Slightly off-mint.

The SOE spy network set up by Churchill to sew discord in occupied Europe recruited a number of women to its ranks, including 39 agents in F (French) Section. This account of their activities focuses on three leading operatives, Andrée Borrel, Odette Sansom and Lise de Baissac, who played a key part in organizing local resistance units, carrying out sabotage attacks and gathering intelligence crucial to the planning of the Allied invasion.

How well would you find your way if the sat-nav died? The AA’s quiz book invites you to use your map-reading skills to answer questions about the history and geography of roads in Britain and how to drive on them. Arranged by topics from early roads to record-breakers (the steepest, bendiest etc), each of the 40 quizzes is based on a section of an AA map, with ten questions and puzzles to challenge your general knowledge and driving skills.

When a young woman is found dead in a Glasgow park, Detective Superintendent Lorimer suspects a serial killer is on the loose. However, the last thing he expects is for his wife, travelling in apparent safety to promote her book, to become a potential victim.

Kay Scarpetta performs a groundbreaking ‘virtual autopsy’ on a man who was apparently alive when locked in the mortuary cooler. Scans reveal internal injuries from a powerful but unknown weapon. While trying to prevent more deaths Scarpetta also faces a dark secret from her past.

Celebrating cake in all its guises – from classics to vegan bakes and from cupcakes to fondant fancies, this companion volume to the Channel 4 television programme The Great British Bake Off presents 70 recipes supplied by Prue Leith, Paul Hollywood and the amateur bakers from all ten series. High-quality food photography features throughout, with images of the flora and fauna of Welford Park, location of the famous Bake Off tent, and stills of the contestants.

Polly has finally got her life on track and is happily making bread at Little Beach street bakery in her beloved Cornwall. But when she decides to move into a disused lighthouse with her American boyfriend, things don’t quite go according to plan.

When Doris becomes pregnant her mother forces her to leave the family home. As she struggles to find work and refuge in 1950s Essex she encounters prejudices directed at single mothers, the disabled, those with mental illness and her friends in the Windrush generation.

When a strange old man askes Lichfield council officer Chris Buckley to help heal a family rift, he turns him away. Then the old man is murdered. As Chris investigates, he uncovers a deadly secret in the town’s misty canals.

With the Napoleonic Wars as backdrop, Thackeray's great satire of materialistic society follows the fortunes of two young ladies from Miss Pinkerton's Academy: the orphaned, penniless, yet ruthless Becky Sharp; and Amelia Sedley, her less worldly friend, brought up in comfort and wealth and destined for neither. Slightly off-mint.

When three-year-old Dylan is diagnosed with a life-limiting illness, his parents find themselves at an impasse, unable to agree whether to pursue every possible avenue to extend his life or to let him go.

In this dark thriller from the author of Friend Request the timeline alternates between the present, when Sasha North, one of three close friends, has disappeared, and the complex events ten years earlier that may provide the clues needed to solve the mystery.

When a young woman is found dead in a Glasgow park, Detective Superintendent Lorimer suspects a serial killer is on the loose. However, the last thing he expects is for his wife, travelling in apparent safety to promote her book, to become a potential victim.

This novel incorporates magic, politics, the plague and civil war in a tale of Master Astrologer William Lilly, who is in exile in Suffolk in 1641 because of the widespread witch trials, but who is soon invited to return by the King himself.

From the popular crime series about DI Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry, this title sees Cooper investigating the suspicious death of a rambler in a walking party in the Peak District, while Fry is fighting an internal investigation that could drag both detectives down.

After a post-war career slump, Frank Sinatra established himself as an all-time great from the mid 1950s with a string of hit records and notable films. This second volume of James Kaplan’s biography picks up the story the day after Sinatra received an Oscar for his role in From Here to Eternity and describes the entertainer’s prime and later years, discussing his classic recordings and Rat Pack friendships. Off-mint.

As the cult of the 1920's rabble-rousing hedonists the Bright Young Things encroaches on the world of the Mitford sisters, their chaperone Louisa finds herself at the heart of a gripping murder mystery.

Molly Lefebure was a reporter during the London Blitz and her first-hand descriptions bring authenticity to this sweeping historical saga. She tells the story of four families whose lives become entangled against the backdrop of a war-torn country.

Donald Spoto’s much-acclaimed biography of Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) was written some 15 years before the actress’s death and follows her career in film, from child star to international success and the first million dollar pay cheque for a female star, and her complicated and sometimes scandalous private life and relationships. Off-mint.

One winter evening in Stockholm a cyber-attack triggers a power blackout, including internet and phone services. Similar attacks follow across Europe. A journalist and her daughter struggle to reach her husband, a cyber-security expert who has disappeared but who may be searching for the truth.

In this 13th case for Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Quebec police department, a mysterious figure appears in Three Pines village, causing unease among the inhabitants. When the figure disappears, Gamache’s worst fears are realized: a dead body is discovered.

When Hannah was diagnosed with a serious heart condition as a child, her father’s drama group staged a faerie cavalcade for her birthday. It became a yearly ritual, but now the theatre is under threat. Keith Stuart’s books have been compared to Jojo Moyes’.

Early one Sunday morning in Three Pines, Quebec, an unknown man is found lying dead in the bistro. Investigating the murder, Chief Inspector Gamache uncovers the shameful history of the village as he comes closer to identifying the victim and the terrifying killer.

Jacob Ross’s award-winning novel is set on a small Caribbean island. Michael ‘Digger’ Digson, a young man with a natural talent for forensics, is recruited into DS Chilman’s rogue police department, but has his own cold case to pursue: the unsolved murder of his mother.

Investigating two different murders with one thing in common – the same rough tattoo on both victims’ legs – DI Lottie Parker’s leads converge on a former children’s home and unsolved murders from decades ago. This is the first of the bestselling Lottie Parker series.

Recently separated, Alison Taylor meets a man in a local bar in this thriller and wakes up the next morning with a bump on her head and unable to recognize her own face in the mirror.

During a narcotics investigation, Detective Erika Foster has the sludge of a disused quarry searched. A cache of drugs is recovered, along with the skeleton of a young child who went missing 26 years ago – a cold case that becomes an urgent murder investigation.

A real-life tragedy on stage ended the run of When the Curtain Falls at the Southern Cross Theatre. Sixty-six years later, a new production of the play is to open, but the ghosts of that earlier night still haunt the Southern Cross.

Lured to a remote farmhouse in rural Québec, Armand Gamache finds himself the beneficiary of an unknown woman’s will. When a body is discovered, he must confront events that led to his suspension from the police force, and the dark secrets in his past.

In a chilling, twisting psychological thriller, Anna starts to question the circumstances of her parents’ deaths – two shocking suicides, just months apart – but sometimes it’s best to let things lie. By digging up the past, Anna endangers her future.

Psychological profiling suggests that serial killers sometimes begin by killing animals, so it makes sense that Tom Thorne, although a homicide detective, is tasked with catching a particularly brutal cat-killer before he or she starts murdering people.

After his enemies seize the Scottish crown, Robert the Bruce travels to England to seek the help of its king. But Edward proves a treacherous ally, and Robert must soon fight to save his nation. Book two of the Bravehearts Chronicles.

This fourth title in the War at Home series, following the fortunes of the Hunter family and their servants, is set against a backdrop of 1917 U-boat attacks, food shortages and German bombing campaigns.

The radio and television performer and author of Camberwell Beauty, Jenny Eclair presents a collection of short stories in which 23 down-to-earth women reach pivotal points in their lives.

A 17-year-old music student, lodging with family friends in 1930s Vienna, Stella Whittaker falls in love with the city, and with a young Jewish doctor; but as war approaches, Vienna becomes a place where no one is safe.

On a summer night in Conduit Street, London, a woman approaches Joe Trayne and asks him for help with a dead man. She leads him to her flat, then disappears – leaving Joe with a body in a box. First published in 1946.

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles’ Morland Dynasty has now reached 1919. The Great War is over, but its aftermath presents fresh challenges. While Teddy heads for France and Polly visits New York, others simply resolve to keep on dancing. Slightly off-mint.

Why visit a graveyard if you have no one to mourn? For Lorna Rhoads cemeteries can be repositories of stories, outdoor sculpture parks, habitats for birds and wildlife, gardens and oases of tranquillity. Her worldwide, illustrated directory includes burial grounds of all faiths, famous graveyards such Père Lachaise, Boothill and the Taj Mahal, war graves and memorial parks, catacombs, dolmens and even an underwater cemetery – the Neptune Memorial Reef for those lost at sea.

Freed by the death of her husband, Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine is the most powerful woman in medieval Europe. However, the bitter rivalry between her sons challenges even her strong character.

Winnie, Bella and Frankie are very different women who develop a close friendship when they join an East End ambulance crew during the Second World War. This is the first title in Hendry’s saga, inspired by her father’s wartime experiences.

Ex-conman Jerry and recently widowed Charlotte attempt to put their murky pasts behind them and embark on a relationship. Their lies and deceits start to surface, however, and when Charlotte disappears, Jerry becomes the number-one suspect.

While her husband was serving as a British Army captain, Evelyn Shillington travelled with him whenever she could. She kept a regular diary starting with their arrival home from Hong Kong in 1935, through the turbulence of the Second World War, to a stint in post-war Italy in 1946. As well as commenting on the political situation, the diaries include gossip, humour and even a meeting with Princess Elizabeth.

In Naples in 1564, an unexpected encounter brings the astonishingly beautiful and ambitious courtesan Francesca Felizzi to the realization of what her life has been and the dangers it holds for her and her twin daughters.