Edward Abel Smith

A series of violent and calculated murders, perpetrated across a six-day period in the heart of wartime London. A city plunged into utter darkness for fourteen hours at a time. An erratic and desperately charming RAF man with an overactive imagination and a penchant for lying. A tense and furious geopolitical background as the world reels from the effects of warfare. This is the world in which Gordon Cummins was hunted down, tried and convicted of the crimes of the Blackout Ripper, a serial killer who murdered four women in February 1942. But was he guilty? Murders in the Dark is a thrilling, forensic re-examination of one of the most notorious and brutal criminal cases London has ever been witness to. Gordon Cummins wouldn't be convicted today - prompting questions about the nature of justice, the changing elements of forensic investigations, and how preconceived notions of class and wealth can lead to often-fatal miscarriages of the law.

‘This was a hateful decision, the most unnatural and painful in which I have ever been concerned . . . But no act was ever more necessary for the life of Britain and for all that depended upon it.’ WINSTON CHURCHILL, 1949 Summer, 1940. Winston Churchill watches in horror as France falls to the Germans in just six weeks, completing the Nazi conquest of mainland Europe. He faces an urgent question: what will happen to France’s mighty navy? Under German control it presents a major threat to Great Britain, and could mark a point of no return. With the Nazis closing in and time running out, Churchill ordered Operation Catapult. By the end of one of the most agonising but necessary military operations of the war, a large part of the French navy would be destroyed and nearly 1,300 French sailors would be dead, a number which would haunt all involved for the rest of their lives. Based on extensive new archival research, rediscovered eyewitness accounts and reflections from the private papers of the key protagonists, A Hateful Decision tells for the first time the full story of the British attack on the French navy at Mers el Kébir, on 3 July 1940. As we pass between the men on the ground and events unfolding in the British, French and German corridors of power, this riveting book brings to life Churchill’s darkest hour, as he demonstrated to the world how far Britain would go to win the war.

"GRIPPING AND AUTHORITATIVE" Kate Moore October, 1938. Germany is poised to take over part of Czechoslovakia and thousands of terrified refugees have fled to Prague. A mix of Jews and political opponents of the Nazis, they will be killed if they do not leave the country. The city is soon overwhelmed with people who have no way out and nowhere else to go. With winter drawing in and supplies scarce, the situation is dire. Doreen Warriner, a British academic studying in Prague, decides she must help. She rallies a group of women and they begin an underground evacuation operation of such astonishing efficiency that over the next ten months they help 15,000 people escape the Nazis and are only forced to stop when World War II breaks out in September 1939. At the height of her work, Warriner becomes the Gestapo’s most urgent target and has to flee the country to save her own life. An American, Martha Sharp, takes over leadership of the group for the final months in a desperate and often tragic race against time. Drawing on previously unpublished diaries, letters and interviews, Angels of Prague is an intimate and gripping account of an extraordinary true story. It is the powerful tale of a group of courageous women who stood tall in the face of unthinkable danger and deserve to be remembered.

When Nicholas Winton cancelled his skiing holiday in favour of going to Prague to visit a friend, little did he know this decision would change the course of thousands of lives, including his own. As millions of Jewish families attempted to flee the growing clutches of the brutal Nazi war of terror, this twenty-nine-year-old stockbroker decided to act, pulling off one of the most remarkable rescue missions of the century. The British Oskar Schindler tells the story of this remarkable man’s life and those around him who helped him to achieve all he did.

When Nicholas Winton cancelled his skiing holiday in favour of going to Prague to visit a friend, little did he know this decision would change the course of thousands of lives, including his own. As millions of Jewish families attempted to flee the growing clutches of the brutal Nazi war of terror, this twenty-nine-year-old stockbroker decided to act, pulling off one of the most remarkable rescue missions of the century. The British Oskar Schindler tells the story of this remarkable man's life and those around him who helped him to achieve all he did.

James Bond is possibly the most well known fictional characters in history. What most people don't know is that almost all of the characters, plots and gadgets come from the real life experiences of Bond's creator - Commander Ian Fleming. In this book, we go through the plots of Fleming's novels explaining the real life experiences that inspired them. The reader is taken on a journey through Fleming's direct involvement in World War II intelligence and how this translated through his typewriter into James Bond's world, as well as the many other factors of Fleming's life which were also taken as inspiration. Most notably, the friends who Fleming kept, among whom were Noel Coward and Randolph Churchill and the influential people he would mingle with, British Prime Ministers and American Presidents.Bond is known for his exotic travel, most notably to the island of Jamaica, where Fleming spent much of his life. The desk in his Caribbean house, Goldeneye, was also where his life experiences would be put onto paper in the guise of James Bond. As the island was highly influential for Fleming, it features heavily in this book, offering an element of escapism to the reader, with tales of a clear blue sea, Caribbean climate and island socialising. Ian Fleming might have died prematurely aged 53, but so much of him lives on to this day through the most famous spy in the world, James Bond.

James Bond is possibly the most well known fictional characters in history. What most people don't know is that almost all of the characters, plots and gadgets come from the real life experiences of Bond's creator - Commander Ian Fleming. In this book, we go through the plots of Fleming's novels explaining the real life experiences that inspired them. The reader is taken on a journey through Fleming's direct involvement in World War II intelligence and how this translated through his typewriter into James Bond's world, as well as the many other factors of Fleming's life which were also taken as inspiration. Most notably, the friends who Fleming kept, among whom were Noel Coward and Randolph Churchill and the influential people he would mingle with, British Prime Ministers and American Presidents. Bond is known for his exotic travel, most notably to the island of Jamaica, where Fleming spent much of his life. The desk in his Caribbean house, Goldeneye, was also where his life experiences would be put onto paper in the guise of James Bond. As the island was highly influential for Fleming, it features heavily in this book, offering an element of escapism to the reader, with tales of a clear blue sea, Caribbean climate and island socialising. Ian Fleming might have died prematurely aged 53, but so much of him lives on to this day through the most famous spy in the world, James Bond.