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Find out moreAlan Judd has written numerous award-winning and highly acclaimed novels, including A Breed of Heroes, The Devil's Work and Legacy. A soldier and a diplomat, he reviews fiction for the Daily Telegraph and is the motoring correspondent for the Spectator.
From the author of Legacy, now a major BBC Film, comes a brilliant new historical crime novella for fans of Antonia Hodgson and CJ Sansom. `To Mr Thomas Combe my sword.' These six words in Shakespeare's will tell us that Shakespeare had a sword. Did he wear it? Did he use it? What sort was it? When and why did he get it? What happened to it? Might it - does it - still exist? These questions plague Simon Gold, an antiques dealer. He believes he has identified the sword as belonging to a customer, an unworthy owner indifferent to cultural icons and uninterested in history. Simon is desperate to acquire the sword, but how? How far is he prepared to go to get it? In alliance with Charlotte, his customer's attractive and disaffected wife, Simon finds himself going farther than he had intended - and finds, too, that Charlotte is rather more than she appears. Praise for Alan Judd:
A Maxim Jakubowski selected title. A Charles Thoroughgood spy thriller, authoritative, action-packed and, as ever, all-too topical. The second volume in the series, Legacy, is soon to be on TV and will surely bring much needed attention to an undervalued spy series by an author who is still better known for his automotive adventures and journalistic background. Detailing an unsteady collaboration between MI5 and MI6 when a protest group linked to a major political party is planning acts of terrorism and sabotage which connects with a Cold War case in Charles' own past. Elegant writing, an urbane and imperfect spook in the driving seat whom we have begun to know well over the series as he ages and matures like fine wine, and an unsettling attention to political realities, past and present, on a par with Le Carre, Charles Cumming and other ingenious experts of the genre make this a good read indeed. ~ Maxim Jakubowski
Charles Thoroughgood is now the recently-appointed chief of a reconstituted MI6, married to his predecessor's widow and tasked with halting the increasingly disruptive cyber attacks on Britain, which are threatening government itself and all the normal transactions of daily life - not to mention a missing nuclear missile-carrying submarine. At the same time another aspect of Charles Thoroughgood's past emerges with the murder of one of his former agents and the escape from prison of a former colleague turned traitor, whom Charles Thoroughgood had helped convict. Charles Thoroughgood ploughs a lonely furrow in Whitehall in his belief that all these elements are connected, a theory which dramatically gains credibility when his wife, Sarah, is kidnapped.
From the author of Legacy, now a major BBC Film, comes a brilliant new novel for fans of le Carre, Graham Greene and Charles Cumming. Charles Thoroughgood is now the recently-appointed chief of a reconstituted MI6, tasked with halting the increasingly disruptive cyber attacks on Britain, which are threatening government itself and all the normal transactions of daily life - not to mention a missing nuclear missile-carrying submarine. The murder of one of Thoroughgood's former agents and the escape from prison of a former colleague turned traitor, whom Charles helped convict, brings danger on all sides.Thoroughgood ploughs a lonely furrow in Whitehall in his belief that all these elements are connected, a theory which dramatically gains credibility when his wife, Sarah, disappears.
A reconstruction of the final days of Hitler’s life in the bunker and of his relationship with Eva Braun, seen through the eyes of two fictional characters, her secretary and a bunker guard, who meet sixty years later and piece the whole thing together through reminiscing on their experiences. We get the historical fact mixed with their story in one of the most impressive novels I have read in a long time. Just take a glance at the reviews and then get as hooked as I was. The wonderful spare writing adds to the horror of the tale.Comparison: Bernhard Schlink, Rachel Seiffert, Francis Cottam.
After university and Sandhurst, Charles Thoroughgood has now joined the Assault Commandos and is on a four-month tour of duty in Armagh and Belfast. The thankless task facing him and his men -- to patrol the tension-filled streets through weeks of boredom punctuated by bursts of horror -- takes them through times of tragedy, madness, laughter and terror. Alan Judd tells Thoroughgood's tale with verve, compassion and humour. The result is an exceptionally fine novel which blends bitter human incident with army farce.
Charles Thoroughgood, hero of Alan Judd's classic A Breed of Heroes, has left the army to be trained by MI6 in the arts of the Cold War. Nothing could prepare him, however, for the unexpected inheritance left him by his late father, which leads him back into an old school friendship with Viktor, a Russian diplomat living in London, and beyond that into the murky world of Soviet espionage at the height of the nuclear threat to the West.
Ford Madox Ford is best known for two fictional masterpieces: The Good Soldier and the Great War tetralogy, Parade's End. Indeed, it was reading the former that first persuaded Alan Judd to write this superb biography. Graham Greene once strikingly pronounced, 'There is no novelist of this century more likely to live than Ford Madox Ford.' Even if that is debatable there is no denying his importance in the literary firmament of the first thirty years of the twentieth-century. He founded the English Review which can claim to have discovered D. H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis. In the 1920s he founded the Transatlantic Review which published work by James Joyce, Ezra Pound, e.e. cummings, Gertrude Stein and Jean Rhys. Two of Ford Madox Ford's passions were conversation and women. It is often said he only seduced the latter to carry on the former! Alan Judd's biography is a brilliant rehabilitation of a literary figure who has still not been accorded his rightful place. On first publication it received dazzling reviews. 'It is a marvellous book, intelligent, sympathetic, comprehensive, worthy of Ford.' Allan Massie, Sunday Telegraph 'Mr Judd never bores. He is shrewd about the novel in general and Ford in particular.' Gore Vidal, Times Literary Supplement 'Indulgent, energetic, and immensely readable.' Richard Holmes, The Times 'Alan Judd has been drawn into Ford's embattlement and defends him staunchly and imaginatively.' A. S. Byatt, Guardian 'What Judd rightly emphasises is that Ford was a giver, believing that the preservation and furtherance of artistic talent was his permanent responsibility.' Frank Kermode, London Review of Books
Seabed fluid flow involves the flow of gases and liquids through the seabed. Such fluids have been found to leak through the seabed into the marine environment in seas and oceans around the world - from the coasts to deep ocean trenches. This geological phenomenon has widespread implications for the sub-seabed, seabed, and marine environments. Seabed fluid flow affects seabed morphology, mineralization, and benthic ecology. Natural fluid emissions also have a significant impact on the composition of the oceans and atmosphere; and gas hydrates and hydrothermal minerals are potential future resources. This book describes seabed fluid flow features and processes, and demonstrates their importance to human activities and natural environments. It is targeted at research scientists and professionals with interests in the marine environment. Colour versions of many of the illustrations, and additional material - most notably feature location maps - can be found at www.cambridge.org/9780521819503.
A fictionalised account of the Kaiser Wilhelm's last years in Nazi-occupied Holland. It is 1940 and the exiled Kaiser is living in Holland, at his palace Huis Doorn.The old German king spends his days chopping logs and musing on what might have been. When the Nazis invade Holland, the Kaiser's Dutch staff are replaced by SS guards, led by young, eager Untersturmfuhrer Krebbs, and an unlikely relationship develops between the king and his keeper. While they agree on the rightfulness of German expansion and on holding the country's Jewish population accountable for all ills, they disagree on the solutions. Krebbs's growing attraction and love affair with Akki, a Jewish maid in the house, further undermines his belief in Nazism. But as the tides of war roll around them, all three find themselves increasingly compromised and gravely at risk. This subtle, tender novel borrows heavily from real history and events, but remains a work of superlative, literary fiction.Through Judd's depiction of the Lear-like Kaiser and the softening of brutal Krebbs, the novel draws unique parallels between Germany at the turn of the 20th century and Hitler's Germany.
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