Peter Harding

British intelligence undertook an audacious operation to listen in on the private conversations of 10,000 German prisoners of war without their ever knowing they were being overheard. The prisoners' unguarded reminiscences and unintentional confessions have only just come to light, and prove how closely the German army were involved in the atrocities of the Holocaust. British intelligence requisitioned three stately homes for this epic task, and converted each into an elaborate trap. The 100,000 hours of conversation they captured provided crucial intelligence that changed the course of the war, and revealed some of its worst horrors, from rape to mass executions to one of the earliest bulletins from the concentration camps. But when the fighting ended, the recordings were destroyed and the transcripts locked away for half a century. Only now have they been declassified, researched and cross-referenced.

In London, during October 1993, England is playing Holland in the preliminaries of the World Cup. The Bosnian War is at its height, and refugees from the ex-Yugoslavia are arriving. Football rivals, and political adversaries from the Balkans all precipitate conflict and amusing situations. Meanwhile, the lives of four English families are affected in different ways by encounter with the refugees.

After the mobster who murdered his partner is acquitted, semicorrupt detective Robert Bryant hires a beautiful female assassin, Maria, to kill him. When he discovers that he cannot afford Maria's services, Bryant is forced to hire another assassin, Madison, to kill her. Maria survives the doublecross and sets out to collect what's owed to her, one way or another.

Остроумие и яркий талант Оскара Уайлда стали широко известны после публикации его романа «Портрет Дориана Грея». Уайлд, вполне довольный жизнью, наслаждался плодами успеха, пока одно событие не стало для него переломным. Однажды он был представлен красивому и молодому лорду Альфреду Дугласу по прозвищу «Боззи», чья дерзость и ум очаровали Оскара. Это знакомство переросло в страстную зависимость, которая полностью поглотила и, в конечном счете, разрушила его жизнь.

An idealistic former soldier helps unite and house ethnic minorities in a run down area of the east end