Laurence Whistler’s story of his five-year marriage to Jill Furse before her sudden early death has achieved a classic quality. Despite the tragedy of its ending the lasting impression is of two lives lived to the full in supreme happiness. Jill Furse was remarkable for many gifts; beauty, acting, poetry and above all gaiety and courage. This edition includes her poems. ‘One of the most sustainedly beautiful [prose] poems I have read for a long time.’ Lord David Cecil, Sunday Telegraph  ‘One of the most moving prose threnodies ever written.’ Daily Telegraph ‘One of the most poignant love stories in the English language.’ Country Life ‘Certain to have a permanent place in the literature of love.’ Yorkshire Post

The Initials in the Heart

Biographies & Memoirs

WHISTLER, Laurence

Arts & Literature

Dean Street Press

‘Do you remember that first time we met? It was in the old studio in Brunson Road. How much did we miss, love, by not being together?’    In the early 1960s, Maureen Griffiths, married with children, accompanies a friend to a modelling shoot, never intending to be in front of the camera herself. But after meeting photographer Martin Morris, Maureen is transformed – and Martin quickly falls for her.    It is forty years later. Shortly after Maureen’s death, Martin moves into Pilgrim House, a retirement home, in part because Maureen’s husband, George, is also a resident there. Through the letters he continues to write to Maureen, Martin reveals a lifetime of tireless devotion to his one true love. He is also determined to figure out why she stayed with her difficult, demanding husband. So with the aid of some of the colourful residents of Pilgrim House, Martin delves into the secrets of Maureen’s family and becomes increasingly entwined in the complicated life that Maureen built to shield herself.    Told through letters, emails, and other missives, Getting The Picture is an irresistible, funny and deeply moving novel of family secrets, regrets, and abiding love, with all the author’s sly wit and powers of observation on full display.  Getting The Picture is Dean Street Press's submitted title for the 2015 Man Booker Prize.  ‘Getting The Picture astutely probes the quotidian eeriness of that other planet that is old age and a life recollected. Marvelous.’ WILLIAM GIBSON    ‘The best novels seduce the reader, so allow the wonderful chorus of voices in Sarah Salway’s Getting The Picture to do just that. Let them whisper secrets, plans and mysteries; of the past, of the present. Let their possible futures come into focus for a celebratory final picture. This novel is uplifting, sinister and beautiful.’ TIFFANY MURRAY    ‘One of the smartest, wittiest writers of present times, and I recommend anything by her. Getting The Picture is just great. I couldn’t get through a page without smiling or laughing aloud... there is one photography session where an old man and woman meet with a camera between them that is riveting; Salway adds layers to it in the retelling, so that the poignancy of the event overtakes the humor. I can’t stop thinking about the state of mind of the 79 year old woman who lowers her shirt for the camera. All these old people still want to be seen, and to reveal themselves. Salway is a wonder at detail – small moments from all her books are permanently embedded in my mind. Don’t know how she does it, but it’s marvelous.’ ALICE ELLIOTT DARK    ‘Sarah Salway is an astonishingly smart writer. Her fiction is always beautifully structured, touching and clever. She manages the trick of creating characters you care about in stories you admire. I can’t wait to see what she does next.’ NEIL GAIMAN

Getting The Picture

Literature & Fiction

Salway, Sarah

Contemporary

“He is dead. It is quite impossible that he should have killed himself. He has been murdered. About half an hour ago. By a long knife passed under the left shoulder-blade into the heart.” On a fog-bound London night, a soirée is taking place in the studio of artist Laurence Newtree. The guests include an eminent psychiatrist, a wealthy philanthropist and an observant young friend of Newtree’s, John Christmas. Before the evening is over, Newtree’s neighbour is found stabbed to death in what appears to be an impossible crime. But a mysterious man in a fez has been spotted in the fog asking for highly unlikely directions... The resourceful John Christmas takes on the case, unofficially, leading to an ingenious solution no one could have expected, least of all Inspector Hembrow of Scotland Yard. The Studio Crime is the first of Ianthe Jerrold’s classic whodunit novels, originally published in 1929. Its impact led to her membership of the elite Detection Club, and its influence can be felt on later works by John Dickson Carr, Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy L. Sayers among others. This edition, the first in eighty years, includes a new introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans. Praise for The Studio Crime “The best out of a new batch of detective stories.” J.B. Priestley in The Evening News “Very carefully constructed, is very well written, and keeps its secret until the end.” The Morning Post “Can be most heartily recommended to those who like a good mystery story written in good English.” Newcastle Chronicle “The book is a pleasantly written record of an admirable piece of detective work.” Times Literary Supplement

The Studio Crime

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Jerrold, Ianthe

Mystery

What might we dare to expect from an actor’s autobiography, even one from a star as personable as George Sanders? In the case of Memoirs of A Professional Cad, we possibly get more than we deserve. George Sanders undoubtedly led a colourful, glamorous and even action-packed life, spanning the peak years of Hollywood’s golden age. But the greatest joy of his memoirs is how funny they are, and how penetrating their author’s wit. Endlessly quotable, every chapter shows that the sardonic charm and intelligence he lent to the silver screen were not merely implied. George’s early childhood was spent in Tsarist Russia, before he was obliged to flee with his family to England on the eve of the Russian Revolution. He survived two English boarding schools before seeking adventure in Chile and Argentina where he sold cigarettes and kept a pet ostrich in his apartment. We can only be grateful that George was eventually asked to leave South America following a duel of honour (very nearly to the death), and was forced to take up acting for a living instead. Memoirs of A Professional Cad has much to say about Hollywood and the stars George Sanders worked with and befriended, not to mention the irrepressible Tsa Tsa Gabor who became his wife. But at heart it is less a conventional autobiography, and more a Machiavellian guide to life, and the art of living, from a man who knew a thing or two on the subject. So we are invited to share George’s thought-provoking views on women, friendship, the pros and cons of therapy, ageing, possessions, and the necessity of contrasts (Sanders’ maxim: ‘the more extreme the contrast, the fuller the life’). Previously out of print for many decades, Memoirs of A Professional Cad stands today as one of the classic Hollywood memoirs, from one of its most original, enduring and inimitable stars.

Memoirs of A Professional Cad

Sanders, George

Humor & Entertainment

The English Festivals

History

Europe

Dictator's Way (The Bobby Owen Mysteries) (Volume 10)

Punshon, E.R.

Getting high: The adventures of Oasis

Between 1994 and 1996, music writer Paolo Hewitt spent the greater part of his life on the road with Oasis, in the U.K., Europe and America. He came back with tales that would cement the legend of the brawling, effing, hedonistic, charismatic, confessional and extraordinarily talented Gallagher brothers, Noel and Liam, and their group. Hewitt is a rare and perceptive fly-on-the-wall during the band’s hectic rise to the height of their powers, as their first two albums are released to the kind of excitement scarcely seen in British rock music since the sixties. Hewitt takes the Gallaghers’ story right back to their parents’ roots in Ireland, and the descriptions of Noel and Liam’s childhoods in working-class Manchester reveal the seeds of their determination to make Oasis the force it became. Getting High is an illuminating, funny, sometimes shocking reminder of how big a band can get, and how quickly the insanity sets in. Oasis have today sold in excess of 70 million records worldwide. Hewitt's intimate account of this explosive and beloved band, in their prime, is a rock classic and a riveting narrative. "Paolo is the only person to speak about what it was like on the road with us because he’s been there. He’s been there, he’s seen it, he’s done it." Noel Gallagher "Top read." Melody Maker "Unlimited access to all areas of the Oasis bandwagon is the ace up this biography’s sleeve." Q "10/10 – sometimes you get what you pay for." Esquire "By adopting a fly-on-the-wall approach and writing Oasis’s story as though it were a novel rather than a straight biography, he succeeds in entertaining, informing and occasionally putting you inside the head of the Gallagher brothers." Hot Press "In Getting High we get closer to the real Oasis, not the tabloid fancies, the music press stereotypes of Noel the genius, Liam the wanker and three other blokes who don’t count. Hewitt paints an engrossing and uplifting portrait of one of the most important bands of the decade." The Word and Issue "Getting High is refreshingly well written" Total Guitar "Compelling drama" Manchester Evening News "If you only buy one book about Oasis, then make sure it’s this one."FHM "This well-researched tome chronicles many a pivotal moment in Oasis’s history and is filled with plenty of ribald anecdotes."NME "Head and shoulders above every other Oasis book. I hated finishing it so much I read it again." Irvine Welsh

Getting High: The Adventures of Oasis

Hewitt, Paolo

“Nobody would have murdered him,” Miss Lavinia cried. “Everybody liked John!”“I’m afraid it is evident that someone did not.”The note left beside Dr. John Bastow’s corpse simply read: ‘It was the man with the dark beard.’Dr. Bastow hadn't approved of his daughter Hilary’s fiancé. So when Hilary’s father is found shot dead inside his own office, the door-key turned from the inside, the fiancé Basil Wilton becomes a chief suspect for Scotland Yard. Yet how could the crime have been engineered?Now an important lacquered box is missing; a former colleague of Bastow’s has suddenly shaved his beard; and the doctor’s ex-secretary has come mysteriously into money. Before Inspector Stoddart of the Yard can form conclusions, another murder takes place, again credited to the “Man with The Dark Beard”...The Man With the Dark Beard is the first of Annie Haynes’ Inspector Stoddart mysteries, originally published in 1928. It is a sparkling lost classic from the early golden age of crime fiction.“Miss Haynes, I think, improves steadily – this is the best detective story she has yet written.” Time and Tide.

The Man with the Dark Beard (The Inspector Stoddart Mysteries)

Haynes, Annie

The body lay face downwards in a foot of water at the bottom of the ditch. Up to the present it has not been identified. But a card was found in the pocket with the name of – The grisly discovery was overshadowed in the public imagination by Derby Day, the most prestigious event in the English horse-racing calendar. But Peep o' Day, the popular favourite for the Derby and owned by the murdered man, won't run now. Under Derby rules, the death means automatic disqualification. Did someone find an ingenious if ruthless way to stop the horse from competing? Or does the solution to the demise of Sir John Burslem lie away from the racetrack? The thoughtful Inspector Stoddart starts to investigate in a crowded field of sinister suspects and puzzling diversions. The Crime at Tattenham Corner was the second of the four Inspector Stoddart mysteries, first published in 1928. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans. “We not only encounter thrilling surprises but are introduced to many admirably life-like characters. Miss Haynes is here at her best. Excellent as a detective tale, the book is also a charming novel.” Spectator

The Crime at Tattenham Corner (The Inspector Stoddart Mysteries)

“Owing to the sudden death of Miss Charmian Karslake this theatre is closed until further notice. Money for tickets already booked will be refunded.” Who killed Charmian Karslake, the famous American actress, on the night of the ball at Hepton Abbey? Who was the mysterious Peter Hailsham who had been present at the ball and had since vanished into thin air? What was his connection, if any, with the respectable County family of Penn-Moreton at whose house the murder had taken place? How Inspector Stoddart and his assistant Harbord solve these questions, and the surprising discoveries they make in the course of their Investigations, form the basis for one of their most devilish mysteries. Who Killed Charmian Karslake? is the third of Annie Haynes' Inspector Stoddart Mysteries. First published in 1929, it was out of print for over 80 years until this new edition, which also features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.
“A model detective story . . . a good mental exercise for the distracted reader who has just received his Super-Tax Demand. (The publishers) have again produced a good book.” London Mercury

Who Killed Charmian Karslake? (The Inspector Stoddart Mysteries)

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