FJ Archives - Duckworth Books

Eliza Mace

In the first of a thrilling new Victorian detective series, Eliza Mace, on the cusp of adulthood, is battling for her independence. Stuck in a crumbling manor house in the Welsh borders in the 1870s, she is thwarted by powers that conspire to protect, control and deceive her. But when her father goes missing in mysterious circumstances, Eliza’s determination to uncover the truth is unstoppable.

Joining forces with the charismatic new police constable, Dafydd Pritchard, she sets out to solve the case, but that’s no easy task. Her father has run up debts in town and beyond, and there are many who bear him a grudge. As she searches for evidence, Eliza exposes dark secrets that threaten to tear her world apart…

Viva La Madness

Hiding out in the Caribbean until the heat dies down from his last job, X is thinking it’s time to ditch the resort life and calls up his old friend Morty to plot his return to London.

But he’s hardly stepped off the plane when his associates, Sonny King and Roy ‘Twitchy’ Burns, get on the wrong side of a feuding Venezuelan drug cartel on the hunt for a sensitive package. Suddenly he’s thrown into a stand-off between rival mobs and with so many players in the game it’s tough going making out who wants to cut him a deal and who’s trying to kill him.

Darkly comic, fast-paced and full of twists Viva la Madness is packed with sex, scams, drugs and enough dirty money to fill a few offshore bank accounts.

Layer Cake

Layer cake (n): a metaphor for the murky layers of the criminal world.

Smooth-talking drug dealer X has a plan to quietly bankroll enough cash to retire before his thirtieth birthday. Operating under the polished veneer of a legitimate businessman, his mantra is to keep a low profile and run a tight operation until it’s time to get out.

When kingpin Jimmy Price asks him to find the wayward daughter of a wealthy socialite who’s been running around with a cokehead, he accepts the job with the promise that after this he can leave the criminal world behind with Jimmy’s blessing. Oh, and he needs to find a buyer for two million ecstasy pills acquired by a crew of lowly, loud-mouth gangsters, the Yahoos. Simple enough, until an assassin named Klaus arrives to scratch him off his list, revealing this job is much more than it seems at first.

From the glitz of the London club scene of the 1990’s to the underbelly of its criminal world, Layer Cake is the best in British crime fiction.

World War Z

It began with rumours from China about another pandemic. Then the cases started to multiply and what had looked like the stirrings of a criminal underclass, even the beginning of a revolution, soon revealed itself to be much, much worse.

Faced with a future of mindless man-eating horror, humanity was forced to accept the logic of world government and face events that tested our sanity and our sense of reality. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and key players in the ten-year fight against the horde, World War Z brings the finest traditions of journalism to bear on what is surely the most incredible story in the history of human civilisation.

Read the original cult novel that propelled the zombie genre into the mainstream – now a blockbuster film and game.

The Zombie Survival Guide

Don’t be reckless with you most precious asset – life. This book is your key to survival against the hordes of undead who may be stalking you right now without your even knowing it.

It covers everything you need to know, from how to understand zombie behaviour to survival in any territory or terrain.

The Zombie Survival Guide offers complete protection through proven tips for safeguarding yourself and your loved ones against the living dead.

It might just save your life.

Beta Male

Sam Hunt is a confused modern male in his very late twenties. A work-shy, commitment-phobic would-be actor, he is beginning to worry that turning thirty might just be the last straw. Flatmate Alan, the sensible one, has just been proposed to by his girlfriend Jess, with his femme fatale boss looking on with a saucy gleam in her eye. Newly-dumped Ed spends his time tearfully watching ‘Sex and the City’ in a pile of his ex-girlfriend’s pyjamas and plotting his revenge.

Meanwhile unemployed doctor Matt embarks on a dubious bet with Sam to see who can be the first to ensnare a rich wife and enjoy a life of leisure… Are your carefree twenties a retreating memory? Are your friends discussing children and fixed-rate mortgages while you clutch your Xbox, sobbing? You’re not the only one. Beta Male is a riotously funny and painfully honest chronicle about friendship, masculinity, marriage and the beginning of adulthood.

Foretold by Thunder

When journalist Jake Wolsey stumbles upon a declassified file showing Winston Churchill’s interest in the ancient Etruscan civilisation his curiosity brings peril in its wake.

He soon attracts the unlikely attention of alluring archaeologist Florence Chung – and that of MI6. As the two are pursued across Europe and Africa in search of the Etruscans’ sacred text, danger closes in and more questions than answers arise. Are there powers in the sky modern science has yet to understand? Could the ancients predict the future? And what really explains the rise of Rome, that of Nazi Germany, the ebb and flow of history itself?

In a thrilling race against time and enemies known and unknown, Wolsey fears the very survival of the West may depend on his ability to stay one step ahead of his adversaries.

Closure Limited

Written in his trademark style, these tales combine horror, drama, and socio-political commentary to explore the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse. Stories range from a company staffed by human survivors, offering gory revenge on their former zombie attackers, to a vampire who realises too late that he will have nothing left to drink as zombies wipe out his human blood supply.

Twenty Something

‘Twenty Something’ introduces us to Jack Lancaster, who, at only 25 is far too young to be having a mid-life crisis, but who’s going to have a pretty good shot at it anyway.

‘A tasty dollop of British wit’ Boston Globe

Recorded Attacks

ORGANISE BEFORE THEY RISE!

Max Brooks, the world’s leading zombie authority, reveals how other eras and cultures have dealt with – and survived – the ancient viral plague. From the Stone Age to the information age, the undead have threatened to engulf the human race. They’re coming. They’re hungry. And only the prepared will survive.

This is the graphic novel that fans demanded, featuring major zombie attacks across human history: on the African savannas, against the legions of ancient Rome, and on the high seas alongside Francis Drake. Complete with eye-popping artwork that pulsates with the grisly faces of the undead, Recorded Attacks is an essential part of the World War Z collection.

Sign up to hear more