Other books that might interest you

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  Calling Detective Crockford

  Ruth D'Alessandro

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  This nostalgic and absorbing memoir tells the story of a real-life female police detective in post-war Britain, as she navigates a man's world. 
   
  It's 1956, and the Berkshire Constabulary has never had a woman detective before. That is, until bright and ambitious WPC Gwen Crockford passes out of Hendon Detective Training School with flying colours... 
   
  After five years serving as one of Britain's first policewomen, Gwen Crockford becomes one of its first female detectives. Swapping crime prevention for detection, she must soon become comfortable with attending murder scenes and post-mortems, investigating sex crimes and going undercover. Her police work is diverse and challenging: dealing with Teddy boy violence, arson, a paedophile 'war hero', and solving an unexplained death are all part of her remit. 
   
  Gwen is sharp and quick to learn, considered 'one of the boys' by her colleagues, DS Kinch and DS Le Mercier. Until, that is, the traumatizing death of a child, the arrival of a new sexist DS, and near-zero opportunity for promotion force Gwen to reevaluate her career. 
   
  Written and researched by Gwen's daughter Ruth from family papers, remembered stories from her mother and contemporary newspapers, this is a fascinating insight into late-1950s society and the challenges faced by female police officers. 
   
  This is the second book in the Crockford series, following Calling WPC Crockford – Gwen's time as a pioneering uniform policewoman in the early 1950s.

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  The Trials of Nurse Kerr - The...

  Scott Bainbridge

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  In 1992, builders demolishing a Devonport home stumbled across a skeleton, triggering an investigation that sent shockwaves across the community. The remains belonged to a woman who had died in the 1930s, and whispers soon emerged of the deadly legacy of Nurse Elspeth Kerr. Now all but forgotten, a series of court trials gripped New Zealand in the early 1930s. Nurse Elspeth Kerr was formally accused of poisoning her husband, her foster daughter and an elderly resident at her Devonport nursing home, and other victims were also suspected. Bodies were exhumed, top lawyers were engaged, expert witnesses were called, and the public waited with baited breath for each next revelation. The Trials of Nurse Kerr lays out the untold story of Elspeth Kerr, her victims and the twists and turns of bringing the case to justice. Applying a modern understanding of poisoning cases to the events of the time, and with his trademark meticulous research and insight, Scott Bainbridge reveals the tale of a woman who may well have been New Zealand's most prolific poisoner.

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  Travels with a donkey in the...

  Robert Louis Stevenson

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  "Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes" is a classic travel memoir written by Robert Louis Stevenson. The book recounts Stevenson's journey through the Cévennes region of France in 1878. The author embarked on this trek with a donkey named Modestine, and the narrative captures the landscapes, people, and challenges encountered during the journey.

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  How the Saints Shaped History

  Randall Petrides

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  In every era of the Catholic Church, holy men and women have shaped history through their gifts and talents and, most importantly, through their resolute commitment to Jesus Christ. Some led armies, some founded monasteries, some lived a radical call to charity—and each one had a unique part to play. 
   
   
   
  How the Saints Shaped History focuses on the essential role of the saints, as vessels of God's grace, in moving the Church (and the world!) through her two-thousand-year history. Written especially for everyday Catholics hungry to learn more about the Faith, this book is both comprehensive and accessible. It tells the story of how more than 180 saints, from Saint Mary Magdalene to Pope Saint John Paul II, led the Church through many crises and back to her spiritual roots. 
   
   
   
  As our Church continues to face crises, this book reminds us that we still have reason to hope in our own time. As the providential hand of God worked through the saints to shape history, each of us is called to become a new saint to shape the history of the Church today.

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  A Haunted House - From their...

  Virginia Woolf

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  Adeline Virginia Woolf was born on the 25th January 1882 in South Kensington in London. 
  Although lauded as a founder of modernist writing with such classics as ‘Orlando’, ‘Mrs Dalloway’ and ‘To the Lighthouse’ and, of course, many classic short stories, her background is filled with elements of tragedy that she somehow overcame to become such a revered writer.   Her mother died when she was 13, her half-sister Stella two years later and with it her first of several nervous breakdowns.  Appallingly it was later found that three of her half-brothers had sexually abused her so darkness must have seemed ever present.   
  She began writing professionally at age 20 but her father’s death two years later brought a complete mental collapse and she was briefly institutionalised.  Somehow she found within herself a literary career and with it great innovations in writing; she was a pioneer of “stream of consciousness”.    
  Her tight circle of friends were the founders of the Bloomsbury Group, a movement whose legacy still influences across the arts and society in many way to this day.   
  Whilst the dark periods continued to interrupt her emotional state her rate of work never ceased.  Until, on 28th March 1941, Woolf put on her overcoat, filled up its pockets with stones, and walked into the River Ouse, in Lewes, East Sussex and drowned herself.  Her body was not recovered until the 18th April.  She was 59. 
  She left behind a note which read in part “Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again.  I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times.  And I shan't recover this time.  I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate.  So I am doing what seems the best thing to do”.

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  Inside the Mind of Jeffrey...

  Christopher Berry-Dee

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  Sunday Times bestselling author Christopher Berry-Dee seeks to understand the motivation, the amoral urges and the merciless horror behind Dahmer's inhuman behaviourSunday Times bestselling author Christopher Berry-Dee is the man who talks to serial killers. A world-renowned investigative criminologist, he has gained the trust of murderers across the world, entered their high security prisons, and discussed in detail their shocking crimes. Berry-Dee now delves into the mind of perhaps the most sadistic and psychopathic killer of all time.Between 1978 and 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer murdered and dismembered seventeen boys and men. But he is most notorious for what happened to his victims after their grisly deaths and the shocking depravity that led to Dahmer being dubbed the ‘Milwaukee Cannibal’.Using his long experience and psychological expertise, Berry-Dee seeks to understand the motivation, the amoral urges and the merciless horror behind Dahmer's inhuman behaviour: what could make a man do this?

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