Other books that might interest you

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  Thirsty Ghosts

  Emer Martin

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  Emer Martin's is a radical, vital voice in Irish writing, as she challenges the history of silence, institutional lies, evasion and the mistreatment of women across mid-to-late twentieth-century Ireland.
  
  
  Two families inhabit this immersive polyvocal work, an intergenerational saga announced with The Cruelty Men (2018) and continued here as punk rockers and Magdalene laundries spiral into a post-colonial Ireland still haunted by its tribal undertow. Scenes surface from Ireland's mythological past, Tudor plantations, workhouses and industrial schools, the Troubles laid bare, the transformative pre-digital decades playing out in this propulsive narrative. Thirsty Ghosts is epic in scope while intimate in focus.
  
  
  The Lyons, professionals in a newly independent state, are attacked by paramilitaries in their family home in Tyrone. The eccentric O'Conaills of Kerry, traumatized by displacement, find themselves in leafy Dublin 4. We encounter a servant who meets Henry VIII, a Lithuanian Jewish family who become part of the fabric of Dublin, and a wild young girl who escapes the laundry only to stumble into a psycho pimp.
  
  
  Related with dark humour, verve and high literary style, Thirsty Ghosts is a revelatory exploration of Ireland combining themes of power, class, fertility, violence and deep love, forces as universal as the old stories that permeate and illuminate each character's life.

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  The Adventure of The Missing...

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  Mr. Cyril Overton of Trinity College, Cambridge, comes to Sherlock Holmes seeking his help in Godfrey Staunton's disappearance. Staunton is the star player on Overton's rugby union team (who plays at the three-quarters position, hence the story's title) and they will likely lose an important match the following day against Oxford if Staunton cannot be found. Holmes has to admit that amateur sport is outside his field, but he shows the same care he has shown to his other cases. 
  Staunton had seemed a bit pale and bothered earlier in the day. Later in the evening, according to a hotel porter, a rough-looking, bearded man came to the hotel with a note for Staunton; judging from the young man's reaction, the note contained rather devastating news. He immediately left the hotel with the bearded stranger; the two of them were last seen running in the direction of the Strand at about half past ten. No one has seen them since 
  Overton has wired to Cambridge, but Staunton has not been seen there. He has also wired Lord Mount-James, Staunton's very wealthy uncle and nearest living relative, but has heard no answer. Staunton is the almost-eighty-year-old Lord Mount-James's heir, but he must meanwhile live in relative poverty owing to his uncle's miserly behaviour.Holmes further questions the porter. The bearded man who brought the note was neither a gentleman nor a workman, and he seemed to be bothered by something too, for his hand was trembling as he handed Staunton the note. The only word that the porter overheard of their short conversation was "time".

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  The War In The Air

  H. G. Wells

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  "The War in the Air" by H.G. Wells is a gripping tale of global conflict and technological upheaval. The story follows Bert Smallways, an ordinary man caught in the chaos of a world war waged with advanced airships and flying machines. As nations clash, the advent of aerial warfare transforms the battlefield, bringing unprecedented destruction and societal collapse. Wells combines thrilling adventure with sharp social commentary, exploring themes of progress, imperialism, and humanity’s vulnerability to its own innovations. A prescient vision of modern warfare, this novel reflects Wells’s concerns about the misuse of technology and the fragility of civilization. A thought-provoking blend of dystopian imagination and historical insight.

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  Murder in Room 346

  Phillip Strang

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  A Downmarket Hotel. A Moral Campaigner. A woman who had killed her husband. Both Dead. Both Compromised. 
   
   
   
  On the bed, the naked bodies of a man and a woman. "Bullet in the head's not the way to go," Larry Hill, Isaac Cook's detective inspector, said. 
   
   
   
  "Do you recognize him?" Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook said. 
   
   
   
  "James Holden, from what I can see." 
   
   
   
  "Rent by the hour?" 
   
   
   
  "Not according to her handbag. There's a business card. She worked for the man." 
   
   
   
  "You know this will be all over the media within the hour," Isaac said. "James Holden, a proponent of the sanctity of the marital bed, man and wife. It's bound to be."

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  The Steadfast Tin Soldier

  Hans Christian Andersen

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  The Steadfast Tin Soldier is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a tin soldier's love for a paper ballerina. On his birthday, a boy receives a set of 25 toy soldiers all cast from one old tin spoon and arrays them on a table top. One soldier stands on a single leg because, as he was the last one cast, there was not enough metal to make him whole. Nearby, the soldier spies a pretty paper ballerina with a spangle on her sash. She, too, is standing on one leg, and the soldier falls in love. That night, a goblin among the toys in the form of a jack-in-the-box, who also loves the ballerina, angrily warns the soldier to take his eyes off her, but the soldier ignores him. 
  The next day, the soldier falls from a windowsill (presumably the work of the goblin) and lands in the street. Two boys find the soldier, place him in a paper boat, and set him sailing in the gutter. The boat and its passenger wash into a storm drain, where a rat demands the soldier pay a toll. 
  Sailing on, the boat is washed into a canal, where the tin soldier is swallowed by a fish. When this fish is caught and cut open, the tin soldier finds himself once again on the table top before the ballerina. Inexplicably, the boy throws the tin soldier into the fire, which is most likely the work of the jack-in-the-box goblin. A wind blows the ballerina into the fire with him; she is consumed by it. The maid cleans the fireplace in the morning and finds that the soldier has melted into a little tin heart, along with the ballerina's spangle, which is now burned as black as coal.

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  No Man's Ghost

  Jason Powell

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  Charles Davids is a probationary firefighter working his first week out of the academy. For Charles, quietly battling his lack of confidence is a daily challenge as his new officers coach him on life as a New York City firefighter. The men love to tease and prank the new guy, but when it comes to drilling and training, they’re clear that the job is no joke. As is said in the fire service: "let no man’s ghost return to say my training let me down." 
   
  Unfortunately for Charles, his first week is the same week that Alan Johnson, an unstable and soon-to-be-ex-husband, gets kicked out and comes up with the idea to report fake fires at his wife's apartment every night. Alan laughs at the thought of her being awakened nightly by sirens and horns – if he can’t sleep in their apartment, why the hell should she? But after days of crying wolf, Alan decides that fake fires aren’t enough… 
   
  Set on the hot summer streets of NYC and building to a fiery conclusion, No Man’s Ghost is a vibrant and thrilling look at the people who keep a city safe – and the ones who want to watch it burn.

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