You're trapped underground with a serial killer.Would you save their life to protect your own?The ArtistNo one knows who The Sculptor is. A successful artist, whose works sell for millions - each one with a deadly secret at the centre of each piece.The KillerThere's a serial killer on the loose - dismembering women's bodies and leaving them washed up along the shore. The Coastline Killer is free and no one knows how to catch him.The VictimAlice has designed her life to be as safe as it possibly can be. She takes no risks, and makes sure nothing is a threat to her or those she loves.But when an earthquake brings all three together, will anyone get out alive? And if you were trapped with a serial killer, would you protect their secrets to save your own life?
This book calls church leaders to take biblical exhortations to care for widows seriously, offering wise guidance and practical suggestions for ensuring that widows in their congregations receive the support and encouragement they need.
In this latest volume in Mr. Croft-Cooke's autobiographical series, he writes about the uneasy world of the 1930 and of Spain before the Civil War. On a personal level, he tells about his new venture into the second-hand book trade, when through patience and determination he managed to survive brilliantly where it would have been so easy to have failed. As a creative writer he battled through more ups and downs than would seem possible, yet always emerged triumphant, if scarred, determined to live by the profession he had chosen, no matter what the difficulties. Remembering, he writes now with charm and humour of the period and the people he knew, and he has recaptured vividly the world that surrounded a young professional writer struggling to keep his head above water.
Part of Croft-Cooke's series of autobiographical works, The Sensual World.The Author says, 'I have given this book its title because the words seem to fit each of the two journeys it records, journeys which, in the cant phrase of the courtroom, ran concurrently.The first was through the Mediterranean on a Yugoslav cargo boat during the coldest month of one of Europe's most icy winters for a century. The second was along the coastlines of some recent fiction, my choice being made for me by the booksellers in various ports on whose stocks of Penguins I relied.' The books inThe Sensual Worldseries are a beautiful record of their time. England of the twenties, thirties, and forties is brilliantly evoked, and the descriptions of his travels in Europe and Argentina capture the wonder of youth and discovery. He met many famous writers of the time, and the descriptions of his meetings with Kipling, Masefield, Chesterton, and Compton Mackenzie, among others, are full of insight and also the freshness and enthusiasm of a novice writer at the feet of his heroes. He writes with skill, lightness of touch, and humour.
This Latest Volume of Autobiography opens in 1934, in an isolated hamlet in the Cotswolds. Mr. Croft-Gooke was 30 years old. He had published six novels, was earning GBP300 a year, and considered himself 'an enviable young man'. He had a house with peacocks on the lawn. He was happy. He decided however to revisit Argen-tina, where he travelled extensively, lecturing and meeting old friends and new. When he returned to his isolated hamlet, in fog and snow, he was no longer happy, but restless and unsettled. He decided to go back to Kent, where he was born. With charm and humour, Mr. Croft-Cooke vividly recreates the places and people of his youth. As a reviewer in The Times Literary Supplement wrote: 'Social historians of the future will do well to consult Mr. Croft-Cooke's in preference to certain more pretentious and less objective memoirs of the period.'
All royalties, a minimum of £2.50 from the sale of each book, will be paid to NHS Charities Together (registered charity no. 1186569) to fund vital projects.When the UK went into lockdown in March 2020 to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus, artist Tom Croft offered to paint an NHS key worker’s portrait for free. Unsure how to help and offer his support, he wanted to capture and record the bravery and heroism of frontline workers who were risking their physical and mental health for our wellbeing. Tom suggested that other artists might want to do the same.He made his offer via video message on Instagram and was immediately contacted by Harriet Durkin, a nurse at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, who had contracted Covid-19 and, now recovered, was about to return to the frontline. Tom’s portrait of Harriet, wearing PPE, was the first in what became a global art project.The response to the initiative was staggering and Tom personally paired up 500 artists and NHS workers in the first two weeks. When numbers reached the thousands, Tom set up a traffic light system so that artists and frontline workers could match themselves. Portraits in all mediums followed, from oils to pencil, sculpture to ceramic, mosaic to mural.This book presents a selection of these remarkable images, including some by leading artists such as Alastair Adams and Mary Jane Ansell, showcased here as both a celebration and a remembrance, in physical form, of the dedication of our NHS key workers. ‘I just couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have to put on your PPE and head into the frontline of the pandemic, so I wanted to try and thank NHS workers in some small way. We are indebted to them, so to be able to commemorate, celebrate and record their experiences through portraiture felt fitting. This collection will stand as a permanent record of their bravery in a time of national crisis.’ Tom Croft
