George Donald

The murder of four young women in Glasgow city centre should have been a straightforward investigation for DCI Charlie Miller, but during his investigation, he finds he has more to cope with than just finding a serial killer. An ambitious and determined senior officer with his own agenda and an unscrupulous, manipulative young woman individually contrive to cause Charlie almost more problems than he can handle. Following the trail of evidence, Charlie finally arrests his suspect, but his problems do not end there for the arrest results in a major dilemma; has Charlie apprehended the real killer?

There is often a dichotomy between the academic approach to singing that voice students learn in the studio and what professional singers do on the operatic and concert stage. Great singers at the top of the performing profession achieve their place with much analysis and awareness of their technique, art, interpretation and stagecraft that goes far beyond academic study and develops over years of experience, exposure, and the occasional embarrassing error. Master Singers brings these insights to the student, teacher, and emerging professional singer, giving them many needed signs and signals along the road to achieving their own artistry and established career. Through interviews with some of today's most accomplished and renowned concert and operatic singers, including Stephanie Blythe, David Daniels, Joyce DiDonato, Denyce Graves, Thomas Hampson, Jonas Kaufmann, Simon Keenlyside, Ewa Podle, Master Singers provides vocalists making the transition from student to professional with indispensable advice on matters ranging from technique and its practical application for effective stage projection to the practicalities of the business of professional singing and maintaining a career to recommendations for vocal hygiene and longevity in singing. Rather than relying on a traditional one-singer-at-a-time structure, Donald George and Lucy Mauro distill answers to a range of essential, probing questions into a thematic approach, creating not a standard interview book but a true reference for emerging professional singers. An indispensable resource and reliable guide, Master Singers will find its place on the bookshelf of singers of this generation and the next.

There is often a dichotomy between the academic approach to singing that voice students learn in the studio and what professional singers do on the operatic and concert stage. Great singers at the top of the performing profession achieve their place with much analysis and awareness of their technique, art, interpretation and stagecraft that goes far beyond academic study and develops over years of experience, exposure, and the occasional embarrassing error. Master Singers brings these insights to the student, teacher, and emerging professional singer, giving them many needed signs and signals along the road to achieving their own artistry and established career. Through interviews with some of today's most accomplished and renowned concert and operatic singers, including Stephanie Blythe, David Daniels, Joyce DiDonato, Denyce Graves, Thomas Hampson, Jonas Kaufmann, Simon Keenlyside, Ewa Podle, Master Singers provides vocalists making the transition from student to professional with indispensable advice on matters ranging from technique and its practical application for effective stage projection to the practicalities of the business of professional singing and maintaining a career to recommendations for vocal hygiene and longevity in singing. Rather than relying on a traditional one-singer-at-a-time structure, Donald George and Lucy Mauro distill answers to a range of essential, probing questions into a thematic approach, creating not a standard interview book but a true reference for emerging professional singers. An indispensable resource and reliable guide, Master Singers will find its place on the bookshelf of singers of this generation and the next.

Charlie Miller, a Glasgow city centre police Detective Sergeant, is beset with a drink problem and scorned by his supervisors. Tasked the most menial inquiries to investigate, an acute shortage of manpower thrusts Charlie, suddenly and with extreme reluctance, into investigating the death in a fire of an unidentified 14 year old girl. This death and the jibes of his peers, force Charlie to revaluate his life and investigatory skills. Added to Charlie's problems he is obliged to work with a female Counter Terrorism officer when it is discovered the girl's family is identified as having connections with Irish extremists. To compound his problems and running parallel with Charlie's inquiry is the city centre hunt for a serial sex attacker, a murder inquiry and an apparently serious attack on an elderly priest - are any or all of these incidents connected and will Charlie stay sober long enough to find out?

Glasgow based Detective Sergeant Susie Gibson is a stressed woman, for her marriage is unravelling and she has come to suspect that her husband Peter, an investment banker with a prestigious city bank, is seeing someone else. Meantime, across the city a knife wielding teenager resorts to street robberies to fund his meagre unemployment benefit in an area where a young woman is discovered stabbed to death. When DS Gibson's husband Peter is later reported to be missing, the circumstances suggest that her husband and the murder victim might have colluded in the fraudulent theft of a large sum of money from his bank. Is the murder and the theft of money linked and just what, if any, is Susie Gibson's involvement?