Fine1stEditions March   
 Offers 

 

 
Welcome to our update for March.   
 
You will find  highlights of our latest stock in this update but as always there are many more titles available in the Just in category on the website:

  

 

 

New stock: 

 
Cometh the Hour
by Jeffrey Archer
 
*Signed First Edition*  


Cometh the Hour



Description:

Cometh the Hour opens with the reading of a suicide note, which has devastating consequences for Harry and Emma Clifton, Giles Barrington and Lady Virginia.

Giles must decide if he should withdraw from politics and try to rescue Karin, the woman he loves, from behind the Iron Curtain. But is Karin truly in love with him, or is she a spy?

Lady Virginia is facing bankruptcy, and can see no way out of her financial problems, until she is introduced to the hapless Cyrus T. Grant III from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who's in England to see his horse run at Royal Ascot.

Sebastian Clifton is now the Chief Executive of Farthings Bank and a workaholic, whose personal life is thrown into disarray when he falls for Nadira, a beautiful Indian girl. But her parents have already chosen the man she is going to marry. Meanwhile, Sebastian's rivals Adrian Sloane and Desmond Mellor are still plotting to bring him and his chairman Hakim Bishara down, so they can take over Farthings.

Harry Clifton remains determined to get Anatoly Babakov released from a gulag in Siberia, following the international success of his acclaimed book, Uncle Joe. But then something unexpected happens that none of them could have anticipated.
 
 
  
 


 
  
      
  And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
by William S. Burroughs & Jack Karouac  
*First Edition*  

And the Hippos Were Boiled  
 
Description:
 
    On August 14, 1944, Lucien Carr, a friend of William S. Burroughs from St. Louis, stabbed a man named David Kammerer with a Boy Scout knife and threw his body in the Hudson River. For eight years, Kammerer had fawned over the younger Carr, but that night something happened: either Carr had had enough or he was forced to defend himself.
 
 

The next day, his clothes stained with blood, Carr went to his friends Bill Burroughs and Jack Kerouac for help. Doing so, he involved them in the crime. A few months later, they were caught up in the crime in a different way.

Something about the murder captivated the Beats, especially Kerouac and Burroughs, who decided to collaborate on a novel about the events of the previous summer. At the time, the two authors were still unknown, yet to write anything of note. Narrating alternating chapters, they pieced together a hard-boiled tale of bohemian New York during World War II, full of drugs and art, obsession and violence, with scenes and characters drawn from their own lives.
 
  
 
  
  
   
  
  
  
  
  

      by Bill Bryson  
                *Signed First Edition*

  
A Walk in the Woods
          
Description:     
   
The Appalachian Trail trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America-majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you're going to take a hike, it's probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaining guide you'll find. He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way-and a couple of bears.     
  
 



  
Harlequin
by Bernard Cornwell
*Signed First Edition*
      
    
Harlequin

 
Description:  
 
Harlequins are lost souls, so loved by the devil that he would not take them to hell, but left them to roam the earth. In French the word is hellequin -- the name given to the English archers who crossed the Channel to lay a country to waste. Thomas of Hookton is one of those archers. When his village is sacked by French raiders, he makes a promise to God: to retrieve the relic stolen from Hookton's church. Escaping his father's ambitions, he becomes a wild youth who delights in the life of an army on the warpath.
Driven by his conscience and protected by his fearsome skills, he enters a world where lovers become enemies and enemies become friends, where his only certainty is that somewhere, beyond a horizon smeared with the smoke of fires set by the rampaging English army, a terrible enemy awaits him. This enemy would harness the power of Chistendom's greatest relic: the Grail itself. Here, in the first book of a new series, the quest begins. It leads him through the fields of France, to the village of Crecy where two great armies meet on the hillside to do battle.
 
 
  
  
  
 




  



 
  
The Day Gone By
by Richard Adams 
   *Signed First Edition* 
       
 

The Day Gone By
 
Description:
 
First volume of the autobiography of Richard Adams covering his early life in Taunton, undergraduate days at Oxford and experiences across Omagh, Palestine, Jerusalem, Egypt, Normandy, Denmark, Singapore and Bombay between 1940 and 1947. The account ends with Adams giving Latin tuition to the girl next-door who became his future wife. Adams' early years should be of particular interest to any devotee of the novels since they concern a plethora of incidents which first fired his enthusiasm for nature. The book may be of particular interest to anyone interested in the social history of the period from 1920 to the aftermath of World War II.  
  
  

 



  

The Sisters Brothers
by Patrick deWitt 
*Signed First Edition*


 
The Sisters Brothers
 
Description:
 
   Oregon, 1851. Eli and Charlie Sisters, notorious professional killers, are on their way to California to kill a man named Hermann Kermit Warm. On the way, the brothers have a series of unsettling and violent experiences in the Darwinian landscape of Gold Rush America. Charlie makes money and kills anyone who stands in his way; Eli doubts his vocation and falls in love. And they bicker a lot. Then they get to California, and discover that Warm is an inventor who has come up with a magical formula, which could make all of them very rich. What happens next is utterly gripping, strange and sad. Told in deWitt's darkly comic and arresting style, THE SISTERS BROTHERS is the kind of Western the Coen Brothers might write - stark, unsettling and with a keen eye for the perversity of human motivation.
  

  



 
  
             by  Harry Sidebottom         
        *Signed First Edition*


Lion of the Sun  
 
Description:
 
Mesopotamia, AD 260 Betrayed by his most trusted adviser, the Roman Emperor Valerian has been captured by the Sassanid barbarians. The shame of the vanquished beats down mercilessly like the white sun, as the frail old emperor prostrates himself before Sharpur, King of Kings. Ballista looks on helplessly, but vows under his breath to avenge those who have brought the empire to the brink of destruction with their treachery. One day, maybe not soon, but one day, I will kill you . . . But first he must decide what price he will pay for his own freedom. Only the fearless and only those whom the gods will spare from hell can now save the empire from a catastrophic ending. Ballista, the Warrior of Rome, faces his greatest challenge yet.   
 

 

   



  
  
  
  
  
 
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My Uncle Oswald
by Roald Dahl       
     *First Edition*  
 
My Uncle Oswald
 
Description:
 
 Uncle Oswald is, if you remember, the greatest rogue, bounder, connoisseur, bon vivant and fornicator of all time. Here, many famous names are mentioned and there is obviously a grave risk that families and friends are going to take offence... Uncle Oswald discovers the electrifying properties of the Sudanese Blister Beetle and the gorgeous Yasmin Howcomely, a girl absolutely soaked in sex, and sets about seducing all the great men of the time for his own wicked, irreverent reasons.


 

 
 
The Devil's Dictionary
    by Ambrose Bierce
*First Folio Edition*


The Devil_s Dictionary            
   
 

 
Description:
   
    Ambrose 'Bitter' Bierce was immortalised by The Devil's Dictionary. His series of satirical definitions and irreverent aphorisms first appeared from 1881 to 1886 in the columns of a provincial newspaper, impaling the sacred cows of civilised life - and much else besides - upon the spikes of his own mordant wit.

 


  
 

 

 








 
 
 
Nanny Ogg's Cookbook
 by Terry Pratchett

* First Edition* 
    
    
 
Nanny Ogg_s Cookbook
  




Description:
 
 
Nanny Ogg, one of Discworld's most famous witches, here passes on some of her huge collection of tasty and interesting recipes, since everyone else is doing it. In addition to such dishes as Nobby's Mum's Distressed Pudding, Mrs Ogg imparts her thoughts on such matters as life, death and courtship. 
Future Release:

Divided Souls
by Toby Clements   
*Signed First Edition* 

Divided Souls

  
Description:

   Lent, 1469

The recent wars between the House of York and the House of Lancaster seem over. The Yorkist King Edward sits on his throne in Westminster, while the Lancastrian claimants are in exile or under lock and key in the Tower.

But within the family of York there is discord. The Earl of Warwick conspires against his King, and while to one another's faces they are all smiles, their household men speak in lies and whispers.

No man comes to court unarmed.

Thomas and Katherine have returned to Marton Hall, the only home they know.

But what lies buried in the past cannot remain so for long, and soon they are forced to take up arms once more in one of the most savage wars in history.

The Wars of the Roses . .
 
 
 
  
 
  
  
 


Future Release: 

by Thomas Keneally  
*Signed First Edition*
 
          Napoleon_s Last Island
 
  Description:    

  
On the island of St Helena in the south Atlantic ocean, Napoleon spends his last years in exile. It is a hotbed of gossip, and secret liaisons, where a blind eye is turned to relations between colonials and slaves. The disgraced emperor is subjected to vicious and petty treatment by his captors, but he forges an unexpected ally: a rebellious British girl, Betsy, who lives on the island with her family and becomes his unlikely friend. Based on fact, Our Great Friend is the surprising story of one of history's most enigmatic figures and a British family who dared to associate with him. It is a tale of vengeance, duplicity and loyalty, and of a man whose charisma made him dangerous to the end.
        
 
 
  



Future Release:

by Vaseem Khan
*Signed First Edition*


The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown

Description:

For centuries the Koh-i-Noor diamond has set man against man and king against king.

Now part of the British Crown Jewels, the priceless gem is a prize that many have killed to possess.

So when the Crown Jewels go on display in Mumbai, security is everyone's principal concern. And yet, on the very day Inspector Chopra visits the exhibition, the diamond is stolen from under his nose.

The heist was daring and seemingly impossible. The hunt is on for the culprits. But it soon becomes clear that only one man - and his elephant - can possibly crack this case...
 
 
  


Future Release:

by Paul Torday
*Signed First Edition*



The Death of an Owl

 
Description:  
  
  Andrew Langford is driving home one night, along a dark country lane, when a barn owl flies into his windscreen. It is an accident, nothing more. However Andrew is in line to be the country's next prime minister. And he has recently been appointed to a parliamentary committee concerned with the Wildlife and Countryside Act. Barn Owls are protected species, and it is a crime to kill one. If Andrew acknowledges that he has killed the owl, he could be risking his political career.

With Andrew in the car is his old Oxford friend and political adviser, Charles Fryerne. An expert in communications, Charles has just joined the team that is masterminding Andrew's route to the Tory Party leadership, and from there to No 10 Downing Street. He has spent many years quietly building up a very successful career as a strategist.

But the death of the owl threatens to destroy not only Andrew's career, but everything that Charles has worked for too. Should they come clean, or hide the story and hope it goes away?
   
 
 
  
  


 


 
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