The Silver SwanTime has moved on for Quirke, the world weary Dublin pathologist first encountered in Christine Falls. It is the middle of the 1950s, that low, dishonourable decade; a woman he loved has died, a man whom he once admired is dying, while the daughter he for so long denied is still finding it hard to accept him as her father. When Billy Hunt, an acquaintance from college days, approaches him about his wife's apparent suicide, Quirke recognises trouble

A time of golden job opportunities

Ruth knows exactly what she should do in the best interests of her client

At last the Crimean War is over

I think I've just got problems to fix

ensure the reader is gripped from the first page to the last by this incredible story' John Nichol

the maid who's a trafficked worker

'A rollicking romp of a book

escaped slave

and the queen with a crown of feathers to whom Raine has already promised more than she can afford to give

Persephone realises that there are choices she can make for herself

but sometimes

but Taleb is well aware that no-one in Algeria wants to be reminded of the dark deeds carried out in the struggle for independence - or in the violence that has racked the nation since