Showing Books By Publisher : ABACUS

Invisible Helix

'The Japanese Stieg Larsson' The Times Detective Galileo, Keigo Higashino's best loved character from The Devotion of Suspect X, returns in a case where hidden history, and impossible crime, are linked by nearly invisible threads in surprising ways. The body of a young man is found floating in Tokyo Bay. But his death was no accident-Ryota Uetsuji was shot. He'd been reported missing the week before by his live-in girlfriend Sonoka Shimauchi, but when detectives from the Homicide Squad go to interview her, she is nowhere to be found. She's taken time off from work, clothes and effects are missing from the apartment she shared. And when the detectives learn that she was the victim of domestic abuse, they presume that she was the killer. But her alibi is airtight-she was hours away in Kyoto when Ryota disappeared, forcing Detectives Kusanagi and Utsumi to restart their investigation. But if Sonoko didn't kill her abusive lover, then who did? A thin thread of association leads them to their old consultant, brilliant physicist Manabu Yukawa, known in the department as "Detective Galileo." With Sonoko still missing, the detectives investigate other threads of association-an eccentric artist, who was Sonoko's mother figure after her own single mother passed; and an older woman who is the owner of a hostess club. And how is Sonoko continuing to stay one step ahead of the police searching for her? It's up to Galileo to find the nearly hidden threads of history and coincidence that connect the people around the bloody murder- which, surprisingly, connect to his own traumatic past-to unravel not merely the facts of the crime but the helix that ties them all together.

Everything I Never Told You

Lydia is the favourite child of Marilyn and James Lee; a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue - in Marilyn's case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James's case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the centre of every party. But Lydia is under pressures that have nothing to do with growing up in 1970s small town Ohio. Her father is an American born of first-generation Chinese immigrants, and his ethnicity, and hers, make them conspicuous in any setting. When Lydia's body is found in the local lake, James is consumed by guilt and sets out on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to make someone accountable, no matter what the cost. Lydia's older brother, Nathan, is convinced that local bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it's the youngest in the family - Hannah - who observes far more than anyone realizes and who may be the only one who knows what really happened. Everything I Never Told You is a gripping page-turner, about secrets, love, longing, lies and race.

The Universe In A Single Atom

In this rare personal investigation, His Holiness the Dalai Lama discusses his vision of science and faith working hand in hand to alleviate human suffering. Drawing on a lifetime of scientific study and religious practice, he explores the great debates and makes astonishing connections between seemingly disparate topics - such as evolution and karma - that will change the way we look at the world. While he sees science and faith as 'complementary but different investigative approaches with the same goal of seeking the truth,' the fact is that the two have often been at the root of human conflict for centuries. The Dalai Lama challenges us to see that the benefits of opening our hearts and minds to the connections between science and faith are far preferable to perpetuating the divisive rhetoric that often surrounds them. Now, as we face such troubled and uncertain times, the need has never been greater for this extraordinary man's compassion and wisdom.

The Goldfinch

Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her-a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love-and his talisman, the painting, places him at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph-a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate.

Salvation of a Saint

When a man is discovered dead by poisoning in his empty home his beautiful wife, Ayane, immediately falls under suspicion. All clues point to Ayane being the logical suspect, but how could she have committed the crime when she was hundreds of miles away? As Tokyo police detective Kusanagi tries to unpick a seemingly unrelated sequence of events he finds himself falling for Ayane. When his judgement becomes dangerously clouded his assistant must call on an old friend for help; it will take a genius to unravel the most spectacular web of deceit they have ever faced... SALVATION OF A SAINT is a magnificently complex and page-turning thriller starring international crime fiction's most enigmatic sleuth. This is essential reading for all fans of exceptional crime fiction.

Walking on Glass

'Her eyes were black, wide as though with some sustained surprise, the skin from their outer corners to her small ears taut. Her lips were pale, and nearly too full for her small mouth, like something bled but bruised. He had never seen anyone or anything quite so beautiful in his life.' Graham Park is in love. But Sara Fitch is an enigma to him, a creature of almost perverse mystery. Steven Grout is paranoid - and with justice. He knows that They are out to get him. They are. Quiss, insecure in his fabulous if ramshackle castle, is forced to play interminable impossible games. The solution to the oldest of all paradoxical riddles will release him. But he must find an answer before he knows the question. Park, Grout, Quiss - no trio could be further apart. But their separate courses are set for collision.

Heat And Dust

Heat and Dust is a complex narrative by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and it has two parallel stories. The narrator comes to India to find out about the scandalous past of her step-grandmother, Olivia. The narrator’s life is set in the post-colonial era, while Olivia’s life is set in the British Raj. Olivia was married to the narrator’s grandfather Douglas during the British Raj. She feels choked with the British social restrictions and longs for independence. Olivia is attracted to the Nawab of Khatm and starts a passionate relationship with him. She kicks up a furore in the town of Satipur, though, once she gets pregnant with the Nawab’s baby. The narrator is curious to understand Olivia’s motivation behind her actions, and she puts together Olivia’s life, and her experiences in India. Both the stories are based in different times in India, and the profound impact of India on both the characters is strongly portrayed. Heat and Dust has also been adapted into a movie, which was released in the year 1983 and was critically acclaimed. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was born on May 7, 1927, in Germany. She is a Booker Prize-winning novelist, and has won the Academy Award twice for her screen adaptations, Howards End and A Room With A View. Her other literary works include The Householder, Nature of Passion, To Whom She Will, and Get Ready for the Battle. She is a naturalized citizen of the United States, and often stays in New Delhi too. She married Cyrus H. Jhabvala, and they have three daughters - Firoza, Ava, and Renana.

Sea Glass

Sex And The City

'Bushnell's beat is that demi-monde of nightclubs, bars, restaurants and parties where the rich come into contact with the infamous, the famous with the wannabes and the publicity-hungry with the gossip-peddlers' EVENING STANDARD Wildly funny, unexpectedly poignant, wickedly observant, SEX AND THE CITY blazes a glorious, drunken cocktail trail through New York, as Candace Bushnell, columnist and social critic par excellence, trips on her Manolo Blahnik kitten heels from the Baby Doll Lounge to the Bowery Bar. An Armistead Maupin for the real world, she has the gift of assembling a huge and irresistible cast of freaks and wonders, while remaining faithful to her hard core of friends and fans: those glamorous, rebellious, crazy single women, too close to forty, who are trying hard not to turn from the Audrey Hepburn of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S into the Glen Close of FATAL ATTRACTION, and are - still - looking for love.

The Man Who Knew Infinity

The Man Who Knew Infinity is a fascinating biography of the brilliant, self-taught Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan. It is also a history of the astonishingly fruitful cross-cultural collaboration between this young, ill-educated mathematical genius and his mentor at Cambridge University, G H. Hardy-a relationship that turned the world of mathematics upside down before it withered and died through a combination of Indian bureaucratic short-sightedness, superstition, English spiritual asceticism and the First Word War.

The Vault

In a hospital basement in Stockholm, two bullet-riddled bodies lie sprawled on the floor-the victims of a terrifying hostage siege. Behind the tragedy lie dark secrets- of a murder, corruption and torture

The Tipping Point

It's a book about change. In particular, it's a book that presents a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does. For example, why did crime drop so dramatically in New York City in the mid-1990's? How does a novel written by an unknown author end up as national bestseller? Why do teens smoke in greater and greater numbers, when every single person in the country knows that cigarettes kill? Why is word-of-mouth so powerful? What makes TV shows like Sesame Street so good at teaching kids how to read? I think the answer to all those questions is the same. It's that ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. The Tipping Point is an examination of the social epidemics

Shantaram

Abacus March 24, 2005, London, 2005. Binding is Paperback. Book Condition: Near Fine. A tight unmarked crisp softcover edition. At the start of this massive, thrillingly undomesticated potboiler, a young Australian man bearing a false New Zealand passport that gives his name as "Lindsay" flies to Bombay some time in the early '80s. On his first day there, Lindsay meets the two people who will largely influence his fate in the city. One is a young tour guide, Prabaker, whose gifts include a large smile and an unstoppably joyful heart. Through Prabaker, Lindsay learns Marathi (a language not often spoken by gora, or foreigners), gets to know village India and settles, for a time, in a vast shantytown, operating an illicit free clinic. The second person he meets is Karla, a beautiful Swiss- American woman with sea-green eyes and a circle of expatriate friends. Lin's love for Karla--and her mysterious inability to love in return-- gives the book its central tension. "Linbaba's" life in the slum abruptly ends when he is arrested without charge and thrown into the hell of Arthur Road Prison. Upon his release, he moves from the slum and begins laundering money and forging passports for one of the heads of the Bombay mafia, guru/sage Abdel Khader Khan. Eventually, he follows Khader as an improbable guerrilla in the war against the Russians in Afghanistan. There he learns about Karla's connection to Khader and discovers who set him up for arrest. Roberts, who wrote the first drafts of the novel in prison, has poured everything he knows into this book and it shows.