Desmond Bagley – författare

The first action thriller by the classic adventure writer, set in Italy.When the Allies invaded southern Italy in 1943, Mussolini’s personal treasure was moved north to safety under heavily armed guard. It was never seen again. Now, an expedition plans to unearth the treasure and smuggle it out of Italy. But their reckless mission is being followed – by enemies who are as powerful and ruthless as they are deadly…

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in the South American Andes.When Tim O’Hara’s plane is hijacked and forced to crash land in the middle of the Andes, his troubles are only beginning. A heavily armed group of communist soldiers intent on killing one of his passengers – an influential political figure – have orders to leave no survivors. Isolated in the biting cold of the Andes, O’Hara’s party must fight for their lives with only the most primitive weapons…

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in the islands of the Caribbean.Ferocious Hurricane Mabel is predicted to pass harmlessly amongst the islands of the Caribbean. But David Wyatt has developed a sixth sense about hurricanes. He is convinced that Mabel will change course to strike the island of San Fernandez and its capital, St Pierre. But nobody believes him, and the hurricane is only one of the problems that threaten San Fernandez…

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in British Columbia.Bob Boyd is a geologist, as resilient as the British Columbia timber country where he works for the powerful Matterson Corporation. But his real name and his past are mysteries – wiped out by the accident that nearly killed him. Then Boyd reads a name that opens a door in his memory: Trinavant – and discovers that Bull Matterson and his son will do almost anything to keep the Trinavant family forgotten forever…

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in South America.Jeremy Wheale’s well-ordered life is blasted apart when his brother is murdered. The killer was after a family heirloom – an antique gold tray – which sets Wheale on a trail from Devon to the tropical rainforest of Yucatan. There he joins the hunt for a lost Mayan city. But in the dense cover of the jungle a band of vicious convict mercenaries are waiting to strike…

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in the Middle East.When film tycoon Robert Hellier loses his daughter to heroin, he declares war on the drug pedlars, the faceless overlords whose greed supplies the world with its deadly pleasures. London drug specialist Nicholas Warren is called upon to organise an expedition to the Middle East to track down and destroy them – but with a hundred million dollars’ worth of heroin at stake, Warren knows he will have to use methods as deadly as his prey…

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in Iceland.The assignment begins with a simple errand – a parcel to deliver. But to Alan Stewart, standing on a deserted road in Iceland with a murdered man at his feet, it looks anything but simple. The desolate terrain is obstacle enough. But when Stewart realises he has been double-crossed and that the opposition is gaining ground, his simple mission seems impossible…

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in Malta.The Scarperers, a brilliantly organised gang which gets long-term inmates out of prison, spring a notorious Russian double agent. The trail leads Owen Stannard to Malta, and to the suave killer masterminding the gang. Face to face at last with his opponents, Stannard must try to outwit both men – who have nothing to lose and everything to gain by his death…

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in Norway and Finland.When Giles Denison of Hampstead wakes up in an Oslo hotel room and finds the face looking back at him in the mirror is not his own, things could surely get no more bizarre. But it is only the beginning of a hair-raising adventure in which Denison finds himself trapped with no way to escape. One false move and the whole delicately balanced power structure between East and West will come toppling down…

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in New Zealand.Fifty-four people died in the avalanche that ripped apart a small New Zealand mining town. But the enquiry which follows unleashes more destructive power than the snowfall. As the survivors tell their stories, they reveal a community so divided that all warnings of danger went unheeded. At the centre of the storm is Ian Ballard, whose life depends upon being able to clear his name…

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in Sweden.Wealthy, respectable George Ashton flees for his life after an acid attack on his daughter. Who is his enemy? Only Malcolm Jaggard, his future son-in-law, can guess, after seeing Ashton’s top secret government file. In a desperate manhunt, Jaggard pits himself against the KGB and stalks Ashton to the silent, wintry forests of Sweden. But his search for the enemy has barely begun…

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer about security consultant, Max Stafford, set in the Sahara.Why is Max Stafford, security consultant, beaten up in his own office? What is the secret of the famous 1930s aircraft, the Lockheed Lodestar? And why has accountant Paul Bilson disappeared in North Africa? The journey to the Sahara desert becomes a race to save Paul Bilson, a race to find the buried aircraft, and – above all – a race to return alive…

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in the islands of the Caribbean.Tom Mangan was a sharply successful entrepreneur who lured the super-rich to his luxury hotels in the sun-soaked Bahamas. Then violent tragedy struck: his own family disappeared, and a series of misfortunes, accidents and mysterious epidemics began to drive the tourists away and wreck Mangan’s livelihood. Fatally, he becomes determined to confront his enemy – and the hunt is on…

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in the Pacific.When Mark Trevelyan dies on a journey to a remote Pacific atoll, the verdict that it was natural causes doesn’t convince his brother, Mike. The series of violent attacks that follows only adds to his suspicions. Just two clues – a notebook in code and a lump of rock – are enough to trigger off a hazardous expedition, and a violent confrontation far from civilization…

Action thriller by the classic adventure writer set in Africa.It is no ordinary juggernaut. Longer than a football pitch, weighing 550 tons, and moving at just five miles per hour, its job – and that of troubleshooter Neil Mannix – is to move a giant transformer across an oil-rich African state. But when Nyala erupts in civil war, Mannix’s juggernaut is at the centre of the conflict – a target of ambush and threat, with no way to run and nowhere to hide…

Discovered after more than 40 years, a vintage action-adventure novel set on Domino Island – a Caribbean paradise toppling under murder, corruption and organised crime…‘Like a dream come true – an undiscovered Desmond Bagley novel … and it’s a great one!’ LEE CHILDBill Kemp, an ex-serviceman working in London as an insurance investigator, is sent to the Caribbean to determine the legitimacy of an expensive life insurance claim following the inexplicable death of businessman David Salton. His rapidly inflated premiums immediately before his death stand to make his young widow a very rich lady! Once there, Kemp discovers that Salton’s political ambitions had made him a lot of enemies, and local tensions around a forthcoming election are already spilling over into protest and violence on the streets. Salton also had friends in unexpected places, including the impossibly beautiful Leotta Tomsson, to whom there is much more than meets the eye. Kemp realises that Salton’s death and the local unrest are a deliberate smokescreen for an altogether more ambitious plot by an enemy in their midst, and as the island comes under siege, even Kemp’s army training seems feeble in the face of such a determined foe.Unseen for more than 40 years and believed lost, Domino Island was accepted for publication in 1972 but then replaced by a different novel to coincide with the release of The Mackintosh Man, the Paul Newman film based on Bagley’s earlier novel The Freedom Trap. It is a classic Bagley tour de force with an all-action finale.

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR.On a beautiful summer evening in the quiet town of Marlow, a young woman is walking home from church. She passes a man who is looking at the engine of his car. He turns round, smiles at her... and throws acid into her face. Then her father, the scientist George Ashton, disappears. And her sister, Penny, discovers that her husband-to-be, Malcolm, is a government agent. Why has Ashton disappeared, and why is Malcolm told to hunt for him? Who is George Ashton, anyway? And who is the enemy?