Fiction

In a sleepy French village, the body of a man shot through the head is disinterred by the roots of a fallen tree. A week later a famous art critic is viciously murdered in a nearby house. The deaths occurred more than seventy years apart. Asked by a colleague to inspect the site of the former, forensics expert Enzo Macleod quickly finds himself embroiled in the investigation of the latter. Two ext

Young and confident, with a swagger in her step, Sugar arrives in the southern town of Bigelow hoping to start over.

Assemble a team of the world's most dangerous imprisoned super criminals, provide them the most powerful arsenal at the government's disposal, and send them to defeat an enigmatic, unstoppable enemy.U.S. intelligence officer Amanda Waller has gathered a group of disparate, despicable individuals with next to nothing to lose. Once they figure out they were chosen to fail, will the Suicide Squad res

A cornerstone of Western literature, Homer's Iliad is the epic tale of the siege of Troy. After nine years, the Greeks are still fighting to claim the beautiful Helen and it is hardly the time for their supreme warrior, Achilles, to drop out of the war. But he does, in revenge against the overlord Agamemnon for seizing his concubine, Briseis. Only the death of his best friend, Patroclus, persu

One of the books that 'everybody should read', this was named the '2nd greatest novel of the 20th century' by the Modern Library and it has now been filmed six times, including the latest version directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. ABOUT THE SERIES: Arcturus Essential Fitzgerald presents a selection of F. Scott Fitzgerald's most acclaimed fiction with striking contemporary

Jules Verne's classic work, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, has been adapted at least three times as a film and also for television. The story of Professor Lidenbrock, his nephew Axel and their guide Hans venturing into the Icelandic volcano if Snaefellsjökull and encountering a weird underground world that is full of prehistoric animals and other phenomena before reaching the earth's surfac

When Gabriel Utterson, a lawyer, first encounters the figure of Edward Hyde, he has little notion of the man's background. Bringing Hyde to account for an attack on a girl, he discovers that Hyde is acquainted with one of his clients, a Dr Henry Jekyll. Disturbed by Hyde's behaviour, Utterson worries about the power that Hyde seems to exert over Jekyll, despite assurances from the latter. But af

Oliver Twist sent out shock waves when it appeared in 1838. With a half-starved orphan for a hero, it was Dickens' first attempt to rouse the public conscience over the social evils of the day. The adventures of the innocent Oliver - from workhouse to London's underworld, and how he was rescued - is one of Dickens' most popular stories.

Written in an epistolary format, Dracula recalls the experiences of a young lawyer called Jonathan Harker, who pays a visit to Count Dracula on the border of Transylvania to deal with the purchase of some property. After Harker leaves Dracula's castle, having nearly been the victim of vampires, a Russian ship runs aground off Whitby and the captain's log details the gradual disappearance of the

Heart of Darkness tells the story of Charlie Marlowe, who takes a steamboat on a voyage into the heart of Africa. His mission is to relieve an ivory agent named Kurtz, who has been taken ill at a remote trading station. Marlowe's eyes are opened wide as he witnesses acts of cruelty on his journey and when he meets Kurtz, he is forced to examine his own values and views of humanity. In addition t

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a friend's copy of Tender Is the Night, "If you liked The Great Gatsby, for God's sake read this. Gatsby was a tour de force but this is a confession of faith.