DEREK ROBINSON

Here, for the first time, is an intimate and fascinating portrait of Rudolf Nureyev off-stage - a man who was an exacting, unpredictable, parsimonious and often immature individual, yet who, at the same time, aroused great affection in a host of friends. Simon Robinson frankly recalls his eventful year working for Nureyev. He did everything for this hopelessly impractical dancer except be his lover, much to Nureyevs disappointment. It was the Russians insatiable sexual appetite that eventually destroyed him.Nureyev had six houses on three continents but no staff in any of them and he couldnt cook, drive, write a letter, tie a necktie or even change a light bulb. In 1990 Simon Robinson, until then professional crew on a racing yacht, became his PA. For the next twelve months they travelled from the Caribbean to America to Europe, living in luxury in Nureyevs New York and Paris apartments and in spartan isolation on his tiny Mediterranean island. Nureyevs explosive nature was exhausting to live with and many times during their year together Robinson nearly quit - and Nureyev nearly sacked him. It didnt happen, however, because Nureyev needed his PAs calm reliability to ballast his own rocky life, and because Robinson knew that genius must make its own rules.

Mikhail Starin, Head of Soviet Intelligence in London, is a ruthless, cold-hearted individual. Known to have killed 24 people, including his own mother, hes now determined to get his hands on a hard-to-stabilize nuclear formula. Theres only one thing for British Intelligence to do: send him back to Russia as quickly as possible. They scheme to leak details of a top-level Western military secret - knowing that when the Russians discover the secret is a double cross, Starin is history. Unfortunately theres only one man available to oversee the job: David Hale; young, honourable, but completely out of his depth. Rotten with Honour is a Cold War espionage thriller told with the trademark wit of Derek Robinson, bestselling and Booker-shortlisted author of Goshawk Squadron.

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From 1941 to 1943 it was the Germans. Then it was the turn of the British. Come the Cold War, hes conning McCarthy. Now hes going head to head with the L.A. mob. For high-stakes con artist Luis Cabrillo, once known as Eldorado, the million-dollar spy, trouble is never far away. And when he and his corker-of-a-New-Yorker squeeze, Julie Conroy, run into the cream of Los Angeles shady side, the result is a heady brew of disorganised crime, hot dollars, triple virgins and dead bodies in the begonias. The fourth and final Luis Cabrillo novel is yet another fiendishly plotted rollercoaster ride of wit and wisecracking, as the Second World Wars most daring and audacious spy finds that old habits die hard, even in peacetime.

Una cruda visión del mundo de los pilotos en la primera guerra mundialLos pilotos de la primera guerra mundial eran algo más que simples soldados, eranlos caballeros del cielo. La prensa y el público convertia en idolos a los jovenes heroes. Pero para Stanley Woolley, comandante de la escuadrilla Azor, el mito de la caballeria de las nubes se ha esfumado. Alla arriba solo hay victimas y verdugos, y no deja de repetir a sus hombres que se olviden del juego limpio. Sus bruscos metodos funcionan, pero aun asi Woolley sospecha que ningun miembro de la escuadrilla lograra sobrevivir.

Short, brisk and highly readable, this account stands out from the flood of books written for the Centenary of the Great War. In Why 1914?, Derek Robinson - trained as a historian, shortlisted for the Booker Prize - applies his novelists skills to asking how and why Europe hurried into such a massive disaster. He captures a world of kings and Kaisers, generals and infantrymen. None of them knew what a big European war meant. All the combatant nations assumed it would be short, and each expected to win. The roots of such folly began in the nineteenth century. Robinson traces the earliest warning signs, leading to a sudden crisis and an impulsive war that went massively wrong from the start. This book is the ideal introduction to the key question of the Great War: why did Europe explode?

Jersey, 1944. Lieutenant Earl Kramer, sole survivor of a ditched USAF bomber, crawls out of the sea one night and cuts the throat of a German sentry. Big mistake. Jersey is under Nazi occupation, and the lives of its inhabitants depend on an uneasy co-existence with their oppressors. Though Kramers motives were entirely patriotic, to the islanders he presents a terrifying risk to their very survival. But to Kramer, a man governed by an overriding sense of duty, this stronghold of Hitlers armies proves too irresistible a target to ignore... Kramers War is a powerful novel about the savagery of war, from the bestselling and Booker-shortlisted author of Goshawk Squadron.

Brayden Cross thought he had left his dangerous past behind. But when tragedy strikes at the heart of his family, hes thrust into a life-or-death pursuit of both justice and revenge.Following a mysterious trail of murders and disappearances across New England, Brayden finds clues that point to EverChatan impressive but polarizing app that lets users communicate with digital versions of their departed loved ones.As he inches closer and closer to the truth, it becomes clear that his enemy is much more than a killer. Behind the sleek veneer of groundbreaking innovation, a devastating plot is brewing that puts the future of humanity at stake.Racing against the clock and hunted at every turn, Brayden must dismantle the operation before it reaches its endgame. But in a world where the line between humanity and technology blurs, how can he defeat an adversary that is always two steps ahead?A pulse-pounding science fiction thriller that explores the dark intersection of technology and consciousness, Forever After paints a chilling story of love, loss, revenge, sacrifice, and what it truly means to be human in an increasingly artificial world.

Rock Springs, Kentucky. A backwater miles from civilisation, but so far upstream that the riverboats can go no further, and with plenty of farmland there for the taking. Among the pioneers who choose to build their homes here are the Hudds and the Killicks, two families destined to spend the next century despising one another. Kentucky Blues is a powerful, unsentimental depiction of life through several generations, widely considered to be Robinsons most ambitious work. Told with his trademark dark humour, it is an epic tale of one small communitys journey from its foundation in the 1820s, through the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, to the dawn of the modern age.

Flight Lieutenant Silk, a twice-decorated Lancaster pilot in WW II, rejoins the R.A.F. and qualifies to fly the Vulcan bomber. Piloting a Vulcan is an unforgettable experience: no other aircraft comes close to matching its all-round performance. And as bombers go, its drop-dead gorgeous. But theres a catch. The Vulcan has only one role: to make a second strike. To act in retaliation for a Russian nuclear attack. Silk knows that knows that if he ever flies his Vulcan in anger, hell be flying from a smoking wasteland, a Britain obliterated. But in the mad world of Mutually Assured Destruction, the Vulcan is the last - the only - deterrent. Derek Robinson returns with another rip-roaring, gung-ho R.A.F. adventure, one that exposes and confronts the brinkmanship and sabre-rattling of the Cold War Era.

1943. British Intelligence has finally got to grips with the Eldorado Network, Germanys most successful spy ring. It turns out to be one man in a small room in Lisbon, inventing phoney (but convincing) reports. For two years he has pulled the wool over German Intelligences eyes, and made a killing. The British soon find that Eldorados a real handful. They bring him to England, so they can manage his dispatches, and discover that living with a genius can be a headache. Eldorado rapidly creates a team of top sub-agents around him. None of them exists. But power - even imaginary power - is intoxicating, and he begins to treat his fake sub-agents as if real. Big trouble ahead. Artillery of Lies is the hair-raising sequel to The Eldorado Network, all the more funny for being soundly based on the true story of a real Second World War spy.

Its 1953, and Luis Cabrillo has burned through the small fortune he earned from both British and German Intelligence in WW2. Now he has only his wits, his confidence, and his dazzling skills at lying and cheating to rely on.Teaming up with Julie Conroy (a corker of a New Yorker), he follows his wartime instincts and goes where arrogance breeds wealth: to Washington D.C. and Senator Joe McCarthy, high priest of Americas holy war on Red treachery. Joes problem is a sudden shortage of treachery. Luis can help him out, but for dollars. Big dollars. And when the C.I.A. gets into the act, followed by the K.G.B., F.B.I., M.I.6. and the Mafia, it makes for an explosive mixture ripe for a spark. In Red Rag Blues Derek Robinson lends his signature wit to the hysteria and paranoia of the McCarthy years, toying with the notion that the worlds most powerful nation is occasionally its most stupid.

The war to end all wars, people said in 1918. Not for long. By 1919, White Russians were fighting Bolshevik Reds for control of their country, and Winston Churchill (then Secretary of State for War) wanted to see Communism strangled in its cradle. So a volunteer R.A.F. squadron, flying Sopwith Camels, went there to duff up the Reds. Theres a splendid little war going on, a British staff officer told them. Youll like it. Looked like fun. But the war was neither splendid nor little. It was big and it was brutal, a grim conflict of attrition, marked by incompetence and corruption. Before it ended, the squadron wished that both sides would lose. If that was a joke, nobody was laughing.

1941. Hitler rampant. Spain neutral. Madrid, like Casablanca, the launching pad for spies from all sides. The most daring and audacious is codenamed Eldorado. Young, inexperienced, hotheaded, he had no right to survive, let alone succeed. Now his network is the most valuable in Europe, and the fates of armies lie in his hands.But who does he work for? Or is he only in it for himself? One things for sure. War may be a dirty business, but it certainly brings home the bacon. Based on a true story, The Eldorado Network is the first novel in Derek Robinsons acclaimed Luis Cabrillo Quartet. A tense and gripping espionage thriller from a master of action and suspense.

Its 1917, and Captain Stanley Woolley joins an R.F.C. squadron whose pilots are starting to fear the worst: their war over the Western Front may go on for years. A pilots life is usually short, so while it lasts it is celebrated strenuously. Distractions from the brutality of the air war include British nurses; eccentric Russian pilots; bureaucratic battles over the plum-jam ration; rat-hunting with Very pistols; and the C.O.s patent, potent cocktail, known as Hornets Sting. But as the summer offensives boil up, none of these can offer any lasting comfort.

Fresh from school in June 1916, Lieutenant Oliver Paxtons first solo flight is to lead a formation of biplanes across the Channel to join Hornet Squadron in France. Five days later, he crash-lands at his destination, having lost his map, his ballast and every single plane in his charge. To his C.O. hes an idiot, to everyone else - especially the tormenting Australian who shares his billet - a pompous bastard. This is 1916, the year of the Somme, giving Paxton precious little time to grow from innocent to veteran.

North Africa, 1942. Dust, heat, thirst, flies. A good clean fight, for those who like that sort of thing, and some do. From an advanced landing field, striking hard and escaping fast, our old friends from Hornet Squadron (Piece of Cake) play Russian roulette, flying their clapped-out Tomahawks on ground-strafing forays. Meanwhile, on the ground, the men of Captain Lampards S.A.S. patrol drive hundreds of miles behind enemy lines to plant bombs on German aircraft. This is the story of a war of no glamour and few heroes, in a setting often more lethal than the enemy.

From the Phoney War of 1939 to the Battle of Britain in 1940, the pilots of Hornet Squadron learn their lessons the hard way. Hi-jinks are all very well on the ground, but once in a Hurricanes cockpit, the best killers keep their wits close. Newly promoted Commanding Officer Fanny Barton has a job on to whip the Hornets into shape before they face the Luftwaffes seasoned pilots. And sometimes Fighter Command, with its obsolete tactics and stiff doctrines, is the real menace. As with all Robinsons novels, the raw dialogue, rich black humour and brilliantly rendered, adrenalin-packed dogfights bring the Battle of Britain, and the brave few who fought it, to life.

World War One pilots were the knights of the sky, and the press and public idolised them as gallant young heroes. At just twenty-three, Major Stanley Woolley is the old man and commanding officer of Goshawk Squadron. He abhors any notion of chivalry in the clouds and is determined to obliterate the decent, gentlemanly outlook of his young, public school-educated pilots - for their own good. But as the war goes on he is forced to throw greener and greener pilots into the meat grinder. Goshawk Squadron finds its gallows humour and black camaraderie no defence against a Spandau bullet to the back of the head.

They joined an R.A.F. known as the best flying club in the world, but when war pitches the young pilots of 409 Squadron into battle over Germany, their training, tactics and equipment are soon found wanting, their twin-engined bombers obsolete from the off. Chances of completing a 30-operation tour? One in three. At best. Robinsons crooked salute to the dogged heroes of the R.A.F.s early bombing campaign is a wickedly humourous portrait of men doing their duty in flying death traps, fully aware, in those dark days of war, there was nothing else to do but dig in and hang on.