Let’s Go to London
16th August 2023
London needs no introduction. The capital of England is full to the brim with culture and history, from the Romans to the Victorians, from Medieval times to modern day. There are landmarks and historical buildings scattered all over the city, and a whole world underneath the streets with the underground. So, pull up a chair and grab a cuppa so we can explore all the wonders of London right from your armchair.
For those of you who have either visited London before or have seen maps and images of all the fun things to do there, you’ll know how tricky it is to pick out the best things to do. There’s just so much choice! For me personally, I love visiting Camden Market and Covent Garden – so I always make sure to tick these off my list when I visit. But even then, there is always something new in these areas that catches my eye that I hadn’t noticed before. There are so many interesting things to see and visit in London, especially for us book lovers. Piccadilly Waterstones is the largest bookshop in Europe and Cecil Court has over twenty bookshops down it! But for those who want to have a visit and not end up buying even more books, there is a little something for everybody.
Probably one of the most well-known attractions of London is The London Eye. Opened in the year 2000 as The Millennium Wheel, this is the largest Ferris wheel in Europe and the fourth largest in the world at 443 ft high! That is bigger than 11 London buses bumper-to-bumper in a line. It takes around 30 minutes to complete one rotation of the wheel and on days without many clouds, you can see Windsor Castle about 20 miles away!
And who could forget Buckingham Palace? The royal residence for King Charles is located in Westminster, just down the road from Westminster Abbey. Fun fact about Westminster Abbey, it has the oldest door in the world. It is the only remaining Anglo-Saxon door in the whole country, dating back to 1050, and studies on this door have shown that it was built from a single tree that is believed to have grown between the years 925 and 1030. Another classic landmark of London is Big Ben. I know that we all have heard the fact that Big Ben is the bell and not the clock tower, so I won’t go over that with you. Instead, have you heard the legend that says if Big Ben rings out 13 times, then disaster would strike and the lion statues outside of Trafalgar Square will come to life.
For centuries London and the people it attracts have provided brilliant inspiration for writers. From Chaucer to Zadie Smith the evolution of the city has played out in the pages of books and through the lives of many fictional characters. But I think there is one literary character in particular who pops to mind when we think of London, and that is none other than Sherlock Holmes. Most of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories of Sherlock start at 221B Baker Street where Holmes and Watson live. This address in London has now become a museum due to the popularity of these books. Or how about 007 himself, James Bond! The famous fictional spy brought to life by Ian Fleming. There are many walking tours around the city to see all of the locations from the movies, or visit bars based on the character. These are just a couple of the famous Londoners we see in literature, but there’s many more such as Ebeneezer Scrooge, Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger, Dorian Grey, Dick Whittington, and Paddington Bear (of course!) to name a few.
Whether you’re taking a trip to London in the holidays, or just armchair travelling there, we’ve chosen our favourite books for you to conjure up different locations in London – you’ll meet murderers, lovers, petty thieves, the rich, the poor, the hopeless and the dreamers and you’ll vividly experience the sights and sounds of this great city within the pages of these selected novels.
Happy exploring!
Claudia, Content Selection Team
1. Baker Street - Sherlock Holmes The Sign of Four
Conan Doyle, Arthur
Paperback / softback
As a dense yellow fog swirls through the streets of London, a deep melancholy has descended on Sherlock Holmes, who sits in a cocaine-induced haze at 221B Baker Street. His mood is only lifted by a visit from a beautiful but distressed young woman Mary Morstan, whose father vanished ten years before. Four years later she began to receive an exquisite gift every year: a large, lustrous pearl. Now she has had an intriguing invitation to meet her unknown benefactor and urges Holmes and Watson to accompany her. And in the ensuing investigation which involves a wronged woman, a stolen hoard of Indian treasure, a wooden-legged ruffian, a helpful dog and a love affair even the jaded Holmes is moved to exclaim, Isn't it gorgeous!'
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2. Belgravia - A Handful of Dust
Waugh, Evelyn
Paperback / softback
Evelyn Waugh's celebrated tale of decadence and social disintegration, with an introduction by Philip EadeAfter seven years of marriage, the beautiful Lady Brenda Last is bored with life at Hetton Abbey, the Gothic mansion that is the pride and joy of her husband, Tony. She drifts into an affair with the shallow socialite John Beaver and forsakes Tony for the Belgravia set. Brilliantly combining tragedy, comedy and savage irony, A Handful of Dust captures the irresponsible mood of the 'crazy and sterile generation' between the wars. This breakdown of the Last marriage is a painful, comic re-working of Waugh's own divorce, and a symbol of the disintegration of society. 'One of the twentieth century's most chilling and bitter novels; and one of its best'Nicholas Lezard, Guardian'One of the most distinguished novels of the century'Frank Kermode'This is a masterpiece of stylish satire, and is funny, too ... a marvellous book'John Banville, Irish Times
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3. Borough - Fingersmith : A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick - Booker Prize Shortlisted
Waters, Sarah
Paperback / softback
'We were all more or less thieves at Lant Street. But we were that kind of thief that rather eased the dodgy deed along, than did it . We could pass anything, anything at all, at speeds which would astonish you. There was only one thing, in fact, that had come and got stuck - one thing that had somehow withstood the tremendous pull of that passage - one thing that never had a price put to it. I mean of course, Me.' Sue Trinder, orphaned at birth, is born among petty thieves - fingersmiths - in London's Borough. From the moment she draws breath, her fate is linked to another orphan, growing up in a gloomy mansion not too many miles away ...A modern day Dickens, Sarah Waters is one of Britain's rising stars.
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4. Brick Lane - Brick Lane : By the bestselling author of LOVE MARRIAGE
Ali, Monica
Paperback / softback
Still in her teenage years, Nazneen finds herself in an arranged marriage with a disappointed man who is twenty years older. Away from the mud and heat of her Bangladeshi village, home is now a cramped flat in a high-rise block in London's East End. Nazneen knows not a word of English, and is forced to depend on her husband. But unlike him she is practical and wise, and befriends a fellow Asian girl Razia, who helps her understand the strange ways of her adopted new British home. Nazneen keeps in touch with her sister Hasina back in the village. But the rebellious Hasina has kicked against cultural tradition and run off in a 'love marriage' with the man of her dreams. When he suddenly turns violent, she is forced into the degrading job of garment girl in a cloth factory. Confined in her flat by tradition and family duty, Nazneen also sews furiously for a living, shut away with her buttons and linings - until the radical Karim steps unexpectedly into her life. On a background of racial conflict and tension, they embark on a love affair that forces Nazneen finally to take control of her fate. Strikingly imagined, gracious and funny, this novel is at once epic and intimate. Exploring the role of Fate in our lives - those who accept it; those who defy it - it traces the extraordinary transformation of an Asian girl, from cautious and shy to bold and dignified woman.
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5. British Museum - Possession : A Romance
Byatt, A S
Paperback / softback
Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars investigating the lives of two Victorian poets.Following a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time.
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6. Brixton - The Lido : The uplifting, feel-good Sunday Times bestseller about the power of friendship and community
Page, Libby
Paperback / softback
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLERMeet Rosemary, 86, and Kate, 26: dreamers, campaigners, outdoor swimmers... Rosemary has lived in Brixton all her life, but everything she knows is changing. Only the local lido, where she swims every day, remains a constant reminder of the past and her beloved husband George. Kate has just moved and feels adrift in a city that is too big for her. She's on the bottom rung of her career as a local journalist, and is determined to make something of it. So when the lido is threatened with closure, Kate knows this story could be her chance to shine. But for Rosemary, it could be the end of everything. Together they are determined to make a stand, and to prove that the pool is more than just a place to swim - it is the heart of the community. 'Feel-good and uplifting, this charming novel is full of heart' LUCY DIAMOND
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7. Bromley - The Buddha of Suburbia
Kureishi, Hanif
Paperback / softback
"My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost. . ."Meet the hero of Hanif Kureishi's seminal debut novel, as he dreams of escape from suburban South London, desperate to experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer. When the unlikely opportunity of a life in the theatre announced itself, Karim starts to win the sort of attention he has been craving - albeit with some raucous results.
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8. Camden - How to be Good
Hornby, Nick
Paperback / softback
THE MILLION-COPY NO.1 BESTSELLER'Enormously powerful' Guardian'Hilarious, sophisticated, compulsive' The Times___________________'I am in a car park in Leeds when I tell my husband I don't want to be married to him any more. . . 'London GP Katie Carr always thought she was a good person. With her husband David making a living as 'The Angriest Man in Holloway', she figured she could put up with anything. Until, that is, David meets DJ Goodnews and becomes a good person too. A far-too-good person who starts committing crimes of charity like taking in the homeless and giving their kids' toys away. Suddenly Katie's feeling very bad about herself, and thinking that if charity begins at home, then maybe it's time to move. . . This laugh-out-loud novel, from the bestselling author of About a Boy and High Fidelity, will have you gripped from start to finish and will appeal to fans of David Nicholls and Jonathan Coe, as well as readers in need of a moral compass everywhere. ___________________'Pins you in your armchair and won't let go . . . How to be Good? How to be bloody marvellous, more like' Mail on Sunday'It does exactly what it says on the cover. Hornby's prose is artful and effortless, his spiky wit as razored as a number-two cut' Independent'The writing is so funny, and the set-pieces so brilliant . . . Hornby's best book since Fever Pitch' Lynn Truss, The Times
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9. Chancery Courts - Bleak House
Dickens, Charles
Paperback / softback
As the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada and Richard Clare, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured by legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; the determined sleuth Inspector Bucket; and even Jo, the destitute little crossing-sweeper. A savage, but often comic, indictment of a society that is rotten to the core, Bleak House is one of Dickens's most ambitious novels, with a range that extends from the drawing rooms of the aristocracy to the poorest of London slums.
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10. Charing Cross - 84 Charing Cross Road
Hanff, Helene
Paperback / softback
This book is the very simple story of the love affair between Miss Helene Hanff of New York and Messrs Marks and Co, sellers of rare and secondhand books, at 84 Charing Cross Road, London'. DAILY TELEGRAPHTold in a series of letters in 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD and then in diary form in the second part THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET, this true story has touched the hearts of thousands.
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11. City - The Last Days of Newgate : A gripping historical detective story set in the heart of old London
Pepper, Andrew
Paperback / softback
St Giles, London, 1829: three people have been brutally murdered and the city simmers with anger and political unrest. Pyke, sometime Bow Street Runner, sometime crook, finds himself accidentally embroiled in the murder investigation but quickly realises that he has stumbled into something more sinister and far-reaching. In his pursuit of the murderer, Pyke ruffles the feathers of some powerful people, and, falsely accused of murder himself, he soon faces a death sentence, and the gallows of Old Bailey. Imprisoned, and with only his uncle and the headstrong, aristocratic daughter of his greatest enemy who believe in him, Pyke must engineer his escape, find the real killer and untangle the web of politics that has been spun around him. From the gutters of Seven Dials, to the cells of Newgate prison; from the turmoil of 1800s Belfast to the highest levels of murky, pre-Victorian politics, The Last Days of Newgate is a gripping, darkly atmospheric story with a fantastic, pragmatic - and reluctantly heroic - hero.
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12. Clapham - Capital
Lanchester, John
Paperback / softback
** From the author of The Wall **'Effortlessly brilliant . . . hugely moving and outrageously funny.' Observer'A treat to read.' The Times'The great London novel of the twenty-first century.' New Statesman'Brimming with perception, humane empathy and relish . . . a capital achievement.' Sunday TimesA moving, funny and insightful story of one London street, its inhabitants, and a world-changing event. The residents of Pepys Road, London - a banker and his shopaholic wife, an elderly woman dying of a brain tumour, the Pakistani family who run the local shop, the young football star from Senegal and his minder - all receive anonymous postcards with a simple message: We Want What You Have. Who is behind it? What do they want?As the mystery of the postcards deepens, the world around Pepys Road is turned upside down by the financial crash and all of its residents' lives change beyond recognition over the course of the next year. From the bestselling author of Whoops! and How to Speak Money comes a post-financial crisis, state-of-the-nation novel told with compassion, humour and unflinching truth. Adapted into a major BBC One drama.
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13. Clapham Common - The End of the Affair
Greene, Graham
Paperback / softback
The love affair between Maurice Bendix and Sarah, flourishing in the turbulent times of the London Blitz, ends when she suddenly and without explanation breaks it off. After a chance meeting rekindles his love and jealousy two years later, Bendix hires a private detective to follow Sarah, and slowly his love for her turns into an obsession.
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14. Earl's Court - Small Island: Winner of the 'best of the best' Orange Prize
Levy, Andrea
Paperback / softback
It is 1948, and England is recovering from a war. But at 21 Nevern Street, London, the conflict has only just begun. Queenie Bligh's neighbours do not approve when she agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers, but Queenie doesn't know when her husband will return, or if he will come back at all. What else can she do? Gilbert Joseph was one of the several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler. Returning to England as a civilian he finds himself treated very differently. It's desperation that makes him remember a wartime friendship with Queenie and knock at her door. Gilbert's wife Hortense, too, had longed to leave Jamaica and start a better life in England. But when she joins him she is shocked to find London shabby, decrepit, and far from the golden city of her dreams. Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was.
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15. Elephant & Castle - Towards the End of the Morning
Frayn, Michael
Paperback / softback
'The funniest book in the English language .' Richard Osman'It made me laugh so much I fell out of bed.' Sebastian FaulksMichael Frayn's classic novel is set in the crossword and nature notes department of an obscure national newspaper during the declining years of Fleet Street, where John Dyson dreams wistfully of fame and the gentlemanly life - until one day his great chance of glory at last arrives. Michael Frayn is the celebrated author of fifteen plays including Noises Off, Copenhagen and Afterlife. His bestselling novels include Headlong, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Spies, which won the Whitbread Best Novel Award and Skios, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. 'Still ranks with Evelyn Waugh's Scoop as one of the funniest novels about journalists ever written.' Sunday Times 'A sublimely funny comedy about the ways newspapers try to put lives into words.' Spectator
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16 . Finchley Road - The Woman in White
Collins, Wilkie
Paperback / softback
The Penguin English Library Edition of The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins'In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop ... There, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth ... stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white'The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism. The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.
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17. Hackney - Mr Loverman : From the Booker prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other
Evaristo, Bernardine
Paperback / softback
Treat yourself to this joyful, big-hearted read from Booker Prize-winning novelist Bernardine Evaristo, part of our Penguin Essentials series which spotlights the very best of our modern classics 'Bernardine Evaristo can take any story from any time and turn it into something vibrating with life' Ali SmithBarrington Jedidiah Walker is seventy-four and leads a double life. Born and bred in Antigua, he's lived in Hackney since the sixties. A flamboyant, wise-cracking local character with a dapper taste in retro suits and a fondness for quoting Shakespeare, Barrington is a husband, father and grandfather - but he is also secretly homosexual, lovers with his great childhood friend, Morris. His deeply religious and disappointed wife, Carmel, thinks he sleeps with other women. When their marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington wants to divorce Carmel and live with Morris, but after a lifetime of fear and deception, will he manage to break away?Mr Loverman is a ground-breaking exploration of Britain's older Caribbean community, which explodes cultural myths and fallacies and shows the extent of what can happen when people fear the consequences of being true to themselves. 'Sublime' Telegraph'Rip-roaring . . . she says things about modern Britain that no one else does' Guardian'Brilliant' Independent
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18. Hampstead - Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Orwell, George
Paperback / softback
Gordon Comstock loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money. He gives up a 'good job' in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, giving him more time to write. But he slides instead into a self-induced poverty that destroys his creativity and his spirit. Only Rosemary, ever-faithful Rosemary, has the strength to challenge his commitment to his chosen way of life. Through the character of Gordon Comstock, Orwell reveals his own disaffection with the society he once himself renounced. Enlivened with vivid autobiographical detail, George Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying is a tragically witty account of the struggle to escape from a materialistic existence, with an introduction by Peter Davison in Penguin Modern Classics.
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19. Hanover Square - Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Clarke, Susanna
Paperback / softback
Two magicians shall appear in England. The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me The year is 1806. England is beleaguered by the long war with Napoleon, and centuries have passed since practical magicians faded into the nation's past. But scholars of this glorious history discover that one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country. Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very opposite of Norrell. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms the one between England and France. And their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine.
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20. Highgate - Her Fearful Symmetry
Niffenegger, Audrey
Paperback / softback
When Elspeth Noblin dies she leaves her beautiful flat overlooking Highgate Cemetery to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina Poole, on the condition that their mother is never allowed to cross the threshold. But until the solicitor's letter falls through the door of their suburban American home, either Julia nor Valentina knew their aunt existed. The twins hope that in London their own, separate, lives can finally begin but they have no idea that they've been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the obsessive-compulsive crossword setter who lives above them to their aunt's mysterious and elusive lover who lives below them and works in the cemetery itself. As the twins unravel the secrets of their aunt, who doesn't seem quite ready to leave her flat, even after death, Niffenegger weaves together a delicious and deadly ghost story about love, loss and identity.
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21. Islington - Notes on a Scandal
Heller, Zoe
Paperback / softback
A Hay Festival and The Poole VOTE 100 BOOKS for Women SelectionShortlisted for the 2003 Man Booker Prize, Zoë Heller's Notes on a Scandal is a darkly compelling novel that explores the taboo subject of pupil/teacher relationships, obsession and betrayal. From the first day that the beguiling Sheba Hart joins the staff of St George's history teacher Barbara Covett is convinced she has found a kindred spirit. Barbara's loyalty to her new friend is passionate and unstinting and when Sheba is discovered having an illicit affair with one of her pupils, Barbara quickly elects herself as Sheba's chief defender. But all is not as it first seems in this dark story and, as Sheba will soon discover, a friend can be just as treacherous as any lover. 'Brilliant, nasty, gripping' Zadie Smith'Compelling, dark, sexy' Observer'Superbly gripping. One of the most compelling books I've read in ages' Daily Telegraph'Deliciously sinister' Daily MailZoë Heller is the author of three novels, Everything You Know, Notes on a Scandal, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003 and The Believers. The 2006 film adaptation of Notes on a Scandal, starring Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench, received four Oscar nominations. She lives in New York.
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22. Kennington - London Belongs to Me
Collins, Norman
Paperback / softback
Also known as Dulcimer Street, Norman Collins's London Belongs to Me is a Dickensian romp through working-class London on the eve of the Second World War. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Ed Glinert, author of The London Compendium. It is 1938 and the prospect of war hangs over every London inhabitant. But the city doesn't stop. Everywhere people continue to work, drink, fall in love, fight and struggle to get on in life. At the lodging-house at No.10 Dulcimer Street, Kennington, the buttoned-up clerk Mr Josser returns home with the clock he has received as a retirement gift. The other residents include faded actress Connie; tinned food-loving Mr Puddy; widowed landlady Mrs Vizzard (whose head is turned by her new lodger, a self-styled 'Professor of Spiritualism'); and flashy young mechanic Percy Boon, whose foray into stolen cars descends into something much, much worse... Norman Collins (1907-1982) was a British writer, and later a radio and television executive, who was responsible for creating Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4, and became one of the major figures behind the establishment of the Independent Television (ITV) network in the UK. In all Norman Collins wrote 16 novels and two plays, including London Belongs to Me (1945), The Governor's Lady (1968) and The Husband's Story (1978). If you enjoyed London Belongs to Me, you might like Sam Selvon's The Lonely Londoners, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'One of the great city novels: a sprawling celebration of the comedy, the savagery, the eccentricity and the quiet heroism at the heart of ordinary London life'Sarah Waters, author of The Night Watch
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23. Kingston Upon Thames - Three Men in a Boat
Jerome, Jerome K.
Paperback / softback
Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them to a T'. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts and tins of pineapple chunks not to mention the devastation left in the wake of J.'s small fox-terrier Montmorency. Three Men in a Boat was an instant success when it appeared in 1889, and, with its benign escapism, authorial discursions and wonderful evocation of the late-Victorian clerking classes', it hilariously captured the spirit of its age.
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24. Knightsbridge - Neverwhere
Gaiman, Neil
Paperback / softback
Under the streets of London there's a world most people could never even dream of - a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, and pale girls in black velvet. Richard Mayhew is a young businessman who is about to find out more than he bargained for about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his safe and predictable life and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and yet utterly bizarre. There's a girl named Door, an Angel called Islington, an Earl who holds Court on the carriage of a Tube train, a Beast in a labyrinth, and dangers and delights beyond imagining...And Richard, who only wants to go home, is to find a strange destiny waiting for him below the streets of his native city. This title includes extra material exclusive to Headline Review's edition.
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25. Leicester Square - The Drowned World
Ballard, J. G.
Paperback / softback
When London is lost beneath the rising tides, unconscious desires rush to the surface in this apocalyptic tale from the author of ‘Crash’ and ‘Empire of the Sun’, reissued here with an introduction from Martin Amis. All the way down the creek, perched in the windows of the office blocks and department stores, the iguanas watched them go past. London, 2145. The climate crisis has transformed the city into a primeval jungle, with rising tides and oppressive heat putting human life at risk. The streets are now swamps; lush tropical vegetation grows up the walls of the Ritz and reptiles are seen swimming through the newly-formed lagoons. Some flee the wasteland capital; others remain to pursue reckless schemes in the name of science and profit. As the world comes face to face with its future, how will humanity reckon with its ancient past?
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26. Marylebone - Lady's Maid
Forster, Margaret
Paperback / softback
It is London in the year 1844, and a shy young woman has arrived to take up a new position in the grandeur of No. 50, Wimpole Street. Subtly and compellingly, "Lady's Maid" gives voice to Elizabeth Wilson's untold story, her complex relationship with her mistress, Elizabeth Barrett, and her dramatic role in the most famous elopement in history.
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27. Notting Hill - The Lonely Londoners
Selvon, Sam
Paperback / softback
From the brilliant, sharp, witty pen of Sam Selvon, this is a classic award-winning novel of immigrant life in London in the 1950s.
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28. Paddington - 4.50 from Paddington
Christie, Agatha
Paperback / softback
Two trains Side by side for a brief moment In that moment, a murder Elspeth McGillicuddy is positive she witnessed a man strangling a woman to death. But it was only the merest glimpse through a carriage window as the trains drew parallel. She is the only witness, there are no suspects, and, most importantly, there is no corpse. Who, apart from her friend Jane Marple, would take her seriously? Never underestimate Miss Marple ‘All crime writers around the globe owe Agatha Christie a massive debt.’Peter James ‘Never a dull moment.’ The Times
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29. Palace of Westminster - House of Cards
Dobbs, Michael
Paperback / softback
The acclaimed political thriller that first introduced the unforgettable Francis Urquhart MP and launched Michael Dobbs' No 1 bestselling career -- now reissued in a new cover. Michael Dobbs' entertaining tale of skulduggery and intrigue within the Palace of Westminster has been a huge hit with the public. Its scheming hero, Chief Whip Francis Urquhart, who uses fair means and foul to become Prime Minister, is one of the best-known characters of the last decade -- the politician we all love to hate. Acclaimed for its authenticity and insights into a secret world -- the result of many years working behind the scenes for the Conservative Party -- it became a highly popular, award-winning BBC TV series, with Francis Urquhart memorably portrayed by Ian Richardson, and was followed by two further sequels, 'To Play the King' and 'The Final Cut', which also became top-rating TV series.
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30. Peckham - The Ballad of Peckham Rye
Spark, Muriel
Paperback / softback
A man of devilish charm and enterprising spirit, Dougal Douglas is employed to revitalize the ailing firm of Meadows, Meade & Grindley. He succeeds, but not quite in the way his employer intended. Strange things begin to happen as Dougal exerts an uncanny influence on the inhabitants of Peckham Rye and brings lies, tears, blackmail and even murder into the lives of all he meets, from Miss Merle Coverdale, head of the typing pool, to Beauty, the resident femme fatale, and even Mr Druce, the unsuspecting Managing Director himself.
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31. Regent's Park - The Heat Of The Day
Bowen, Elizabeth
Paperback / softback
It is wartime London, and the carelessness of people with no future flows through the evening air. Stella discovers that her lover Robert is suspected of selling information to the enemy. Harrison, the British intelligence agent on his trail, wants to bargain, the price for his silence being Stella herself. Caught between two men and unsure who she can trust, the flimsy structures of Stella's life begin to crumble.
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32. Soho - The Long Firm
Arnott, Jake
Paperback / softback
London. The 1960s. The capital is swinging, but underneath the boomtown there's a dark underbelly. Meet Harry Starks: club owner, racketeer, porn king, sociology graduate and keen Judy Garland fan. Harry's business is fronting violence with rough charm and cheap glamour; putting the frighteners on, performing menace while desperately trying to jump the counter into legitimacy. Five characters tell five tales that combine in an extraordinary narrative that is both an explosively paced thriller and a brilliantly imagined sociological and topographical portrait of sixties London.
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33. Spitalfields - Hawksmoor
Ackroyd, Peter
Paperback / softback
'There is no Light without Darknesse and no Substance without Shaddowe'So proclaims Nicholas Dyer, assistant to Sir Christopher Wren and the man with a commission to build seven London churches to stand as beacons of the enlightenment. But Dyer plans to conceal a dark secret at the heart of each church - to create a forbidding architecture that will survive for eternity. Two hundred and fifty years later, London detective Nicholas Hawksmoor is investigating a series of gruesome murders on the sites of certain eighteenth-century churches - crimes that make no sense to the modern mind . . . 'Chillingly brilliant . . . sinister and stunningly well executed' Independent on SundayPeter Ackroyd was born in London in 1949. A novelist, biographer and historian, he has been the literary editor of The Spectator and chief book reviewer for the The Times, as well as writing several highly acclaimed books including a biography of Dickens and London: The Biography. He lives in London.
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34. The Circle Line - A Week in December
Faulks, Sebastian
Paperback / softback
'A thoughtful page-turner' THE TIMES 'Vast, well-plotted and gripping throughout' SPECTATOR 'Richly entertaining and highly rewarding' EVENING STANDARDSeven Londoners are invited to an opulent dinner party. From a brutal hedge-funder to a lovelorn barrister, a Polish footballer to a pickle magnate, they are defined by the virtual worlds of religious extremism, financial gambling, drugs and internet obsession they inhabit. But it is 2007, the Crash is coming, and all will face a terrible reckoning. A Week in December is a dazzling and darkly comic state-of-the-nation novel.
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35. Waterloo - The Necropolis Railway : A Historical Novel
Martin, Andrew
Paperback / softback
When railwayman Jim Stringer moves to the garish and tawdry London of 1903, he finds his duties are confined to a mysterious graveyard line. Perplexingly, the men he works alongside have formed an instant loathing for him. And his predecessor has disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Can Jim work out what is going on before he too is travelling on a one-way coffin ticket aboard the Necropolis Railway? A gripping detective story, fabulously rich in atmosphere and period detail, The Necropolis Railway steams toward an unexpected conclusion.
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36. Westminster - Mrs Dalloway
Woolf, Virginia
Hardback
Virginia Woolf's singular technique in Mrs Dalloway heralds a break with the traditional novel form and reflects a genuine humanity and a concern with the experiences that both enrich and stultify existence. Society hostess, Clarissa Dalloway is giving a party. Her thoughts and sensations on that one day, and the interior monologues of others whose lives are interwoven with hers gradually reveal the characters of the central protagonists. Clarissa's life is touched by tragedy as the events in her day run parallel to those of Septimus Warren Smith, whose madness escalates as his life draws toward inevitable suicide.
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