Books published by publisher faber and faber ltd.

A classic detective story from one of the best-loved Golden Age crime writers, Cyril Hare, originally published in 1951. The setting of An English Murder seems, at first, to be a very conventional one. A group of family and friends come together for Christmas at a country house, Warbeck Hall. The house is owned by Lord Warbeck, a dying and impoverished peer who wants to be among loved ones for what he thinks will be his last Christmas. The holiday decorations are up and snow is falling fast outside. The guests range from the Lord's difficult son to a visiting Czech historian. There is, of course, a faithful butler and his ambitious daughter. But when the murders begin, there is nothing at all conventional about them - or the manner of their detection. This ingenious detective story gleefully plays with all of our expectations about what an 'English murder' might be and offers enough twists and turns to keep us reading into the night. 'Of Cyril Hare's detective stories my only complaint is, that they are too infrequent.' Tatler

Re-issued to coincide with the centenary of Messiaen's birth, The Messiaen Companion was the first major study to appear after the composer's death in April 1992. It was the first book to offer both a complete survey of Messiaen's extraordinary achievements and a comprehensive guide to his music, also examining in detail the enduring inspiration which Messiaen derived from his religious faith and from his lifelong passion for ornithology and the natural world. The contributors, all of whom have made a special study of the composer, include two biographers of Messiaen and a number of the foremost interpreters of his music. Messiaen's influential teaching is recalled in essays by three of his pupils (Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin, and Peter Hill), and the composer is also remembered in a remarkable and moving contribution from his widow and devoted musical companion, the pianist Yvonne Loriod.

A year after the events that killed her sister and turned her into a siren, Vanessa is desperately trying to put her family back together and reclaim a 'normal' life. But no matter how many times she swims, or how much salt water she drinks, she can feel herself getting weaker and weaker. Meanwhile she's desperately trying to come to terms with her break-up with Simon. Her first love, who she drove away with her siren's wandering eye. Then her biological mother shows up at her summer house in Maine - claiming she is a Nenuphar, the most powerful of all sirens. She promises that she wants to help the daughter from whom she's been separated.