The documentary filmmaker and art critic Ben Lewis tells the story of the world's most expensive painting in formidably researched detail. His patient historical investigation into the history, discovery and sales of Leonardo da Vinci's last painting the Salvator Mundi establishes the truth ? like nailing down jelly. He unravels the complex and often murky history that led to the final sale of the painting for 450 million dollars in a story populated by characters like the soft-spoken but ambitious art dealer, the Russian oligarch in the middle of a messy divorce, the shadowy Swiss storage king who sidelines as a dealer, the Saudi prince eager to polish his reputation with high art. Lewis interweaves the many threads into the story of the dramatic restoration, sale and resale of the Salvator Mundi, and casts serious doubts on its authenticity as an autographic work. It is hard not to be enraptured with what is a pacy detective story as Lewis finds troubling facts that undermine the authenticity of the painting and suggests that the lawyers are going to be kept busy at auction houses, as art buyers, galleries and art historians are asked awkward questions. He thunders that the painting is the most vivid symbol of 'dysfunctionality within the ecosystem of art'. There is so much money at stake it makes your head spin and here is a twisting tale of conspiracies, money-laundering, double-crossing and disappearances from Leonardo's studio to Christie's Auction House with sheikhs and academics fighting over a 500 year old painting of Christ - which may or not be by Leonardo da Vinci - and which has now disappeared. 407pp, paperback, colour photos.

Sub-titled 'How Russians, the Rich and the Government Try to Prevent Free Speech and How to Stop Them', the author argues that the British tradition of 'free speech' is a myth. For centuries the law of defamation has worked to cover up misbehaviour by the rich and powerful whose legal mercenaries intimidate those who seek to expose it. Now through misguided judicial development of the laws of privacy, breech of confidence and data protection, a new terror has been added to suppress the supporting of truths of public importance. This is lawfare, in which journalists and authors struggle against unfair rules and a cost burden that runs to the millions. Law schools do not teach freedom of speech, and judges in the Supreme Court do not understand it. Drawing upon the author's unparalleled experience in court rooms over the past 50 years, the book identifies and advocates the reforms that will be necessary before Britain can truly boast that it is a land of free speech rather than a place where free speech can become very expensive. Robertson represented the editors of Oz, Gay News, The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal, the publishers of Spycatcher and Salman Rushdie and Julian Assange. In 2022 he was sanctioned by the Kremlin. With his typical insight and wit he shows how media law can be a stumbling block, and this is an essential read at a time when so many governments are weaponizing the law to intimidate those who speak truth to power. Is this a battle ever won? 150pp.

Sub-titled 'From the Beat to the Screen, My Life As A Female Detective', here is the jaw dropping reality facing women cops. This gritty memoir from a former DCI and the inspiration for a legendary TV Detective Jane Tennison in Lynda La Plant's Prime Suspect, Jackie Malton was a no-nonsense girl from Leicestershire. She joined the police force in the 1970s, a time of sex segregation in the police force. Male recruits were given a truncheon and female recruits received a handbag. Jackie was determined to become a detective and worked in CID and the famous Flying Squad before rising to become one of only three female detective chief inspectors in the Metropolitan Police. She describes the struggles she faced as a gay woman where sexism and homophobia were rife and how she dealt with rapists, wife beaters, murderers, blackmailers and armed robbers. But it was tackling the corruption in her own station that proved the most challenging. She describes life in the Sweeney, the Fraud Squad and as a hostage negotiator and as a consultant on many police dramas including Cracker, The Bill and Life on Mars and of course revisiting the most notorious murder cases for the TV series The Real Prime Suspect. 'Searingly honest, shocking and funny.' Her final words are to express gratitude to the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. 302pp.

Sub-titled 'Eleven Deadly Substances and the Killers Who Used Them' this is "a fascinating tale of poisons and poisonous deeds" according to Kathy Reichs. Original and invigorating, this is a tremendously entertaining dip into the workings of crime from a scientific basis. As any reader of murder mysteries can tell you, poison is one of the most enduring and popular weapons of choice for a scheming murderer. It can be slipped into a drink, smeared onto the tip of an arrow or handle of a door, even filtered through the air we breathe. But how exactly do these poisons work to break our bodies down, and what can we learn from the damage they inflict? In a fascinating blend of popular science, medical history and narrative crime, Dr Neil Bradbury explores this most morbidly captivating method of murder from a cellular level. Alongside real-life accounts of murderers and their crimes, some forgotten, some still unsolved, are the equally compelling stories of the poisons involved - eleven molecules of death that work their way through the human body and paradoxically illuminate the way in which our bodies function. Here are fascinating tales of spurned lovers, shady scientists, medical professionals and political assassins, from the deadly origins of the gin and tonic cocktail to the arsenic-laced wallpaper in Napoleon's bedroom. Chapters include Insulin and Mrs Barlow's Bathtub, Strychnine and the Lambeth Poisoner, Aconite and Mrs Singh's Curry, Cyanide and the Professor from Pittsburgh, Potassium and the Nightmare Nurse and Chlorine and the Killer Nurse of Lufkin among them. Rumpole of the Bailey author once said 'As a rule, women are the great poisoners, although I do recall with pleasure the case of the gentleman solicitor in Wales who poisoned everybody in sight. He couldn't stop himself.' 291pp.

The award-winning journalist and cricket writer turns his journalism to focus on the most remarkable agent of the Second World War. In February 1941, a young Indian walked into the Italian Embassy in Kabul claiming to be a cook. He emerged as a spy, working for the Italians, Germans, Japanese, Soviets and the British, the only quintuple spy of the war. The Nazis awarded him the Iron Cross, Germany's highest military decoration, and paid him £2.5 million, never suspecting that he was actually working for the British and Russians, and controlled by Peter Fleming. The Englishman gave him the codename Silver, and working from the gardens of the Viceregal Palace in Delhi, the pair used the transmitters the Germans had provided to broadcast misleading military information directly to the Abwehr headquarters in Berlin. Silver made 12 trips from India to Kabul, always on foot over mountain passes and hostile tribal territory. A Hindu, he successfully passed himself off as a Muslim and dealt with Nazi intrigues to enlist Muslim Mullahs to revolt against the British. Mihir Bose, who corresponded with Silver and interviewed his associates, has carried out extensive research into previously secret documents from all countries to tell the story of this prince among spies. 'A document concerning the Punjab Police should not have been in that file. It might have got there by mistake, or maybe, because the events concerned the tribal areas. It was an amazing discovery revealing all the secrets which until then Silver had so successfully concealed.' 350pp, 16 pages of photos.

Containing a bottle for fingerprint powder, silver handled 3" long brush, a black plastic fingerprint pad, stamp pad, magnifying glass, squidgy rubber blower, a pair of child sized goggles, an ID badge with space to insert your photograph, clear adhesive tape. Simply put some baby powder or talc into your powder bottle, label it, run your fingers through your hair to make them slightly oily (if you still have hair), press your fingers on the black plastic film and brush it away with the powder following the instructions and record your activities with the fingerprint ink pad. Analysing fingerprints is probably the most well-known forensic job and all fingers have the same pattern, but they are of different sizes. The booklet will explain the arch, right loop, whorl, tented arch, double loop whorl, pocker loop and accidental whorl, which are the complex classification systems. There is space in the booklet to record your cases with date, time, name, gender, age, height, weight, facial features and address and to attach a photo. Designed for ages ten to adult, all great fun. From the liquidated stock at The Book People.

Ireland, 1879-1882. After 700 years of British rule, the post-Famine generation of Irish tenant farmers began to push back against the reigning feudal system of land ownership. The charismatic political leader Charles Stewart Parnell headed up the Land League, a revolutionary movement that promised to restore land and power to the people through a series of protests, strikes and boycotts. After what became known as the Irish Land War had escalated into nationwide anarchy, Parnell and two associates were thrown into prison without trial in Kilmainham Gaol. In April 1882, Parnell secretly forged the Kilmainham Treaty, a pact in which he pledged to work diplomatically with British Prime Minister William Gladstone for peace and eventual independence of Ireland from England. It was a moment of real hope and potential turning point in history, yet it would be shattered one sunlit evening on May 6th 1882, as Gladstone's emissary Lord Frederick Cavendish, who had arrived that day in Dublin, and Thomas Burke, the Under Secretary for Ireland, were ambushed and stabbed to death while strolling through Phoenix Park in Dublin. The murders were funded by American supporters of Irish independence, and carried out by the Invincibles, a militant faction of republicans armed with specially made surgeons' blades. The impact of the assassinations was so cataclysmic that it destroyed the peace pact, almost brought down the government, and set in motion repercussions that would last long into the 20th century. The story spans Donegal, Dublin, London, Paris and New York, Cannes and Cape Town and Julie Kavanagh traces the crucial events that came before and after the murders. From Parnell's passionate affair with the Irish MPs wife Katherine 'Kitty' O'Shea, which eventually caused his downfall, to Queen Victoria's prurient obsession with the assassinations, from the investigation by the 'Irish Sherlock Holmes' who tirelessly tracked down each member of the Invincibles, to the eventual betrayal and clandestine escape of leading Invincible James Carey and his murder on the high seas, the book is compulsively readable. 473pp, paperback, 16 pages of photos.

The history of gangsters' molls and mob queens if you have an eye for lurid detail, discover here the motivation of women in a world of ill-gotten gains, glamour, excitement and love. J. Edgar Hoover once described 'gun molls' as the Press called them, as more dangerous to society than the gangsters with whom they ran. The book studies women who fell for gangsters throughout the 1930s and beyond, from harbouring criminals to life on the run in the heady days of the flapper era, abandoning everything for love. Discover the life stories of Bonnie Parker from the infamous Bonnie and Clyde double act; Virginia Hill, the glamorous girlfriend of Bugsy Siegel who died mysteriously; Evelyn Frechette, who was charged with harbouring murderous mobster John Dillinger; and Vi Mathis, the partner of Kansas City massacre gunman Verne Miller. With photographs and fingerprints and one of three women kept apart and deprived of food and sleep by federal agents desperate to get them to reveal the whereabouts of their gangster boyfriends, one of them newly pregnant. 158 pages, illus., new full price paperback.

At dawn on 12 August 1944, German SS troops arrived in the isolated Tuscan mountain village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema. On arrival, they proceeded to murder up to 560 Italian civilians in the olive groves and chestnut woods of the small hamlet in a savage reprisal operation. The victims were women, the elderly and over 80 children. One was a baby barely three weeks old. It was the most high-profile massacre committed by the Nazis in Italy and yet, despite three separate war crimes investigations, the Sant'Anna killers escaped justice. 60 years later, 10 of the SS men who were at Sant'Anna were sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia by Italian courts, but they died free men, protected by former SS colleagues working for the new Federal German government. Here is the full story of what happened at from Tuscany to Rome and Germany. Why were the survivors denied justice? With maps, rank structure of Waffen SS, we go back to a time of poor female migrant workers in the Po valley rice fields and the anti-Mussolini's Fascists songs like Bella Ciao. Illus, 288 pages.

Medics and carers hold the lives of their patients in the balance. They see us at our most vulnerable, and we trust them utterly. When a syringe is produced, we know nothing of what it contains and is being injected into us. Yet there are those who abuse this trust in the medical profession and take advantage of their position to commit the most hideous crimes. Some kill because of a twisted sense of mercy. Others let their monstrous egos take over as they seek to become heroes by rescuing those they harmed themselves and then there are those who simply delight in the power over life and death. Whatever their motivation, these killers can go undetected for years, racking up huge body counts before they are finally discovered. In this book you will discover the atrocious acts of Charles Cullen, who is believed to have killed nearly 400 people during his 16 year stint as a nurse; Harold Shipman, who killed as many as 200 of his patients; Genene Jones who kept being hired even after babies continued to die under her watch; Donald Harvey, who murdered to 'ease the pain' of his victims, Mary Ann Cotton on Victorian times who buried three husbands, her mother and 12 children, Dr Thomas Neill Cream who may have been confessing to being Jack the Ripper as he was hung for multiple murders and poisonous prescriptions and many more. Illus, 240 page paperback.