The Terror

THUNDERSTRUCK by Erik Larson

The Edwardian age: a time when shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fasted vessels, the rich vied with one another with their displays of wealth, and science dazzled the public with visions of a world made wondrous.

The Murderer: Wanted for what would become the twentieth-century’s most infamous murders, Dr Hawley Crippen fled England on a ship bound for America accompanied by his unsuspecting mistress disguised as a boy.

The Detective: A Veteran of the Ripper case, Inspector Walter Dew found himself strangely sympathetic to the murderer and his young lover.

The Inventor: Guglielmo Marconi drove himself to the brink in his obsessive struggle to perfect his visionary creation, but his ‘wireless’ would play a pivotal role in catching the killer.

Written with riveting attention to detail, narrative drive and an uncanny ability to bring a bygone era to life, this true story culminates in one of the most spectacular criminal chases of all time, as one luxury liner pursued another across the Atlantic, and recalls an extraordinary and largely forgotten chapter from history.

LADY FRANKLIN’S REVENGE by Ken McGoogan

Jane Franklin became a world traveller in an age when women were expected to stay at home and raise a family. She journeyed far off the beaten path of Grand-Tour Europe to explore Russia, Greece, the Holy Land and northern Africa.

She married Captain John Franklin at thirty-six and helped him to seize the opportunity of a lifetime – to lead a Royal Navy expedition intended to solve the final riddle of the Northwest Passage. After Franklin disappeared into the Arctic, she badgered the Admiralty into dispatching dozens of ships to rescue him; she financed voyages through public subscription, paid for others out of her own pocket, and even inspired the president of the United States to contribute to the search.

Jane Franklin’s effort to make her husband’s doomed voyage into a great heroic endeavour secured Sir John Franklin’s reputation as a legendary explorer – and opened up the Arctic as never before.

THE LAST SECRET OF THE TEMPLE by Paul Sussmen

Jerusalem, 70 AD. As the legions of Rome besiege the Holy Temple, a boy is given a secret that he must guard with his life…

Southern Germany, December 1944. Six emaciated Nazi prisoners drag a mysterious crate deep into a disused mine. They too give their lives to keep the secret safe: murdered by their guards…

Egypt, Valley of the Kings, the present day. A body is found amongst some ruins. It appears to be an open-and-shut case but the more inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor police uncovers about the dead man, the more uneasy he becomes. And his investigation turns out to be anything but routine. Khalifa doesn’t know it yet, but he is on the trail of an extraordinary long-lost artifact that could, in the wrong hands, turn the Middle East into a blood bath. It’s a dangerous path he’s taking – and what’s more he’s not alone.

From ancient Jerusalem, the Crusades, Cathar heretics and coded medieval manuscripts to the Holocaust, hidden Nazi treasure and the murderous present-day, this is a thrilling rollercoaster ride of an adventure.

THE CRYSTAL SKULL by Manda Scott

There exist in collections around the world a series of life-size crystal skulls. No one knows for sure who made them originally or how, though they are reputed to be of Mayan origin. Legends say that a total of thirteen were ‘birthed’ in the same Mayan temples by an ancient people who foresaw a time when their land would be overwhelmed by a natural disaster, an event they referred to as ‘End of Days.’ Created over hundreds of generations, and watched over by a handful of specially chosen ‘skull-keepers’, the skulls are believed to contain a lost wisdom that will be revealed only when all thirteen are brought together.

The Mayans also devised a Codex of such complexity that it has never been fully decoded. Recent research has nevertheless revealed a definite date for the cataclysm to come:

December 2012. The clock has begun to tick.

This is all fact.

The fiction involves a 21st century academic, an Elizabethan physician, and their desperate bid across the centuries to save a skull that may yet protect us from the greatest disaster the world has known…