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A bizarre and frightening use of psychic phenomena as a weapon in the Cold War. An ingenious story, complete with mountebanks and conmen - and the real thing. Professor Constable is convinced that he is in touch with his dead daughter through a medium. The evidence is a cast of a hand, with the fingerprints of the dead girl in it. Alexander Hero, top operative of the So You Think You’ve Seen a Ghost Society of Great Britain, is hired to investigate a medium and her husband who may be trying to sway the Professor to sell his secrets to the Russians. Hero's job is to find out and debunk how they created Mary's hand - after she had been cremated... -
At the height of its New Year revels, luxury ocean liner Poseidon is capsized by a massive tidal wave caused by an undersea earthquake. A handful of survivors must fight for their lives against appalling odds, struggling through the entrails of the stricken vessel in a nightmare race to get to the hull, the only part above water, before the ship sinks. Faced with rising water, panic, desperation and the death throes of the liner, they must do whatever they can to survive and make to the rescue they hope is coming. Front and back cover shows scenes from Irwin Allen's 1972 film of the same name; this is not a novelisation of the film - it is the original text of Gallico's 1969 novel. -
Gallico ended his blockbuster novel The Poseidon Adventure with the sinking of the overturned luxury ship as a scant handful of survivors looked on. After the success of the first film of the same name (which ended with the ship still afloat) he was approached by Irwin Allen to write a sequel following on from the film's ending, rather than that of the novel. Mr. Gallico obliged with this further adventure featuring survivors and salvagers, a Communist killer, a beautiful girl pirate, a Vietnam veteran and a New York cop - the stricken Poseidon becomes a battle ground and the prize is a fortune in looted gold.
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Coronation: Paul Gallico
$10.00June 2, 1953. It's a great day for the Commonwealth - it's the coronation day of the young, beautiful Elizabeth II. Will Clagg, steelworker, his wife Violet, their two children Johnny and Gwinny and Grumbling Granny are determined to see this wondrous event. No matter how long the day, nor the obstacles to be encountered...Each member of the family learns a great deal on this important day, and returns home laden with life-long gifts they never expected. -
The victim of the Hungarian communists in this story is a brash young American newspaperman, assigned to a Paris edition of an American paper. Emotionally upset over what he considers callousness in his editor in the case of an enforced confession of an American, the threat of the Hungarians that the next "spy trial" will end in a death sentence, Jimmy uses the assignment to Vienna to get into Hungary where he is immediately seized and imprisoned as a spy. The story is told in counterpoint; Paris, the newspaper office, the determined exploration of every channel of release; Budapest, the prison, and the vicious ingenuity of the new kind of mental torture leading to the mindless man on trial.
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The Snow Goose : A simple parable on the power of friendship and love, set against a backdrop of the horror of war. Philip Rhayader is a disabled artist living a solitary life in an abandoned lighthouse in the marshlands of Essex who meets a young local girl, Fritha, when she brings him a wounded snow goose. They become friends as the bird is nursed back to flight, and it revisits the lighthouse in its migration for several years. Rhayader and his small sailboat take part in the Dunkirk evacuation and the snow goose stays by his small boat, a symbol of luck and survival to the rescued men. The Small Miracle: When his donkey falls ill, a small boy in modern day Assisi goes to Rome seeking permission for the only remedy he truly trusts. Illustrated by Anne Linton.
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Jennie: Paul Gallico
$8.00Gallico's fantasy story is of a young boy called Peter, who is knocked down by a car. To his considerable astonishment, when he recovers, he is not a young boy - he's a cat! Feeling very lonely, confused and lost, he meets Jennie, a cat who had been abandoned by her family when they moved away, who educates him in the wiles of the feline world. Will he stay a cat with Jennie, or return to being a human boy? But then he is challenged by Dempsey, a battle-scarred veteran and Peter must win... This is not necessarily a children's or teens' book - any reader will gain something from this story. -
Set in England prior to the coronation of Elizabeth II. Mrs 'Arris is a charlady, hard-working, cheerful and always obliging. When she sees the beautiful Dior gown that one of her titled ladies will wear to the Coronation festivities, Mrs. 'Arris is determined to have one too. And she can - if she gives up catching the bus...and going to the cinema...and going to the pub for a drop of gin with her neighbour...and if she takes on extra work and does some sewing from home...She faces all manner of obstacles and snobbery and unwittingly does some good on her journey, but she is determined. Made into a beautiful film, Mrs. 'Arris Goes To Paris with Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Ada 'Arris. and Omar Sharif - and recently remade. -
Matilda: Paul Gallico
$25.00When a Broadway agent sells a boxing kangaroo to a showman - who really called up for a knife-thrower - things really start happening. The male kangaroo, called Matilda, accidentally tangles with a middleweight boxing king and the affray is reported with mock seriousness by journalist Duke Parkhurst. He claims that Matilda is now technically the World Champion and Bimmie the agent, Billy Baker the Bermondsey Kid who owns Matilda, Duke and a variety of rascals, scoundrels and reprobates all get involved. Even the Mafia want to get in on the act. Gallico, with his talent for the whimsical, has written an ingenious and hilarious story, a champion in itself.