Meet Tom Robertson, your septuagenarian guide to an alternative and unknown Scotland - a Scotland inhabited by African ghosts, monstrous mountain-roaming creatures and castle-dwelling vampires. On the surface, Tom appears to be an average pensioner quietly winding down his life. Appearances, however, can be deceptive. Tom has an amazing story to tell. In fact, Tom has several amazing stories to tell, because he has devoted much of his existence to a strange and unusual obsession that broug...

In a time when greed is good and money talks, one man has had enough of living in the big, rotten apple. 1986 is coming to an end, the economy is booming, Manhattan looks beautifully white and festive from the back of his private limo. From the outside he seems to have it all, the great job, the money, the clothes, the looks, the women but Toby Robinson is having a crisis of conscience. A typical small town guy who just wanted to make it big in the city but no sooner had his dreams came tr...

A household name, an Australian rock icon, the elder statesman of Ozrock - there isn't an accolade or cliche that doesn't apply to Jimmy Barnes. But long before Cold Chisel and Barnesy, long before the tall tales of success and excess, there was the true story of James Dixon Swan - a working class boy whose family made the journey from Scotland to Australia in search of a better life.Working Class Boy is a powerful reflection on a traumatic and violent childhood, which fue...

He arrived to rally the troops, the main man in the Inter City Firm and his greeting passed into football fan history. 'Afternoon, gentlemen, the name's Bill Gardner.' That introduction alone was often enough to provoke sheer terror in his opponents. He is a genuine legend to anyone who's ever stood proud on a football terrace. No serious book on the culture would be complete without at least one mention of him. And now at last, he's telling his own, long-awaited story. For the first time,...

In the final instalment in his autobiographical trilogy, Robert Douglas takes us through the sixties and into the eighties with his memories of life as a prison officer, and, at the end of his career, as an electricity chargehand driving around the Yorkshire Dales. He tells us of his prison experiences, with anecdotes about many of the most famous criminals in British history -- the Krays, the Richardsons, the Great Train Robbers, Soviet spies and many more. Told in the same endearing and ...

The must-have annual anthology for every crime fiction fan - the year's top new British short stories selected by leading crime critic Maxim Jakubowski.This great annual covers the full range of mystery fiction, from noir and hardboiled crime to ingenious puzzles and amateur sleuthing. Packed with top names such as: Ian Rankin (including a new Rebus), Alexander McCall Smith, David Hewson, Christopher Brookmyre, Simon Kernick, A.L. Kennedy, Louise Walsh, Kate Atkinson, Colin Bateman...

The son of dysfunctional and destitute parents secures employment as a member of the morning breakfast staff in Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel.The job affords the boy a respite from his father’s profound apathy and his mother’s obsession with religion. His father Paddy, an ex-British army soldier, considers his marriage to Molly to be a greater threat to his existence than his life and death struggles in the trenches during the Great War. Molly considers her life with the unemployed Padd...

A newly-wed American Vietnam vet goes on a journey of self-discovery, circling Ireland's coastline on foot with a donkey and cart in this memoir.Kevin O'Hara's journey begins as a mad lark: who in their right mind would try to circle the entire coastline of Ireland on foot—and with a donkey and cart no less?But Kevin had promised his homesick Irish mother that he would explore the whole of the Old Country and bring back the sights and the stories to their hom...

From reports of haunted castles, hotels, public houses, chapels and churchyards, to heart-stopping accounts of apparitions, poltergeists and related supernatural phenomena, this collection of stories contains both well-known and hitherto unpublished tales from around the city of Aberdeen. This spine-tingling selection includes Fyvie Castle, home to the Green Lady; Aberdeen Central Library, where the ghost of a former librarian still helps customers; the Four Mile Inn, whos...

Rikki Fulton was one of the biggest stars Scotland has produced. From classic comedy performances in Francie and Josie and Scotch & Wry - including the legendary Rev I M Jolly - and appearances in Hollywood movies like Gorky Park, Rikki had an extraordinary life and career. Now, to celebrate his life and work ten years after his passing, this new edition of Is It That Time Already? tells the full story - from Rikki's childhood in Glasgow in the 1930s to his experiences in the Royal Navy du...

Some memories of childhood are impossible to forget. For author Grace Thomson, the memories of her experiences of growing up during World War II in Scotland have lasted a lifetime. When the Luftwaffe bombed her small town, she and her family were forced to endure hardships daily. Grace writes of her parents struggles to feed and clothe their children when they were faced with rationing the most basic necessities of life. There were years of hunger when she ate tree leaves to fill her empty...

Steve Halliwell is best known as the loveable patriarch Zak Dingle in the hit TV show Emmerdale, a part he has played since 1994 and which has led him to become one of the UK's most recognisable and treasured soap stars. Yet before he found success on the Yorkshire Dales, Halliwell spent many years desperately seeking work, often spending time on the streets in the search of food. This warts-and-all story of Halliwell's rise to fame, where success was only won after great ...