www.bibliophilebooks.com 76484 HISTORY OF


LONDON’S PRISONS by Geoffrey Howse


The most notorious London prison of all is Newgate, which stood for over 700 years. The 11th century Tower of London was used as a prison for many high profile prisoners from Sir Thomas More to the Kray Twins. Find out all about The Clink, the King’s Bench Prison, Debtors’ prisons such as Fleet Prison and the


Marshalsea and ‘lost’ prisons such as the Gatehouse in Westminster, Millbank Penitentiary, Surrey County Gaol in Horsemonger Row, the House of Detention, Cold Bath Fields Prison and Tothill Fields Prison. Plus the more familiar jails of Holloway, Pentonville, Brixton, Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubs. Unmeshed is a web of historical facts, prisoners’ day to day lives and dozens of individual cases cited including those who became clients of the executioner. 205pp. £19.99 NOW £9


75889 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN BRITAIN by Richard Clark


The author reveals the many horrific guises of the ultimate punishment, from execution by hanging, drawing and quartering, to other sickening alternatives, including burning, eye gouging, boiling alive, and use of the dreaded Halifax gibbet - precursor to the guillotine. Witches fell to watery graves through violent drowning, whilst condemned women were often pressed slowly to death with weighted stones or iron, which crushed their ribs. 336 repulsive pages, colour and b/w with list of executions between 1900 and 1964. £19.99 NOW £7.50


76356 UNDERWORLD LONDON: Crime and


Punishment in the Capital City by Catharine Arnold


Take in beheadings and brutality at the Tower, Elizabethan street crime and the golden age of the highwaymen, before moving on to the Victorian era of incarceration. The book looks at the influence of London’s criminal classes on literature, as well as charting the rise


of East End mobsters the Krays and the Soho gangs of the 1950s and 1960s. An overview of the sensational trials and miscarriages of justice that led to the abolition of the death penalty, and a glimpse of criminal behaviour in the present era rounds up this horrific portrait of London’s underbelly. 340 paperback pages, illus.


£8.99 NOW £3.75 75924 A CRUEL AND SHOCKING ACT: The


Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination by Philip Shennon


Much of the truth about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy had not been told. Masses of evidence had been covered up or destroyed - shredded incinerated, or erased - by the CIA, the FBI and others in power in Washington. It was also clear that senior officials at both the CIA and FBI hid information from the investigating panel, apparently in the hope of concealing that they had been aware of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cuban connections, that he had been under surveillance in Dallas for months before the killing and that they had not been able to stop him. The volume features some of the most compelling figures in modern American history: Bobby Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, Chief Justice Warren, CIA spymasters Allen Dulles and Richard Helms, the CIA’s treacherous ‘mole hunter’ James Jesus Angleton, and many more. 625 detailed pages, photos. £25 NOW £6.50


75981 GREATEST TRAITOR: The Secret Lives


of Agent George Blake by Roger Hermiston With new revelations about his dramatic jailbreak from Wormwood Scrubs and original interviews. In WWII, the teenage George Blake performed sterling deeds for the Dutch resistance, before making a dramatic bid for freedom across Nazi-occupied Europe. Later recruited by British Intelligence, he quickly earned an exemplary reputation and was entrusted with building up the Service’s networks behind the Iron Curtain. Following a posting to Seoul, he also suffered for his adopted country, when captured by North Korean soldiers. Unbeknownst to SIS they were harbouring a mole. He was assiduously gathering all the important documents he could lay his hands on and passing them to the KGB. After a trial conducted largely in secret, he was sentenced to an unprecedented 42 years in jail. 362 pages, archive photos. £20 NOW £6.50


75792 A GRIM ALMANAC OF ESSEX by Neil R. Storey


Murderers and footpads, pimps and prostitutes, riots, rebels, bizarre funerals, disaster and peculiar medicine all feature. Apparently, Essex has always been a hotbed of crime. Three witches were hanged after the Chelmsford Witch Trial of 1589, as Agnes Waterhouse had been three years previously. In the 1620s, Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder-General was born here, as were Dick Turpin, the country’s most notorious highwayman, and William Calcraft, the nation’s longest-serving hangman. 180 grim paperback pages, archive photos, engravings, newspaper reports. Executions 1865-1953. £14.99 NOW £5.50


58185 JACK THE RIPPER: The Whitechapel Murderer by Terry Lynch


Horrific, horrendous, unspeakable, The Whitechapel Murderer, Jack the Ripper, stalked the streets of East London in 1888, slaughtering prostitutes and bewildering the police who were hunting him. They never succeeded in apprehending him, and to this day the mystery of his identity remains an enigma. This book looks at the evidence left by the murderer and the reports and investigative papers which recorded the atrocities that the ripper performed. 369 page paperback. ONLY £3


76924 THOSE WHO MARCHED AWAY edited by


Irene and Alan Taylor Sub-titled ‘An Anthology of the World’s Greatest War Diaries’, the book is arranged as a diary around the calendar year. It tells many stories from individuals from wars down the ages, from faceless foot soldiers to those charged with orchestrating battle, from the Home Front to the Holocaust, from famous


writers, political leaders and fighting men and women to ordinary working people enveloped by events over which they had little influence. These words are subjective, partial, personal, sometimes prejudice and occasionally mundane, but taken together they span centuries of warfare and are the very stuff of human experience. A wonderful heavyweight compendium, 676pp in paperback. £12.99 NOW £5


77156 MEMOIRS OF A


BRITISH AGENT by R.H. Bruce Lockhart An immediate classic on publication in 1934, this book is both a unique eyewitness account of Revolutionary Russia, and one man’s vivid story of struggle, excitement and tragedy. Bruce Lockhart was Acting Consul General in Moscow when the first revolution broke out in 1917. Sent home


because of an affair with a married woman, he returned to Russia the following year as Head of the British Mission to the Bolsheviks. His graphic first-hand description of the Moscow of 1918, frequent encounters with Lenin, Trotsky and the other architects of the Revolution, his experiences as a prisoner in the famous Loubianka Prison all combine as a fascinating picture of one man present at history in the making. 355pp in paperback with eight pages of photos. £14.99 NOW £6


77193 HOW BRITAIN KEPT CALM AND CARRIED ON:


Real-Life Stories from the Home Front edited by Anton Rippon The British are well known for their unique sense of humour, and it was that humour that helped the nation through the hard times of the Second World War. There are tales from men, women and children from all walks of life, from the Blitz to the


Home Guard, from blackouts to unexploded bombs and from Bermondsey to Burma. Our favourite is the description of the author’s Gran when the Luftwaffe bombed Spalding Liberal Club, a few yards from where she lived. Thinking that they would never bother with an insignificant market town, no-one had built an air-raid shelter so, when the bombing started, the whole family crammed themselves under the grand piano which took up most of the dining-room. All except old Gran. She refused to indulge in such an indignity and sat in her usual chair, defying Hitler to do his worst. We think this encapsulates the spirit of the whole book. 223 pages


75816 MURDER AND MAYHEM IN NORTH LONDON by Geoffrey Howse


This shocking report includes a wide range of murders, some of them internationally famous, others more obscure. The cases encompass Britain’s first railway murder, the first criminal to be caught via wireless telegraphy, and the story of the foreign anarchist who left a trail of murder and mayhem following a Tottenham factory wage snatch. Here too is the discovery of a body in an Islington warehouse cellar, the shooting of a vicar in Stamford Hill, the slaying of a rival at Primrose Hill, and the badly burned corpse in a Camden Town shed. 190 paperback pages, illus. £12.99 NOW £6


75790 GREAT PEARL HEIST by Molly Caldwell Crosby


This brilliantly researched true story opens in 1909 as “Blonde Alice Smith” waits in a getaway car in Piccadilly Circus. A fabulously wealthy jeweller will be handing over gems worth a fortune in the Piccadilly cafe. The pink pearl heist took place in 1913 when a necklace was stolen from Hatton Garden’s legendary dealer Max Mayer. The pearls are being returned by post from France following a loan to a prospective customer and Grizzard puts his Scotland Yard men in place as postal workers and couriers ready to intercept the pearls en route. Would anyone be prepared to give evidence in court? 288pp, photos. ONLY £6


75195 MAMMOTH BOOK OF THE MAFIA edited by Nigel Cawthorne and Colin Cawthorne


!


19 glamorous and horrific mob stories from prominent ex- Mafiosi, infiltrators and award winning writers. Donnie Brasco, the FBI agent who worked undercover in the Bonanno and Colombo crime families in New York for six years, Albert DeMeo, the son of a gangster who later became a lawyer, Jerry Black the ‘hit man’, a chilling professional murderer of 38 victims regarded by many as the original ‘Soprano’ and more first hand accounts of life inside the mob by Frankie Faggio, Richard Kuklinski and many more. 458pp in paperback. $13.95 NOW £5


WAR MEMOIRS


Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.


- Winston S. Churchill


with line drawings and glossary of abbreviations. £14.99 NOW £6


75386 NATIONAL SERVICE: From Aldershot to Aden Tales


from the Conscripts 1946-62 by Colin Shindler


To mark the 50th anniversary of the end of National Service, a historian has captured the memories of ex- conscripts from many different backgrounds and ranks. They range from an RAF clerk to a member of the Green Jackets in the Royal Army Education Corps, a Flight


Controller to a radar operator. In the aftermath of the Second World War, over 2,000,000 men were conscripted to serve in Britain’s armed services. We experience the tension of a post-war Berlin surrounded by Russians, the intense flashpoint of the Suez crisis and the fear of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. 328 paperback pages. £8.99 NOW £4.50


76469 LAND GIRLS: Women’s Voices from the Wartime Farm by Joan Mant


Drawing on the reminiscences of over 300 ‘Land Girls’, as well as her own experiences, the author brings to life the story of farms during the Second World War. Initially, there was great prejudice against women undertaking heavy outdoor work, yet girls from all walks of life volunteered to serve their country on the land. Wages were at subsistence levels and, in most cases, living conditions were Spartan. Those who had volunteered expecting a bucolic life of jolly hay-making were quickly pitch-forked into reality. Eating raw potatoes, keeping clean by bathing in milk sterilisers, and starting work at 4 a.m. were common conditions. Accidents, sometimes fatal, added to the hazards endured. Yet throughout these moving accounts of their lives runs a common thread of humour, camaraderie and pride. This book is a fitting tribute to the WLA’s heroic effort to keep food on the nation’s table. 183 pages, photos in colour and sepia/w.


£16.99 NOW £6.50


76470 LIVING ON THE HOME FRONT by Megan Westley


For part of her research into what it was really like on the Home Front during WWII, Megan Westley decided to spend a year “living on the Home Front”, throwing herself into wartime cooking and rationing levels and espousing the mottos of “Dig for Victory” and “Make Do and Mend”, sacrificing TV and modern electrical appliances, even recreating an air raid! She divides the book into six chapters to cover the war’s six year span and divides up her 12 month Home Front experience into the six chapters to compare and contrast her experiences with what was actually happening during the war itself. Full of authentic wartime recipes and mending and making your own clothes. 100 b/w photos and vast amounts of first-hand recollections and quotes. 224pp. £20 NOW £6


74963 HEROES OF THE HOLOCAUST by Lyn Smith


There was no official celebration of British heroes of the Holocaust until 2010 when 27 people were formally recognised with a silver medal for having sheltered or rescued Jews. Among them was Frank Foley, who up to the War worked in British passport control in Berlin and took a big risk in issuing forged documents and visas. It is estimated that he may have saved 10,000 Jews in this way. Here too is the story of the two sisters Ida and Louise Cook. As opera lovers they made regular visits to Europe, wearing a selection of flashy and eye-catching garments including opulent furs. This was their cover for meeting and interviewing refugees, and they smuggled out quantities of jewellery. 272pp, photos. £16.99 NOW £4.50


74983 PRAGUE WINTER: A Personal Story of


Remembrance and War 1937-1948 by Madeleine Albright


Secretary of State in the Clinton administration and a familiar face on our television screens, Madeline Albright only discovered her Jewish heritage when she was being vetted for office in the US government. She is particularly interested in the politics of exile. In London her father worked for the Czech government in exile corresponding with the Czech democrat Hubert Ripka based in Paris. Chamberlain was dismissive but Churchill pledged his support. As Heydrich mounted a campaign of terror in Prague, three agents were parachuted in to assassinate him. The operation did not go according to plan but achieved its end result, with the massacre of the village of Lidice. 467pp, timeline, photos. £19.99 NOW £5


75585 HEROES ALL by Dr. Steve Bond Veterans quoted fall into the following groupings: Air Transport Auxiliary, British Army, Civilians, Fleet Air Arm, Italian Air Force, Luftwaffe, Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force and Navy, Soviet Air Force, US Army, US Air Force, US Navy et al. For years Steve Bond has been interviewing and recording veterans from all sides of World War Two including air and ground crew. It deals with training, aircraft ferrying etc. Chapter headings include Enlistment, Bomber Boys, The Lonely Sea, The Eastern Front and D-Day to VJ- Day. Rare photos, 306pp. £25 NOW £3.50


75685 ANY SURVIVORS?: A Lost Novel of


World War Two by Martin Freud In 2008 a faded typescript was discovered. It was a satirical novel about the Second World War, written by Sigmund Freud’s son, but never before published and apparently forgotten. Freud and his family had escaped from Nazi occupied Vienna in 1938. Arriving in England, Martin, formally an eminent lawyer in Vienna, was interned as an ‘enemy alien’ and later ran a shop near the British Museum. His son Walter fought for the British in the SOE during the war. His autobiography Glory Reflected was published in 1957. The novel is a satirical and dramatic novel about a refugee who returns to Hitler’s Germany as a rather inept spy. Who is the survivor pulled out of the freezing water by men on a British destroyer and what was his connection to the U- boat crew that had perished? 238pp, paperback. £9.99 NOW £2.25


War Memoirs


OF AG. & FISH by Noreen Riols


Noreen Riols was delighted to get her call-up papers because she had been gallivanting round London with army officers and knew she was going to fail all her school exams. A sassy personality and fluent French speaker, she was arguing heatedly with the recruiting officer when a mysterious City Gent passed through the office and


took her into an inner sanctum. Having tested her linguistic skills he sent her to the headquarters of Churchill’s S.O.E. in Baker Street, the secret army reporting directly to the P.M. Riols was assigned to the French section under the legendary Colonel Maurice Buckmaster and at first her duties were liaising with members of the French resistance engaged in sabotaging German operations. When “pianist” Maureen O’Sullivan was stopped by some Gestapo and asked what she had in her bag, Maureen audaciously replied that it was a radio transmitter for contacting London, and to her relief the Gestapo assumed it was a joke. Later Noreen was sent to Bournemouth as a trap for British agents in their final stages of training. She fell in love with someone who failed to return, and it was many years before she found happiness again. 304pp, roll of honour. £20 NOW £6.50


76003 MAN WHO BROKE INTO AUSCHWITZ by Denis Avey with Rob Broomby This book shows the nightmare that was the slave labour camp at Buna-Monowitz, just outside Auschwitz, where the Jewish prisoners in particular were subjected to the harshest of treatments, and killed once they were too weak to work for their SS taskmasters. In the summer of 1944, Denis Avey was being held in a British POW labour camp, E715, near Auschwitz III. He hatched a plan to swap places with a Jewish inmate and smuggled himself into his sector of the camp. He spent the night there on two occasions and witnessed astonishing cruelty. Amazingly, he survived to witness the aftermath of the Death March in which thousands of prisoners were murdered by the Nazis as the Soviet Army advanced. After his own long trek across central Europe, he was repatriated to Britain. In 2010, Denis received a British ‘Hero of the Holocaust’ award. 264pp, photos. £20 NOW £5


76133 SIX WEEKS by John Lewis-Stempel Sub-titled ‘The Short and Gallant Life of the British Officer in the First World War’, this is the extraordinary story of British junior officers who led their men out of the trenches and faced a life expectancy of just six weeks. A subaltern or second lieutenant was the most junior commissioned officer, in charge of a platoon of about 50 men. Above him was the Lieutenant and the Captain. It was these three ranks that led at platoon and company level in the trenches on the Western Front. They led gallantly in to battle, the first over the top, the last to retreat. One young subaltern, J. R. R. Tolkien, found that ‘By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead.’ Captain Robert Graves noted that almost all were volunteers from public schools or occasionally a well-established grammar school-boy, had the qualities of courage, patriotism, selfless service, leadership and character. They had dinner parties in their dug-outs and shot rats for sport, they read Palgrave’s Golden Treasury and wrote staggeringly literate letters home. 358pp in paperback, illus. £9.99 NOW £4.50


76142 ON THE FRONT LINE: True World War


I Stories edited by C. B. Purdom Paperback reprint of a book first published in 1930. It contains 60 short narratives by writers of all ranks from Private to Lieutenant-Colonel, but unfortunately only three from the Navy and the Royal Air Force. Practically every campaign is mentioned, though of course the vast majority of the incidents are from the Western Front.’ It was the very first collection to reveal the war through the eyes of the ordinary soldier and offers heart-stopping renditions of the earliest gas attacks, aerial dog fights above the trenches, the moment of ‘going over the top’, the drudgery of the war of attrition once the trenches had been dug, and final joy of Armistice. 441pp in paperback. £8.99 NOW £4.50


76178 AMERICAN BOMBER CREWMAN 1941- 45 by Gregory Fremont-Barnes


The United States played a vital part in the war effort in the form of the strategic bombing campaign fought between 1942 and 1945, first against Germany and by 1944, also against Japan. This book seeks to describe the lives of particularly those who served in the most famous bomber aircraft of their day - the B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-24 Liberator and B-29 SuperFortress. Generally more literate than their companions in the Army and Navy, airmen could write down what they pleased in their journals and leave it safely in their quarters. Even if captured or killed, their journals and letters remained safely back at their base. The author highlights the physical and psychological strain to fly for hours at 20,000 feet in unpressurised cabins at temperatures below freezing. 64pp, large softback, colour and b/w photos.


£11.99 NOW £5.50


76468 I SURVIVED THE SOMME: The Secret Diary of a Tommy


by Charles Meeres edited by Frank Meeres Meeres describes how he fought alongside the men of Kitchener’s army at the Battle of Loos, detailing daily life in the trenches in the winter. He was present at the first day of the Battle of the Somme, as well as the subsequent phases of the battle, including the first introduction of the tank as a weapon of war. Later entries include an account of the Battle of Arras and a vivid description from his comrades of the Third Battle of Ypres. He describes the German advances in the spring of 1918 and the mobile warfare of the last months of the war when the enemy were in retreat across northern France. Some of the details are brutal and not easy reading, but the account is painfully honest and always true to life. 190 pages with maps, line drawings, watercolour paintings, archive photos and List of Acronyms. £16.99 NOW £7


21 76295 SECRET MINISTRY


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