Böcker utgivna av Old Street Publishing

A story of love, nuclear terror and Philip LarkinBorn at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, 'at the very moment when the world looked most as if it were going to blow itself up', Nicholas has spent his life in terror of atomic meltdown. Now, on the eve of his 48th birthday, he is on an overnight coach ride to join an anti-nuclear rally at Faslane in Scotland.His fellow travellers remind him of his younger self at Hull University in the 1980s -- a time he spent under the twin clouds of unrequited love and apocalyptic terror. As the coach rumbles through the night, the floodgates of memory open, and Nicholas begins to scrawl episodes from his past into a notebook. At first these memories -- sometimes poignant, sometimes comic, and often involving Philip Larkin -- appear almost random. But in time a picture emerges: of a thwarted first love, and a fragile mind struggling to keep hold of sanity in a world that seems headed for annihilation.This delightful, eccentric novel and its tragi-comic hero will be relished by mavericks and misfits, rebels and renegades the world over.

George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, John Dos Passos, Felicia Browne, John Cornford, Stephen Spender... These were just some of the talented, committed and adventure-hungry men and women who travelled to Spain to join the struggle against General Franco's fascist rebellion. Through their personal letters, diaries and memoirs, David Boyd Haycock brings the experiences of these remarkable individuals -- as well as many less celebrated but equally compelling figures -- stunningly to life. He describes the mingled excitement and trepidation with which they set out for Spain, and their sheer relief that here at last was a chance to do something against the calamitous threat posed by Fascism. He evokes the glamour and the terror of wartime Barcelona, as Stalin's security forces lethally stifled dissent and imposed Party orthodoxy. And he charts the painful disillusionment of a generation of men and women as they witnessed the triumph of realpolitik over morality, and came to understand their impotence in the face of greater forces. Hemingway described the Spanish Civil War as 'the dress rehearsal for the inevitable European war'. I am Spain is at once a compelling, scrupulously researched account of this pivotal 20th-century conflict, and a moving, psychologically exact portrait of an extraordinary, passionate and gifted group of men and women whose minds and lives were changed by the experience of war.

Could you fall in love with the man who killed your family?It is eighteen years since Danni's husband and three-year-old son were killed by an IRA bomb in central Glasgow, and she still can't move on from the tragedy that has blighted her life. As a fresh wave of violence sweeps through Ireland, she decides she needs revenge.A journey into the dark heart of the Belfast underworld brings her face to face with the sinister Pearson and his enigmatic, one-time accomplice Johnny. As Danni struggles to hold onto her sense of purpose in a world where the idealist and the psychopath seem indistinguishable, she is drawn into a battle to save the life of Stella, a young prostitute. But who is Johnny and why is he helping her? Did he plant the bomb that killed her family? And most disturbingly, what exactly are her feelings for him?Fast-paced, emotionally pitch-perfect and with a heart-wrenching ending, Kiss the Bullet is a page-turner as gripping, intelligent and satisfying as they come.

April 1945. Hitler's Reich is on the verge of extinction, and its enemies are already plotting against each other. Assaulted by Allied bombs and Soviet shells, ruled by Nazis with nothing to lose, Berlin has become the most dangerous place on earth.Anglo-American journalist John Russell has travelled to Moscow, having escaped from Berlin in 1941 as America entered the war following the attack on Pearl Harbour.Russell's eighteen-year-old son Paul, born to a German mother, is on the Oder front line, awaiting the final Soviet onslaught, ready to retreat towards Berlin, and resigned to the certain prospect of either death or imprisonment. Inside Berlin, Russell's girlfriend Effi has a Jewish orphan to care for, and the Gestapo on her trail. The advancing Red Army promises liberation, but is also seeking retribution, particularly from German women.To find and save his son and girlfriend, Russell must reach Berlin no later than the Red Army. But only the Soviets can get him there, and the price of their help will threaten both his and the world's future.

It is November 1941. Anglo-American John Russell is living in Berlin, tied to the increasingly alien city by his love for two Berliners: his fourteen-year-old son, Paul, and his actress girlfriend, Effi. One of a small and dwindling handful of permitted and much-censored American journalists, Russell has found himself pushed into serving as a point of contact between the anti-Nazi Abwehr and American intelligence. But his real work, as he now sees it, revolves around one crucial question what fate awaits those Berliner Jews who are now being shipped to the east? His investigation has already brought him into perilous proximity with the local communist underground, and will soon involve him in a celebrity murder with global ramifications. As Russell and Effi edge closer to some very dangerous truths, feuding German intelligence services and America's imminent entry into the war further complicate their struggle to outfox and outlive Hitler's Reich.

In July 1939 Russell returns to Berlin as the newly-appointed Central European correspondent of an American newspaper. With his communist past, German son and English-American parentage he's the perfect catch for any of Europe's warring espionage services, and none will take no for an answer. Through the long Berlin summer, through trips to Prague, Warsaw and Moscow tracking Europe s descent into war, Russell seeks to satisfy his secret masters, protect his girlfriend Effi and his son Paul, and retain some sense of his fragile integrity. And if this wasn't difficult enough, a friend needs his help in finding the missing Jewish niece of an employee. With a whole continent headed for self-immolation, saving just one person shouldn t be so difficult...

Mike Nicol is one of the brightest thriller writing talents to have emerged in the last decade, and the Mace and Pylon novels are as good as any being written in the field today. This is not just superb genre writing: it is superb writing, period, and proves that the thriller, at its best, can both entertain and provoke, while tackling serious issues with the lightest of touches. Read Mike Nicol now, before everyone else starts telling you how wonderful he is' JOHN CONNOLLY'Mike Nicol is the rapidly rising star of South African crime fiction. His novels have everything I love about the genre in just the right amount: shady characters, twists, turns, murder, mayhem, humour, wonderful dialogue, white-knuckle pace and lots of authentic Cape Town colour.' Deon Meyer'Watch out Elmore Leonard, here comes Mike Nicol, who scores 10/10 for this gritty, fast-paced thriller about revenge ... Payback has it all: murder, sex, drugs, crooked cops, greedy developers and revenge ... Nicol has captured perfectly the dark underbelly of life in Cape Town. Payback is so realistic you can almost taste the dagga and smell the cordite after the bombs explode ... You won't be able to put it down until you've read the last line.' Southern Mail Read of the Week'The dialogue is brilliant, the writing too, and Payback has perhaps the coolest ending one is likely to find anywhere' Mail and Guardian'Exceptional ... Nicol is a talent deserving a wide international recognition' The Weekender'A heady mix, and Nicol stirs it with vigour, inventiveness [and] wit ... Payback is a great read, pacy, cool, hard-bitten and hard-hitting. The laconic, street-smart style is so convincingly laid-back that it may blind readers to the artistry of the writing, which is taut and economical' Sunday Independent'In the top rung of South African fiction writers ... Nicol s clipped dialogue and sparse, high-impact prose recalls that of revered American recluse Cormac McCarthy' The Citizen'South Africa joins the hard-boiled stakes, and in a wondrous dazzling humorous novel. Imagine Elroy joining forces with Chester Himes, Coffin Ed, and Gravedigger, throw in the spectacular landscape of South Africa, and you ll get some sense of this wild and daring novel. One prays this is the first in a series if Tom Sharpe wrote mystery, this would be it.' Ken BruenMore than a decade after the end of Apartheid, ex-gun-runners Mace Bishop and Pylon Buso are trying to settle down to a comfortable Cape existence. But when an old contact calls in a favour, they become embroiled once again in the country's violent underworld of crime and corruption -- and with the lethal Islamist organisation PAGAD. A gripping tale of narcoti, arms-dealing and international intrigue, PAYBACK heralds the arrival of a major new crime-writing talent.