Free enterprise moves East

Sample

Stewart P. Evans and Paul Gainey

The murder and mutilation of at least five prostitutes in the Whitechapel district of London in the fall of 1888 continues to fascinate students of true crime, largely because the perpetrator, Jack the Ripper, was never caught. The slayings have prompted dozens of books, and more than 100 identities for the killer have been suggested. The British authors?Evans is a police officer, Gainey a constabulary secretary?here argue that the killer was an American, a quack doctor named Francis Tumblety who at the time was suspected by Scotland Yard. Tumblety, a peddler of fake nostrums, had earlier been temporarily charged with complicity in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. At the time of the Ripper murders, Tumblety, who was living in London and was out on bail for other charges, fled England and made his way back to the U.S., where he died in 1903. Evans and Gainey make a case as tenuous as most, theirs based on a contemporary letter written by the head of Scotland Yard's Special Branch, John Littlechild, who suspected Tumblety. Their book will interest only the most dedicated Ripperologists, who may also find merit in the grisly photos.

Sample

Michael Havinden and David Meredith

This is a study of Britain's economic and political relationship with its tropical colonies between 1850 and 1960. These colonies stretched right round the world from the West Indies, through West, Central and East Africa to Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Fiji and the smaller Pacific islands. The study focuses on the former colonies and their development problems (rather than on Britain) because this provides a crucial background to understanding the present opportunities and difficulties facing these countries since their independence. The gradual evolution of policy, the early successes and later frustrations, are analysed in detail to see what light they can shed on today's problems.

Sample

Patricia Veryan

(The Tales of the Jeweled Men #4) A most unlikely hero, young Jack is known to all as a cowardly idiot, a mere shadow of a man with a shady past. But when the woman he loves is threatened by the sinister League of the Jewelled Men, Jack reveals the man behind the shadow.

Sample

Colleen McCullough

Everyone knows the story of Elizabeth and Jane Bennet in "Pride and Prejudice." But what about their sister Mary? At the conclusion of Jane Austen's classic novel, Mary, bookish, awkward, and by all accounts, unmarriageable, is sentenced to a dull, provincial existence in the backwaters of Britain. Now, master storyteller Colleen McCullough rescues Mary from her dreary fate with "The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet," a page-turning sequel set twenty years after Austen's novel closes. The story begins as the neglected Bennet sister is released from the stultifying duty of caring for her insufferable mother. Though many would call a woman of Mary's age a spinster, she has blossomed into a beauty to rival that of her famed sisters. Her violet eyes and perfect figure bewitch the eligible men in the neighborhood, but though her family urges her to marry, romance and frippery hold no attraction. Instead, she is determined to set off on an adventure of her own. Fired with zeal by the newspaper letters of the mysterious Argus, she resolves to publish a book about the plight of England's poor. Plunging from one predicament into another, Mary finds herself stumbling closer to long-buried secrets, unanticipated dangers, and unlooked-for romance. Meanwhile, the other dearly loved characters of "Pride and Prejudice" fret about the missing Mary while they contend with difficulties of their own. Darcy's political ambitions consume his ardor, and he bothers with Elizabeth only when the impropriety of her family seems to threaten his career. Lydia, wild and charming as ever, drinks and philanders her way into dire straits; Kitty, a young widow of means, occupies herself with gossip and shopping; and Jane, naive and trusting as ever, spends her days ministering to her crop of boys and her adoring, if not entirely faithful, husband. Yet, with the shadowy and mysterious figure of Darcy's right-hand man, Ned Skinner, lurking at every corner, it is clear that all is not what it seems at idyllic Pemberley. As the many threads of McCullough's masterful plot come together, shocking truths are revealed, love, both old and new, is tested, and all learn the value of true independence in a novel for every woman who has wanted to leave her mark on the world