Modern Literature

//Modern Literature
­
  • Bond may have a license to kill, but  Scaramanga, KGB-trained assassin who’s left a trail of dead British Secret Service agents in his wake, has a talent for it.  His weapon of choice? A gold-plated Colt .45. In the aftermath of his brainwashing by the Soviets, Bond is given one last chance to win back M’s trust: terminate Scaramanga before he strikes MI6 again. Traveling to Jamaica under an assumed name, Bond manages to infiltrate Scaramanga’s organisation and soon discovers that the hit man’s criminal ambitions have expanded to include arson, drug smuggling, and industrial sabotage. Worst of all for Bond, Scaramanga has a golden bullet inscribed with the numbers 007 - and he’s eager to put it to use. Film edition. Under the heat of the Caribbean sun, Bond faces a seemingly impossible task: win a duel against the Man with the Golden Gun.
  • In 1864, Union general William Tecumseh Sherman marched his sixty thousand troops through Georgia to the sea, and then up into the Carolinas. The army fought off Confederate forces, demolished cities, lived off the land and pillaged the Southern plantations, accumulating a borne-along population of freed blacks and white refugees until all that remained was the dangerous transient life of the dispossessed and the triumphant. In Doctorow’s hands the great march becomes a floating world and a nomadic consciousness. Described by Time as..."Spellbinding ...a ferocious re-imagining of the past that returns it to us as something powerful and strange.”
  • Book II of Amra's Journey. For the past fifty years the golden treasures of Troy have been lying in the basement of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Now Germany and Turkey are both reclaiming the treasures, but who really owns the precious antiques? And how far is each country prepared to go to claim them as their own? American lawyer Sarah Kaplan, an expert on the reclamation of property, is drawn into the debate when  the Turkish government employs her to get the treasures back. But things go horribly wrong and Sarah ends up in a Turkish gaol, accused of theft and blasphemy. Alone in the filthy cell, Sarah's only link with the outside world is the amulet she wears around her neck, passed down to her from her great-grandmother. Engraved with the symbols of the bull and the owl of Troy, the amulet's origin is a mystery. But gradually, through the interweaving of two stories 3000 years apart, the secret of the amulet becomes known... https://cosmiccauldronbooks.com.au/p/the-gift-of-evil-alan-gold/
  • They dismissed the Mary Deare as a piece of leaking ironmongery taken off the junk heap. For forty years, this 6,000-ton freighter had tramped the seas, suffered shipwreck twice and been torpedoed three times in two world wars. Then one March night, battered and bruised,  she steamed out of the fog of the English Channel, her lights ablaze and her bridge deserted. Cabins that had been lived in recently were empty; food lay ready on the mess table - and of the crew, not a sign. Where were the crew? And what secret did she carry in her hold?
  • Two thousand years ago, the hill fortress of Masada was besieged and the defenders, knowing their chances were nil, killed their wives and families, then committed suicide. Now, the Israeli government has decided to repeat the Masada plan - but this time it will be a nuclear holocaust. The ultimate terror plan has been set in motion - in a fevered conference in the embattled capital of Israel, where desperate leaders face total disaster at Arab hands; in a beautiful woman's luxurious Manhattan apartment, where a passionate love affair becomes a pulse-racing plunge into peril; in the highest circles of Washington, Moscow, Paris and London, where men of supreme power find themselves suddenly helpless; throughout the entire world, as the plan nobody wanted to use gathers its own horrifying momentum.

  • An international circle of killers, the Matarese will undoubtedly take over the world within just two years. Only two rival spies have the power to stop them: Scofield, CIA, and Talaniekov, KGB. They share a genius for espionage and a life of explosive terror and violence. But though these sworn enemies once vowed to terminate each other, they must now become allies. Because only they possess the brutal skills and ice-cold nerves vital to their mission: destroy the Matarese Cirlce.
  • In remote Northern Australia, three old friends are separated by accident, deceit and design, and made to face their fears as they re-evaluate their relationships with one another. A suspenseful story told with integrity and humour, exploring the themes of colonial racism, man-love and pre-emptive euthanasia, challenging the conservative status quo and posing questions to the most liberal-minded.
  • The rise and fall of John Rumbelow, a monstrously arrogant pathologist whose expert testimony sends men to the gallows on the strength of his word and reputation.  A notable departure for Gordon, known for his comedic Doctor series.
  • Ira Penaluna, First World War pilot, sees his airline go bankrupt in Africa and grabs at the chance to instruct pilots in China. But Ira hasn’t reckoned on the beat-up, burnt-out wrecks he is expected to teach his students in, or on the fact that his pupils speak no English. Though aided and abetted by an enthusiastic assistant, an irresponsible Fagan and his brooding American girlfriend Ellie, Ira finds himself playing a deadly game, becoming embroiled in China’s civil war. The four are forced to flee but the only way out is in a struggling pile of junk flown precariously towards safety. Will they make it? Jacket art by Mike Charlton.