New Releases by Brian Thompson

What''s it like to be the man of the house when you''re still only a boy? In ''Keeping Mum'', Brian Thompson describes such a story. Whilst other children were evacuated out of the big cities, Brian found himself travelling into London, and spent much of the war with an eccentric crowd of ribald relations.

Or A Plan to Beat the Devil... A brilliant narrative history of Harmony, Robert Owen -the attempt to found an idealistic community in the town. And its miserable failure. This is the story of two experiments in Idealism, under the leadership of two remarkable and very different men. George Rapp, along with his 800 followers from Germany came to the New World in 1815, and founded the town of Harmony in Indiana. Preparing for the imminent coming of Christ, they lived in piety, abstained from sexual relations and worked hard under Rapp''s leadership, holding all goods in common. Except, that is, from the profits in gold that Rapp horded under his blanket: the fruits of Harmony''s economic miracle. In 1825 Rapp left for Germany, and sold the town to Robert Owen, British millionaire, mill owner and later, founder of the Co-operative Movement.

Born to fanatically snobbish Victorian parents, Georgina Weldon grew up to wreak havoc on almost everyone she met. She was supposed to marry well and restore the family fortune, but soon proved to have other ideas. Her scandalous affair with a married man and her defiant marriage to the less-than-prosperous young hussar officer Harry Weldon were just the first signs that she was no ordinary girl. In a plot that could have been constructed by Dickens himself, Georgina acquired a string of lovers, was stung by con artists, betrayed by her parents, and narrowly escaped being committed to a mental institution. She rose to the challenge and became one of the first Victorian women to represent herself in court and later helped to overturn England’s infamous Lunacy Laws. Like the best Victorian novels, The Disastrous Mrs. Weldon marries the adventures of an intrepid protagonist with delightfully revealing glimpses of Victorian society. A tale of sex and scandal, bravado and bravery, Mrs. Weldon’s life is wild, wicked, and totally irresistible.

"Imperial Vanities is an adventure story in the high tradition, ranging from the upper Nile to Ceylon, Egypt and the slave markets of the Balkans. Wilful, profoundly eccentric and driven by the sort of idealism we no longer consider an heroic virtue, the lives of these men combine to make a tragi-comic commentary on the most widely-held conviction of their times: that God himself was an Englishman. ''Better a ball in the brain than to flicker out unheeded'', Gordon wrote in his journal. Written with Thompson''s masterly touch, this is history at its best."--BOOK JACKET.

This is a portrait of Martin Tupper, the quintessential Victorian, who, in in 1842, wrote the first of a series entitled "Proverbial Philosophy", a moral self-improvement manual. Full of hearty evangelism, the title became a multi-million bestseller.

Patrick Ganley, détective privé de son état, quitte le Yorkshire et la minuscule Tania Evans (sa logeuse, professeur de tango et plus car affinités) pour se rendre chez un riche bourgeois du sud de l''Angleterre dont la fille a disparu. Adolescente studieuse, Melissa n''avait jamais causé le moindre tracas, mais dans cette affaire les apparences sont trompeuses et les protagonistes très imprévisibles. Patrick Ganley est bien décidé à débusquer la vérité derrière le pesant silence familial, derrière l''égoïsme, l''inconscience et la perversité. Car au bout du chemin il y a aussi une grande détresse. Scénariste pour la radio et la télévision, Brian Thompson est l''une des voix les plus originales du roman noir anglais. Sa causticité envers les mœurs décadentes est tempérée par un formidable grain de folie et une rare faculté d''empathie.

The Life, Loves, and Lawsuits of a Legendary Victroian.

British PI Patrick Ganley is hired to find the missing daughter of a businessman and the probe leads him to an affair with the client''s wife. A tale of sodomy, sex-for-hire and murder.

Constitutional and administrative law deals with government and administration, and with the citizen''s civil liberties. This book covers the major areas of this body of law, and is therefore suitable for law degree courses and for the Common Professional Examination. In addition to explaining the current legal materials and proposals for reform, attention is also paid to the context within which the law operates, thereby helping students to understand this fundamentally important part of the legal system. This edition has been thoroughly revised throughout, and now covers the devolution initiatives of the new Labour government, developments concerning standards in public life, the Scott Report and its impact on ministerial accountability and public interest immunity, and progress towards reform andenlargement of the European Union.

A BBC film crew is on a hill in India, making a programme for a series entitled ''I could be happy here''. But the presenter, director and technicians are far from happy as they battle with the climate, the food and the souring relationships.

The author''s first novel is set in wartime Cambridge and is about an air-crew of the American Eighth Air Force and the children of a private school.