This is the story of two crimes. The first was the bombing by the IRA of two pubs in Guildford in October 1974. Five people were killed, and many others horribly injured. The indiscriminate slaughter ...

Nothing is more irritating for novelists than the expectation of the public that they will remain true to previous form in every way. Publishers in particular are keen on consistency. There is always ...

On an autumn day in 1680, the 50-year-old Charles II charged Samuel Pepys with an unusual task. Over two three-hour sittings, one on a Sunday evening, the next the following Tuesday morning, the king ...

In the long history of Western culture, it is given to very few to have an entire era named after them. Socrates sits within Antiquity, Leonardo da Vinci within the Renaissance; even Shakespeare has ...

If I want to walk along the river near where I live, I have to cross one of the busiest roads in west London. The only access is via an underpass, an enclosed tunnel where a female friend of mine was ...

However well we think we know the suffragists and suffragettes, it is still easy to be dazzled by the iconic images: a tiny Emmeline Pankhurst being lifted off her feet by a burly policeman, Emily ...

'SKINNY D'AMATO'- THE nickname followed by the Italian surname - sounds like a Mob guy. Yet almost every American male in the first half of the twentieth century had a nickname; and there were plenty ...

This is a truly excellent book, one of the best it has been my pleasure to read in the line of duty for years. Joanne Harris achieves everything a novelist should aim for, with no sense of effort or ...

Film directors usually make the least promising subjects for biography. They tend to stay behind the camera and get on with making films, emerging only to make the odd promotional statement. Only ...

THE READING PUBLIC has long been divided between those who regard Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time as one of the great achievements of the post-war novel and the author as England’s answer ...

Steve Richards’s new book is an engaging survey of modern prime ministers. These leaders – from Harold Wilson to Theresa May, whose defenestration is alluded to in skilful late additions – qualify as ...

Maggie O’Farrell’s fifth novel, The Hand that First Held Mine, confronts the difficulties and wonders of motherhood. Through the lives of two women, Lexie and Elina, living a generation apart, a story ...