This gripping story of one man’s involvement in RAF Bomber Command’s fledgling offensive was first published in 1943. Written only months after the events described, R. C. Rivaz provides a uniquely fresh and immediate perspective on some of the most harrowing episodes of the war.

As World War II approaches, two families run for their lives - and for the future of all they hold dear. 1930: As raids and violent arrests sweep through their Crimean village, two families are forced to make desperate choices in order to keep themselves - and their hope - alive. The Pfeiffers get out as quickly as they can, braving a last-minute escape in the dead of night. Their friends the Scholzes are less lucky. Captured and transported to labour camps in the icy Far North, the future seems a bleak, dark nightmare for the couple and their three children.

Viet Nam, 1963. A female Viet Cong assassin is trawling the boulevards of Saigon, catching US Army officers off-guard with a single pistol shot, then riding off on the back of a scooter. Although the US military is not officially in combat, 16,000 American servicemen are stationed in Viet Nam “advising” the military and government. Among them are Ellsworth Miser and Clovis Robeson, two army investigators who have been tasked with tracking down the daring killer.

The Syrian plane disintegrated, evaporating in a gush of silvery smoke, rent through with bright white lightning, and the ejecting pilot's body was blown clear of the fuselage. For an instant it was outlined ahead of David's screen, cruciform in shape with arms and legs thrown wide, the helmet still on the head, and the clothing ballooning in the rush of air.

Dr Leo Black is one of Oxford University's rising stars. His lectures play to a packed audience of adoring students. He seems destined for tenure amongst the gleaming spires. But Worcester College has never employed a man like Leo Black before. For 20 years Leo served the SAS with distinction. And when the friend he served alongside is killed in Paris trying to prevent the abduction of a young British scientist, the world Leo has tried to put behind him begins to reel him back in.

Prague, 1939. Young mother Eva has a secret from her past. When the Nazis invade, Eva knows the only way to keep her daughter, Miriam, safe is to send her away - even if it means never seeing her again. But when Eva is taken to a concentration camp, her secret is at risk of being exposed. In London, Pamela volunteers to help find places for the Jewish children arrived from Europe. Befriending one unclaimed little girl, Pamela brings her home. It is only when her young son enlists in the RAF that Pamela realises how easily her own world could come crashing down.

In 1627 Barbary pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted some 400 of its people, including 250 from a tiny island off the mainland. Among the captives sold into slavery in Algiers were the island pastor, his wife and their three children. Although the raid itself is well documented, little is known about what happened to the women and children afterwards. It was a time when women everywhere were largely silent.  

Paris, 1943. The swastika flies from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Soldiers clad in field grey patrol the streets. Buildings have been renamed, books banned, art stolen and people disappeared. Amongst the missing is an Allied intelligence cell. Gone to ground? Betrayed? Dead? Britain's Special Operations Executive need to find out. They recruit ex-Parisian and Bletchley Park codebreaker Harry Mitchell to return to the city he fled two years ago. 

Deep within a cave system at the Iranian military complex of Parchin, southeast of Tehran and hidden from the prying eyes of Western satellites, scientists are working round the clock on a banned device. Acting on the orders of a renegade cell within the ultraconservative Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, their intention is to propel Iran into the elite club of nuclear-armed nations - and seal its domination of the Middle East. 

On August 5, 1942, giant pillars of dust rose over the Russian steppe, marking the advance of the 6th Army, an elite German combat unit dispatched by Hitler to capture the industrial city of Stalingrad and press on to the oil fields of Azerbaijan. The Germans were supremely confident; in three years, they had not suffered a single defeat. The Luftwaffe had already bombed the city into ruins. German soldiers hoped to complete their mission and be home in time for Christmas.

In the far north of Norway a man lives a peaceful existence. However one day his younger brother, always the more successful and charming of the two, turns up to visit, accompanied by his new wife. It soon turns out that the little brother is not quite as angelic as he seems.

In the second year of a Gorta Mhór - the great famine - 19-year-old Devin Mahoney lies on the dirt floor of his small, dark cabin. He has not eaten in five days. His only hope of survival is to get to America, the land of milk and honey. After surviving disease and storms at sea that decimate crew and passengers alike, Devin’s ship limps into New York Harbor, three days before Christmas in 1849. 

In the summer of 1940, after the Nazi occupation of Poland, an underground operative called Witold Pilecki accepted a mission to uncover the fate of thousands of people being interred at a new concentration camp on the border of the Reich. His mission was to report on Nazi crimes and raise a secret army to stage an uprising. The name of the detention centre - Auschwitz. It was only after arriving at the camp that he started to discover the Nazis' terrifying designs.

Berlin, 1938: Newly appointed military attaché Noel Macrae and his extrovert wife, Primrose, arrive at the British embassy. Prime Minister Chamberlain is intent on placating Nazi Germany, but Macrae is less so. Gathering vital intelligence, Macrae is drawn to Kitty Schmidt's Salon - a Nazi bordello - and its enigmatic Jewish hostess, Sara Sternschein, who is a treasure trove of knowledge about the Nazi hierarchy in a city of lies, spies and secrets. Does she hold the key to thwarting Hitler?

Antal Szerb’s superb novel, originally published in Hungarian in 1937, is now acknowledged as a classic of European literature. The story follows the misadventures of Mihaly as he travels to Italy on honeymoon with his new wife, Erszi. In Venice, he begins to tell her the story of his youth, dominated by his great friendship with the charismatic siblings Tamas and Eva Ulpius, who live in a crumbling mansion in Budapest. From that moment on the marriage begins to fall apart, as it becomes clear that Mihaly can never escape the ghosts of his past.