In the context of recent media scrutiny on the state of prisons in the UK, the efficacy of incarcerating large numbers of offenders is an issue which is rising steadily up the political agenda. In 2016, the Howard League for Penal Reform – an organization that has energetically lobbied for improvements in the treatment of offenders throughout its lifetime – celebrated its 150th anniversary.This book considers the life and work of Margery Fry, the woman who created the modern Howard...

The complete BBC radio adaptations of Alexander McCall's bestselling seriesInspired by Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, 44 Scotland Street started life as a serial in The Scotsman. It was a huge hit, and was soon novelised, adapted on stage and dramatised for BBC Radio 4. Collected here are all five radio series, in which we follow the interconnected lives of the residents of adjoining flats in a tenement in Edinburgh's Georgian New ...

All three series of Ronald Frame’s acclaimed drama set in a luxury hotel in the Scottish Highlands, plus ten spin-off storiesThe Carnbeg Hydro is a high-class spa resort set amidst the scenic wooded foothills of the Grampians. Over 100 years old, it’s a grand country hotel in the old tradition – but times have changed, and the Hydro must change with them. Following her husband’s death in a speedboat accident, Fee Drummond has taken over as managing director, and is...

Who are they? What are they? The souls of the long departed, or wicked manifestations of sin?Tales of ghosts and spectres have enthralled us since time began. From ghostly servants, spectral possession, a space-going ghostbuster, to Halloween horrors, wicked toads and missing children these tales bring chills and thrills.Ancient horrors, long-dead rockers, family secrets and helpful murder victims join them in providing the shivers and the quivers.Dare you venture w...

Full-cast adaptations of two Flashman novels, plus a standalone historical romp, a humorous short story and an interview with George MacDonald FraserScottish author George MacDonald Fraser took the loutish bully from Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown's Schooldays and gave him a new lease of life. Over the course of 12 novels, caddish anti-hero Flashman swashbuckled his way around the British Empire, playing a key role in some of the 19th century’s most significant ...

**Women Who DareIntrigue, Danger and Passion****One summer in New Orleans-Madeline Johnson** is determined to uncover the truth about her brother. His last words-a cry for help on Maddie's answering machine-contradict what the New Orleans police are telling her. The cops seem in a real hurry to close the case, and the one detective who may be able to help is about to go on vacation.Alex Batiste's vacation plans are set. His daughter's come t...

The story of Lucy Diggs Slowe, a pioneering African American figure in sports and educationBorn just twenty years after the end of slavery and orphaned at the age of five, Lucy Diggs Slowe (1885–1937) became a seventeen-time tennis champion and the first African American woman to win a major sports title, a founder of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, and the first Dean of Women at Howard University. She provided leadership and service in a wide range of organization...

All six episodes of the gloriously gritty comedy crime dramaTaggart meets A Touch of Cloth in this parody police procedural featuring DI Bob Boxer and his sidekick DC Shona Doberman. They're an unlikely couple of cops - he's grizzled, old-school and wears a cardigan; she's young, instinctive and wields a Blackberry. But together they tackle cases so tough, they'd make Frost flinch and Rebus run away...In Headless in Glasgow, a ser...

All 18 episodes of the police procedural featuring the Glaswegian cops of P DivisionGlasgow's finest are on the case in these thrilling radio adaptations, based on the books by Peter Turnbull.In the four-part serial Condition Purple, a murdered prostitute is found in the heart of Glasgow's prosperous business quarter. Could a tattoo on her body hold the key to finding her killer? In Two Way Cut, another four-parter, a headless body without...

A Queer Game of Disco & Cosmic Horror!Head west on Rose Island and you get to the pricey summertime communities like Saltwinne, Destiny Bay, or Dunewood. Head east and you'll find exclusive resort towns like Pinewood Harbor, Charmington, and Sunken Oak. But those city kids and artists looking to get away for a long weekend, they're heading right out to the middle of the island for that old gaycation getaway: Roseville Beach.You play the amateur sleuths prot...

A Sunday Telegraph and Times Higher Education 'Book of the Week', Deborah Cohen's Family Secrets is a gripping book about what families - Victorian and modern - try to hide, and why.In an Edinburgh town house, a genteel maiden lady frets with her brother over their niece's downy upper lip. Would the darkening shadow betray the girl's Eurasian heritage? On a Liverpool railway platform, a heartbroken mother hands over her eight-year old ill...

***NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller***There’s complicated. And there’s Rowen Sterling.After numbing pain for the past five years with boys, alcohol, and all-around apathy, she finds herself on a Greyhound bus to nowhere Montana the summer after she graduates high school. Her mom agreed to front the bill to Rowen’s dream art school only if Rowen proves she can work hard and stay out of trouble at Willow Springs Ranch. Cooking breakfast at the crack of dawn for a couple dozen ranch ...