Back Part 2: Into The Jungle follows the modern-day trekkers into the Laotian jungle as they travel to the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the tri-border area of Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, looking for what Mark’s grandfather, Spike, left behind on his 1968 Special Forces mission. They have to deal with psychological, natural, historical and Vietnam War-related problems which unexpectedly arise as they penetrate deeper into the jungle, including wild animals, booby traps and unexploded ordnance, as w...

Back Part 1: Across the Fence follows a covert 1968 Special Forces (SOG) mission to the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the jungles of Laos, led by Spike Miller. In alternating chapters it also follows the modern-day story as Spike, now dying of cancer, gives his grandson, Mark, a combat journal and asks him to go back to find something he left in the jungle before he was extracted at the end of that mission. Mark, his friend Brad (an ex-US Marine) and a group of students from NYU prepare to go back ...

Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the political and economic structures of the former German Democratic Republic are largely understood, yet many questions remain. What actually motivated the East Germans themselves? What common goals and values kept GDR society going and, until its unexpected collapse in 1989, seemed to make it into a relative success story? Building the East German Myth examines the East German communist party's propagandistic treatment of German high culture,...

At Marathon an army of Greek city states, including Sparta and Athens, met the Persian army of Darius. This was the key battle of Western civilisation, for Athens were defending not only their independence but their radical new political form, democracy. Alan Lloyd details the course of Athenian democracy, its religion and culture and the uneasy alliances with other city-states, such as Sparta. Out of this historical background Lloyd brings the battle alive with a story-teller's vitality, ...

Combining fictional characterisation and factual research Alan Lloyd asks who were these people who lived in Pompeii and what were their lives like in those last days before the disaster? Alan Lloyd, an acclaimed historian and novelist, breathes life into the ghosts that haunt the empty streets, quiet courtyards and silent rooms of Pompeii while stirring the imagination of everyone who has seen the well-preserved ruins of the ancient city. Through the eyes of Taras, Lloyd's imaginatively r...

A visceral history of Pompeii - the living city brought back to life.This startling new book concentrates on the twenty years between 59 and 79AD, thus beginning with the earthquake which all but destroyed Pompeii and ending with the volcanic eruption which has become part of our collective popular imagination.Alex Butterworth and Ray Laurence have synthesised the latest research into Pompeii to bring this period of flux and instability back to life. By con...

Pompeii was one of most advanced cities of its time; it had a complex water system, gymnasium, and an amphitheater. Despite it's advancements, there was one thing it wasn't ready for: Mount Vesuvius—the volcano that led to its ultimate doom.The 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius was one of the worst disasters in all of European history. In a near instant, over 15,000 people were dead and a city was completely destroyed.This book looks at the rise, fall, and rediscovery of the g...

Travel back in time to ancient Pompeii with "The Last Days of Pompeii" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a captivating and thrilling historical novel. Immerse yourself in a tale of love, intrigue, and tragedy at the heart of a city on the verge of being buried by the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius.In this enchanting narrative, you will meet Nydia, a blind slave with a tragic fate, Glaucus, a Roman nobleman, and Ione, a priestess of Isis. Their lives intersect in a complex web of lov...

“James Acton: A little bit of Jack Bauer and Indiana Jones!" FROM USA TODAY & MILLION-COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR J. ROBERT KENNEDY POMPEII IS ABOUT TO CLAIM ITS FINAL VICTIMS—TWO THOUSAND YEARS LATER!Two thousand years ago, Roman Emperor Vespasian tries to preserve an empire by hiding a massive treasure in the quiet town of Pompeii should someone challenge his throne. Unbeknownst to him, nature is about to...

A sweltering week in late August. Where better to enjoy the last days of summer than on the beautiful Bay of Naples? But even as Rome's richest citizens relax in their villas around Pompeii and Herculaneum, there are ominous warnings that something is going wrong. Wells and springs are failing, a man has disappeared, and now the greatest aqueduct in the world - the mighty Aqua Augusta - has suddenly ceased to flow. Through the eyes of four characters - a young engineer, an adolescent girl,...

A BOSTON GLOBE BEST CRIME BOOKA gripping art-world thriller about a struggling painter who agrees to forge a stolen Degas masterpiece, only to uncover a dangerous secret buried in the painting’s history.“Gripping.” —O, The Oprah MagazineAlmost twenty-five years after the infamous art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—still the largest unsolved art theft in history—one of the stolen Degas paintings is deli...

Two women separated by time are linked by the most famous murder mystery in history, the Princes in the Tower.Lady Katherine Grey has already suffered more than her fair share of tragedy. Newly pregnant, she has incurred the wrath of her formidable cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, who sees her as a rival to her insecure throne.Alone in her chamber in the Tower, she finds old papers belonging to a kinswoman of hers, Kate Plantagenet