famine and war threatened and mankind faced the abyss. But then came salvation, in the form of the cyber bee. Fully functional, fully capable of replacing its extinct predecessor. Humanity would survive. But suddenly, the bees are not behaving the way they should. Something is wrong... Apoidea... A fast paced, intelligent and frighteningly contemporary science fiction thriller from Douglas Thompson, author of Ultrameta and Sylvow. Praise for Douglas Thompson... ""Thompson writes with the assurance of someone completely in control of his material..."" Pete Tennant, Black Static magazine ""Thompson uses the tropes of the fantastic in unique and compelling ways while at the same time creating vivid and fully realized protagonists..."" Mike O'Driscoll, The Fix Online ""Thompson has certainly shown he is a name to watch."" Ian Sales, Interzone Magazine

Cilla Black is one of Britain's best loved entertainers and an icon of the sixties. Known to one generation for a string of number one hits like 'Anyone Who Had a Heart' and 'You're My World', and loved by another for hosting the classic ITV show Blind Date, Cilla has come a long way from hanging coats in Liverpool's Cavern Club for five bob an hour. In Cilla: Queen of the Swinging Sixties, Douglas Thompson traces her rise to the top, her heart-warming marriage to Bobby Willis and the profound effect his death had on her. This affectionate biography is fitting tribute to 50 years in show-business for 'our Cilla'.

'Wickedly entertaining', Lynn Barber, Daily Telegraph April Ashley was a trailblazing figure in the history of transgender rights and advocacy. Born in 1935 in Liverpool, Ashley was assigned male at birth, but knew from a young age that she identified as a woman. At the age of sixteen, April left home and began her journey of self-discovery, eventually transitioning and undergoing gender-reassignment surgery in 1960. She became one of the first British people to undergo the procedure, which was illegal at the time in the UK. April's transition was met with both admiration and hostility from the media and the public. Despite facing discrimination and transphobia, she remained dedicated to promoting trans visibility and acceptance. In the 1960s, she moved to Paris and became a successful model and cabaret performer, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau. She also appeared in films and on television, becoming a prominent figure in the entertainment industry. Throughout her life, April Ashley was a tireless advocate for the rights of trans people, speaking out on issues such as discrimination, health care, and legal recognition. She received numerous awards for her activism, including an MBE in 2012 for services to transgender equality. Today, April's legacy continues to inspire and empower trans people around the world. Her courageous journey and unwavering dedication to fighting for trans rights will undoubtedly be remembered as a vital part of the LGBTQ+ movement.

The Rhymer, an Heredyssey by Douglas Thompson defies classification in any one literary genre. A satire on contemporary society, particularly the art world, it is also a comic-poetic meditation on the nature of life, death and morality. A mysterious tramp wanders from town to town, taking a new name and identity from whoever he encounters first. Apparently amnesiac or even brain-damaged, Nadith Learmot nonetheless has other means to access the past and perhaps even the future: upon his chest a dial, down his sleeves wires that he can connect to the walls of old buildings from which he believes he can read their ghosts like imprints on tape. Haunting him constantly is the resemblance he apparently bears to his supposed brother, a successful artist called Zenir. Setting out to pursue Zenir and denounce or blackmail him out of spite, in his travels around the satellite towns and suburbs surrounding a city called Urbis, Nadith finds he is always two steps behind a figure as enigmatic and polyfaceted as himself. But through second hand snippets of news he increasingly learns of how his brother's fortunes are waning, while his own, to his surprise, are on the rise. Along the way, he encounters unexpected clues to his own true identity, how he came to lose his memory and acquire his strange 'contraption'. When Nadith finally catches up with Zenir, what will they make of each other? Told entirely in the first person in a rhythmic stream of lyricism, Nadith's story reads like Shakespeare on acid, leaving the reader to guess at what truth lies behind his madness. Is Nadith a mental health patient or a conman? - or as he himself comes to believe, the reincarnation of the thirteenth century Scottish seer True Thomas The Rhymer, a man who never lied nor died but disappeared one day to return to the realm of the faeries who had first given him his clairvoyant gifts?

Did I only dream of Emilianna? Or was she real? If she was real, what she taught me was that nothing was real. Or if she was a dream, then she taught me that everyone was dreaming and dreaming was everything. Waking late this morning, I knew that I'd been thinking of her again, her flat down by the river Kelvin, from which the fog and ice would spread in winter at dusk and dawn like nerve gas. Her flat looked out west across the winding river, on the other side of which sat my office, or the building that held my office on its fourth floor in its swelling mansard attic like an upside-down boat.