Cutting between a courtroom trial and the events surrounding it, you will be racing through to the final tense pages, full of betrayal, revenge and shocking revelations in this Jack Parlabane thriller from the Scottish crime writer. It tells the potent story of a woman who thought she was too late for love, the man who falls for her ambition, and the secret selves that are poised at any moment to end everything. Diana Jager is clever, strong and successful, a skilled surgeon and fierce campaigner via her blog about sexism in medicine. Yet it takes only hours for her life to crumble when her personal details are released on the internet as revenge for her writing. Then she meets Peter, kind, generous, and knows nothing about her past - the second chance she's been waiting for. Within six months they are married. Within six more, Peter is dead in a road accident, a nightmare end to their fairy-tale romance, but Peter's sister Lucy doesn't believe in fairy tales, and tasks disgraced reporter Jack Parlabane with discovering the dark truth behind the woman the media is calling the Black Widow. Still smarting from his own relationship wounds after a turbulent divorce, Jack's investigation into matters of the heart takes him to hidden places, both online and off, where most would never dream of having to go. 422pp.

Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Trams, Glasgow and Preservation, this big glamorous volume concentrates on the big city systems that survived WWII. It provides a comprehensive narrative detailing a history of these operations from 1945 onwards with full fleet lists, maps and details of route openings and closures supported by almost 200 illustrations both in black and white and colour, many never before published. See the first horse-drawn services linking stations through to the closure of the last traditional tramway, Glasgow, in 1962. A number of horse cars were retained after the conversion just in case of a failure in the cable system. One of the more unusual trams to operate in Scotland was the single petrol-fuelled car operated by Stirling & Bridge of Allan Tramways Company Ltd between 1913 and 1920. Throughout the volume are fascinating glimpses of people, bold advertising, shop fronts, streets and houses and useful maps of the networks. Plus posters and tram tickets reproduced in colour, truly a nostalgic collection and information on where it is still possible to see Scotland's surviving first-generation trams in preservation. 144 very large glossy pages, illus.

Take in the dramatic and contrasting beauty of Scotland and experience both the traditional and popular poetry in verse while immersing yourself in images of peaceful lochs, beautiful trees, reflections on lakes and the emotion of Scottish verse to landscape. This programme was filmed entirely on location and is sure to evoke wonderful nostalgic memories of this beautiful terrain and scenery and stimulate your mind as you journey through a rich tapestry of this vibrant country accompanied by specially written traditional and ambient music. An ideal gift for all generations.

The mountains of the Highlands and the shores of the Lowlands provides some of the most glorious railway images north of the Border. Steam railway has been part of Britain's heritage for 200 years and in that time evolved from the cutting edge of technology, through the driving force of industrial expansion, to the accepted form of transport and more recently a much-loved living part of our industrial legacy. The classic Caledonian Railway's blue livery can still be seen on the SRPS Line at Bo'ness, whilst Highland grandeur lives along the valley of the River Spey on the Strathspey Railway. Numerous iconic steam trains travel the Scottish main lines and in this programme we see them heading towards Kyle of Lochalsh, across Rannoch Moor, over the Highland mountains at places such as Slocht Summit, eastward near Aberdeen and of course over the legendary Forth Bridge. Colour film running time 48 minutes on DVD.

We travel north of the border into bonnie Scotland with our irrepressibly enthusiastic narrator and naturalist, David Bellamy. He explores from ground and air the natural environments of Britain's premier wilderness landscapes: the Peak District, our first National Park; the dramatic Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland; and the North Pennines, the wild 'backbone' of Britain. In his enthusiastic company we enter a world of wild heather and open water, high mountains, ancient settlements and deep forests with the odd bit of bog and marsh. Stories abound with adventurous spirits, of old mole catchers and reed cutters, ghosts and wolves, of lost warriors and battlegrounds, blood-drinking ravens and stone-worshipping priests, and a glorious company of singers and heroes - Wordsworth and Brooke, King Arthur, Wallace and Montrose. Along the way David meets some of the people responsible for managing our remaining wilderness areas and the resources we reap from them, and some who still make their livelihood within them. A breath-taking journey, 92 minute colour film.

In collaboration with Sir Hew Strachan and the First World War historian Yvonne McEwen, editor Lizzie MacGregor in compiling this book reflects a longstanding interest in Scottish poetry in the first half of the 20th century. It is the story of Scotland at war, written in the poetry of the time in English, Gaelic and Scots, by servicemen, volunteers and those on the home front. Well-known soldier poets such as Charles Hamilton Sorley, E. A. Mackintosh, Domhnall Ruadh Choruna and Joseph Lee are joined by others who fought with their pens to chronical and comment on the war, among them Mary Symon, Neil Munro and Margaret Sackville. The book follows the war as it develops year by year and takes us from the very first 'Sough o' War' sweeping through the land, to the despair of the trenches and the anguish of the bereaved. There is unexpected humour and comradeship, women at work, men shattered by conflict, and the appalling tragedies of Gretna and the Iolaire, to post-war sorrow for a generation cast into the fire. A Vignette: 'On stark and tortured wire where refuse of war lies tangled in mire - when God is flinging rain down the skies - sit three little birds, singing.' - R. Watson Kerr. Throughout this volume is a strong sense of Scotland's identity, and in 1914, Scotland had produced proportionately more volunteers for Kitchener's New Armies than the rest of Britain. May Wedderbun Cannan in her poem 'To A Clerk, Now At the Wars' she envies the male clerk whom she has replaced because he is now freed to take an active part in the fighting. 152pp, nice clear layout for the poems.

A Scottish saga based on true events. It is 1881, and when a violent storm devastates the Scottish fishing village of Eyemouth, few families escape unscathed. Newlywed Rosabelle Maltman loses her husband, and her mother-in-law Effie lost her husband and three sons. For these women and their neighbours in the close-knit community life will never be the same again. Yet as the months pass, the women of Eyemouth must learn to look to the future, to live and to love again in a village almost devoid of men after the tragedy of the storm. We really get under the skin of the women like the rich girl, the mistress and the poor wonderful fishing families. 309pp, paperback.

A BBC Radio Four Book of the Week, part biography, part literary criticism, part exploration of Scottish identity, this is by far the best book on Sir Walter Scott. No writer has ever been as famous as Scott once was and none ever enjoyed such huge acclaim followed by such absolute neglect and outright hostility. But Scotland would not be Scotland except for Scott. All the icons of Scottishness have their roots in his novels, poems, public events and histories and it's a legacy both inspiring and constraining and just one of the ironies that fuse Scott and Scotland. Stuart Kelly reveals the paradox - the celebrity unknown, the nationalist unionist, the aristocrat loved by communists, the forward-looking reactionary. Part surreptitious autobiography, Stuart Kelly unveils a complex and contradictory man and the complex country he created in his witty and melancholy 'Voyage around my Fatherland' like no other. Sir Walter Scott was passionate, wholly European and the first truly global writer, heralded as inventing the historical novel. Chapters include The Royal Mile, Minstrelsy, Waverley, Ghosts, Ivanhoe, Captain Clutterbuck, Balmorality, Tartanry and Scotlandshire and The Last Works among them. 328pp, paperback.

A personal journey through the landscape of Scottish poetry, some poems are well known, others less familiar, but all are private gems that Alexander McCall Smith feels should be more widely shared. They range from early ballads through Robbie Burns to works of 20th century figures like MacDiarmid and Morgan and there are lines here that make the heart soar just as there are lines that may break it. Sir Alexander Gray - Scotland: 'Here in the Uplands the soil is ungrateful; the fields, red with sorrel, are stony and bare. A few trees, wind-twisted - or are they but bushes? Stand stubbornly guarding a home here and there.' And James Hogg - from A Bard's Address to His Youngest Daughter: 'Come to my arms my wee wee pet my mild my blithesome Harriet. The sweetest babe thou art to me that ever sat on parent's knee.' Grouped by Love and Marriage, Poems of Place, Islands, Childhood, Countryside and Animals, Birth, Joy and Life, War, Conflict and Loss with great names like Robert Louis Stevenson, George Mackay Brown, George Bruce, Violet Jacob, Nan Shepherd, Edwin Muir, Hamish Henderson, Muriel Spark and Iain Crichton Smith among them. One to dip into and enjoy time and again. 238pp, paperback.

From the Prologue: 'These men were, as Shakespeare had put it, 'but warriors for the working day'. Much can be learned from them: not least we learn the awfulness of war. They never questioned the rightness of what they were doing. Some of them were unfortunate in their backgrounds. They might have resented what they were being asked to do. All of them, certainly, were asked to do more than any man should be. But British soldiers, unlike the armies of their allies, never broke collectively: there were no mutinies.' This is the story of 72 men from one village who fought and died in the Great War. They were awarded very few medals, and their military careers were unremarkable, except in the respect that they, like countless other civilians, answered their country's call in its time of need. The war was not won by the professional soldiers of the original British Expeditionary Force, superlatively professional as it was, because by the end of 1915 it no longer existed, its place first taken by volunteers and then by conscripts. The book traces the lives of these sons of Bridge of Weir, not just as soldiers, sailors and airmen, but as members of a small community which felt their loss intensely. At the same time it is also the story of the politicians and generals who planned the war and how it played out over four horrific years. The men from Bridge of Weir fought on the Western Front, Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Salonika, the Italian Front and East Africa, in the Mercantile Marine, the RAF, and Canadian and ANZAC Forces as well as the British Army and Royal Navy. With the larger picture, the stories of the 72 men, the third intention of the book is to tell the story of the war, why it was fought, how it was fought and why it was fought in that way. A unique and poignant picture of the First World War. 259pp, paperback. Archive photos, two maps and a diagram of army structure and strength and the order in which the men died by name, rank, regiment, date of death, age and place.