Missing mystery

Detective Héctor Belascoarán Shayne weary from coping with his mother's death and his lover's flight, is involved in three perplexing cases: murder in a corruption filled factory, violent threats against the teenage daughter of a former porn star, and a missing person case involving Emiliano Zapata!

Clint Eastwood is one of the world's most popular action stars, who has matured into a fine American producer-director. Howard Hughes follows Eastwood's craft through over 50 movies. He looks at his beginnings in fifties B-movies and in TV's Rawhide and his launch into superstardom in Sergio Leone's sixties spaghetti westerns. Later roles are discussed, including Beguiled, The Bridges of Madison County and Million Dollar Baby. Since 1970, Eastwood has enjoyed parallel success as director-producer of his own Malpaso Productions, with Bird, Mystic River and Letters from Iwo Jima, demonstrating formidable directing credentials. Alongside details of all his movies, Eastwood’s story is illustrated with film stills, glimpses behind the scenes, and rare poster advertising material. Also featuring the most comprehensive credits filmography ever compiled on Eastwood’s work, as star and director.

first published in 2004.

A moving and suspenseful story of two men, Peter Proctor, a retired British cabinet minister and Timothy Wycliffe, a young aristocrat murdered thirty years ago, offers a penetrating analysis of social decay and society in transition.

Those two days in May seem to be a highpoint in Colin Pinnock's life: a stunning election victory, a new govenment, and junior office for himself. But among the many congratulations he receives is one hostile message, a grubby card asking: 'Who do you think you are?' Is this merely someone putting him back in his place, or do the words have a more profound meaning? Who, indeed, is he? And who were his real parents? As Colin investigates these questions he is led back in time to an old political scandal: a murder case which led to a politician's downfall and disappearance. Events in the present, however, start tangling with those of the past, and he finds himself the object of a series of incidents that at first seem designed to bring down his career with ridicule, but later actually threaten his life. A beautifully written, intriguing mystery in which past crimes come back to haunt today's innocents.

Lord Westfield's Men are split down the middle: should they scorn the belligerent and sacrilegious playwright Jonas Applegarth or perform his brilliant play The Misfortunes of Marriage? When they decide to receive Applegarth, they unwittingly receive all of his enemies with him. Actors, critics, and especially The Blackfriars, a rival troupe, are so scathingly portrayed in The Misfortunes of Marriage that revenge seems near. When gruesome hangings plague both of the troupes, some speculate it is God's wrath for the immorality of the theater. But Nick Bracewell has heard the cackle of the Laughing Hangman and knows the killer is closer to them than they think.

The fiery star, Laurence Firethorn, is hot for a lady, wife of the Lord Mayor elect. A tryst at London's Nine Giants inn is arranged. Meanwhile, the lugubrious landlord of the actors' home base is laid even lower by a plot to take over ownership of the inn. A young apprentice actor is subjected to a horrible assault and a waterman pulls a mangled corpse from the Thames. The drama comes to a climax at the annual Lord Mayor's show as his barge moves grandly down the river.