Books of the Month

by Adam Cohen

€13.99

Four men in a lifeboat. Two weeks without food. One impossible choice that would reshape the boundaries between survival and murder.'A perfect enunciation of the classic philosophical conundrum: can you sacrifice one innocent life to save many?' (Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi)On May 19, 1884, the yacht Mignonette sailed from England on what should have been an uneventful voyage. When their vessel sank in the Atlantic, Captain Dudley and his crew found themselves adrift in a tiny lifeboat. As days turned to weeks, they faced an unthinkable choice: starve or resort to cannibalism.Their decision to sacrifice the 17-year-old cabin boy Richard Parker ignited a firestorm of controversy. Instead of being hailed as heroes and survivors, Dudley and his crew found themselves at the center of Regina v. Dudley and Stephens, a landmark murder trial that would establish the legal precedent that necessity cannot justify murder.In Captain's Dinner, acclaimed journalist, Pulitzer Prize juror, and New York Times bestselling author Adam Cohen masterfully depicts both the harrowing weeks at sea and the sensational trial.'Is killing one innocent person justified if it saves the lives of three others? Cohen's answer - in this riveting account - reads like a thriller' (former Secretary of State Antony Blinken).Perfect for readers of The Wager and Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea, this pulse-pounding true story has become a real-life example of one of life's greatest moral dilemmas. 'Brilliant and profound,' (bestselling author Amy Chua), Captain's Dinner strikes at the heart of a question that haunts us all: When does survival justify murder?

by Jess Kidd

€15.99

A SUNDAY TIMES HISTORICAL FICTION PICK 2026 'A sumptuous Gothic mystery' NAT REEVE, author of NETTLEBLACK 'Kidd has imagination to die for' Guardian A secret cannot stay locked away forever Bodkin Bell, orphan, pickpocket and survivor, doesn't know where she came from, but she knows she's different. Gaslights flare as she walks past. Cutlery spins. Shocks fly from her fingertips. For years, she was 'Little Spark', the star of an electrifying travelling act - until it went too far and she ended up in a London gaol. Now she's been offered a way out. A chance to serve at Point Mote, a vast, desolate house marooned on the misty Kent marshes. There, she will assist a reclusive family of cunning inventors in the creation of automata: miraculous, lifelike machines for which gentlemen collectors will pay handsomely. But this house of wonders hides mysteries too. As Bodkin starts to question why she is really there, she unearths secrets that have been buried bone-deep for years - and a truth beyond all imagining. One that was never meant to be found.

by Susie Dent

€14.99

A brand-new linguistic mystery from Countdown's resident lexicographer, Susie Dent, set in the city of Oxford 'A MUST-READ' Woman's Own 'A CLEVER, TWISTY MYSTERY' Good Housekeeping 'BRILLIANT, GRIPPING, UNPUTDOWNABLE' Kate Williams 'A COMPELLING MURDER MYSTERY PUNCTUATED BY DELICIOUS ETYMOLOGICAL PUZZLES' Tom Read-Wilson 'EVERY BIT AS GRIPPING AS HER DEBUT' Daily Mail A mysterious letter. A silenced scholar. A city paved with injustice. When mysterious symbols appear as graffiti around Oxford, lexicographer Martha Thornhill recognises them from an alphabet created by a deceased writer whose papers she once worked on. But this is no publicity stunt, and tensions intensify when further graffiti is found near the body of a university lecturer. Martha is not the only one to have doubts when the suspicious death is assumed by police to be a suicide. Called upon to lend their linguistic expertise to the case, she and her colleagues begin to unearth a tragedy that extends beyond the ancient walls of the university. As new messages portend more death, it's clear that a spirit of vengeance is stalking the city's streets, and may be reaching out towards them too. PRAISE FOR GUILTY BY DEFINITION: 'Astonishingly clever' THE GUARDIAN 'Will delight anyone who appreciates fine crime writing' THE TIMES 'One of the finest mysteries I have ever read' ROB RINDER 'Huge fun and beautifully written' GYLES BRANDRETH 'A tantalising mystery' JANICE HALLETT 'Genuinely page-turning' LALINE PAULL Guilty by Definition (book 1) was a Sunday Times bestseller August 2024

by Myles Dungan

€18.99

In the late nineteenth century, the great Tory leader Lord Salisbury and his closest collaborators were haunted by the looming threat of Home Rule in Ireland. Salisbury, an anxious man obsessed by visions of social disintegration, was determined to undermine the legitimacy of what he saw as a revolutionary project, one that would damage the prestige and integrity of the British Empire, then at its zenith. He was willing to tarnish the reputation of the Irish leadership by any means necessary. Using blatant fabrication, espionage, and the help of The Times newspaper, the grandest members of the English political elite conspired to discredit the leader of the Irish Nationalist Party, Charles Parnell. By publishing forged letters, Parnell was accused of complicity in the horrific assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish, Ireland's new Chief Secretary, and his colleague Thomas Burke, who were murdered as they walked unprotected in Dublin's Phoenix Park. Parnell was also linked to a plot to assassinate Queen Victoria. Culminating in a government commission and major libel trial, this dramatic episode in British and Irish political history exposes the lengths an Empire will go to survive, and also confronts the difficult question of Parnell's relationship to violence and Irish nationalism. The Plot Against Ireland reconstructs these largely forgotten and almost incredible events in Myles Dungan's mordantly witty narrative.