Barry Maitland

From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide… Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

A New York Times bestseller, the groundbreaking authoritative history of the migration of African-Americans from the rural South to the urban North. A definitive book on American history, The Promised Land is also essential reading for educators and policymakers at both national and local levels.

A death in the tight-knit mountain-climbing community reveals long hidden secrets in the fast-paced and nail-biting stand-alone mystery from the master of crime writing, Barry Maitland.She stood panting on the narrow ledge, pressing herself back against the hard surface of the rock heard a voice, far below, calling her name. She tried to answer, but her throat was parched and no sound came. They had heard the stone, clattering down the cliff to the sea, and now they knew where she was. On a cliff-face in New Zealand, two men fall to their deaths carrying the secret of a horrifying betrayal. Four years before, the bright and beautiful Luce, another member of the same close-knit group of friends, had also died tragically while climbing. As the circle of friends dwindles, Luce' s best friend, Anna, persuades Josh, Luc' s ex-lover, to help in her own investigation, as she' s convinced that the original verdict of accidental death was wrong. Had detail been overlooked, or, worse, ignored? In an attempt to uncover the truth, Josh and Anna follow Luc' s last days to Lord Howe Island, but the long-cold trail and conspiratorial islanders seem certain to defeat them. After all, who could possibly have a reason to murder Luce?A nail-biting page-turner, Bright Air is the compelling new mystery from the master of crime writing, Barry Maitland.

"A meth-addicted biker shoots a woman during a police siege. An elderly couple commit suicide on the terrace of their favorite café. An unidentified white male is stabbed to death in the street. For Sydney homicide detective Harry Belltree, not long out of the military and a grueling tour of Afghanistan, these three deaths appear to be just another day at the office. Until, that is, he identifies the stabbing victim as his own brother-in-law Greg, and journalist Kelly Pool suggests there's a link between the three incidents. It seems Greg and the old couple had ties to the same man, a corrupt money man with a murky past and friends in both high places and low. Harry Belltree can't get officially involved in Greg's murder, but he's not going to leave it in the hands of others. That's when he goes off-grid to investigate the links between these deaths. That's when things start to get dangerous"--

In this, the final book of the Belltree Trilogy, DS Harry Belltree has gone bush. His obsessive pursuit of justice has cost him everything - his job, his marriage and his newborn child - but then his estranged wife disappears, leaving their baby daughter behind, and he is dragged back to Sydney. The police think Jenny has murdered a man. Harry thinks she's in danger. When body parts are found maimed and strewn around a suburban park, his former colleagues are distracted by this apparently unrelated case. Harry is left to track Jenny down on his own-and to lay bare, at last, the extraordinary conspiracy that led to his parents' murder.

DI Kathy Kolla of Scotland Yard is called in as a matter of course by the local Paddington police when a woman turns up dead in what appears to be an accident. On her houseboat, Vicky Hawks is found by one of her neighbors, having apparently succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning due to improper ventilation of the narrowboat's heating system. But while the cause of death seems apparent and there's no reason for Kolla to think otherwise, something about this death still bothers her"--

"David Brock and Kathy Kolla are summoned to Cabot's, a venerable dealer in rare stamps on the Strand. At first, they expect a simple case of theft and a pleasant digression from the usual sort of murderous wrongding they encounter in the Serious Crime Branch of Scotland Yard. But the case they confront is twistier and far more unsettling than they could have imagined. An unsavory figure from Brock's past, slippery East-ender Sammy Starling, a.k.a. Sammy China, is in deep trouble and asking for Brock's help. It seems Sammy's young wife has been kidnapped; but the strange part is that the ransom notes are decorated with rare and valuable Chalon Head stamps of the young Queen Victoria - to whom Sammy's wife bears an uncanny resemblance. Sammy is convinced a corrupt cop he once helped put in jail is behind the kidnapping. But Sammy has made a living from fraud and deceit: why should Brock and Kolla trust anything he says?"--Page 4 of cover.

Detective Sergeant Harry Belltree, back on the job after a near-fatal confrontation with corrupt colleagues, has become a departmental embarrassment. He can't and doesn't want to return to his post with the Sydney Police Department. Instead, he accepts a post far away from Sydney and attempts to build a quiet life in Newcastle, Australia. But that quiet life quickly eludes him. A body's been found buried just offshore on Ash Island and that one body may well just be the first of many. Not only that, Belltree finds himself engaged in some unfinished business. The car crash that killed his parents and blinded his wife happened not far from Newcastle. Belltree knows it was no accident and it's not in his nature to let sleeping dogs lie. When his wife Jenny becomes pregnant, a much longed-for event, the stakes become higher than ever.