Orion Publishing Group

Their names still echo down the ages: The Great Pyramid at Giza. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The Temple of Artemis. The statue of Zeus at Olympia. The mausoleum of Halikarnassos. The Colossus at Rhodes. The Lighthouse of Alexandria.

The Illusionist tells for the first time the dazzling tale of how, at a pivotal moment in the war, British eccentricity and imagination combined to thwart the Nazis and save innumerable lives - on both sides.

As IQ plugs a mysterious USB into his laptop, he's horrified to see what flashes across the screen: his girlfriend Grace is sweaty and bedraggled - her wrists wrapped with duct tape. Grace has been kidnapped by the likes of Skip Hanson, a brutish hitman with a vendetta against Isaiah.

Isaiah is no longer IQ, the genius of East Long Beach. A man on the road and on the run, he is hiding in a small Northern California town when his room is broken into by a desperate young man on the trail of the state's most prolific serial killer.

Isaiah Quintabe - IQ for short - has never been more successful, or felt more alone. A series of high-profile wins in his hometown of East Long Beach have made him so notorious that he can hardly go to the corner store without being recognized. Dodson, once his sidekick, is now his full-fledged partner, hell-bent on giving IQ's PI business some real legitimacy: a Facebook page, and IQ's promise to stop accepting Christmas sweaters and carpet cleanings in exchange for PI services. So when a young painter approaches IQ for help tracking down her missing mother, it's not just the case Isaiah's looking for, but the human connection. And when his new confidant turns out to be connected to a dangerous paramilitary operation, IQ falls victim to a threat even a genius can't see coming.

Christiana is the daughter of the biggest arms dealer on the West Coast, Angus Byrne. She's also the sole witness and number-one suspect in the murder of her boyfriend - found dead inside her Newport Beach boutique. Angus will do anything to save his daughter and he thinks private eye Isaiah Quintabe is just the man for the job - an offer IQ soon learns he can't refuse. The catch: Christiana has multiple personalities. Five radically different ones - among them, a naïve shopkeeper, an obnoxious drummer in a rock band and a wanton seductress.

A novel that spans the history of Europe - from revolutionary France to the world wars, the Prague Spring, post Brexit Britain, and beyond - this is the irresistible, adventurous and affectionate story of a quite extraordinary woman, her exceptionally talented ancestors, and the curious memories they share.

Napoleon warned 'Let China sleep; when she wakes, she will shake the world'. Lawrence James's magisterial history analyses the relationship between Britain and China between the beginning of the Opium Wars in 1839 and the transfer of power in Hong Kong in 1997.

Decades tend to crest halfway through, and 1995 was the year of the Nineties: peak Britpop (Oasis v Blur), peak YBA (Tracey Emin's tent), peak New Lad (when Nick Hornby published High Fidelity, when James Brown's Loaded detonated the publishing industry, and when pubs were finally allowed to stay open on a Sunday).

In MENDING THE MIND, Oliver Kamm recounts what it's like to be mentally ill with severe depression, and he details the route by which, with professional help, he was able to make a full recovery. His experience prompted him to find out all he could about a condition that has afflicted humanity throughout recorded history. He explains the progress of science in understanding depression, and the insights into the condition that have been provided by writers and artists through the ages.

Arguably the most influential force in Jamaican music, Lee Perry brought Bob Marley to international stardom and has since collaborated with artists such as Sir Paul McCartney, The Clash and The Beastie Boys. The book delves behind the myth of Perry to give a fuller examination of his life and work through extensive interviews with family members, fellow artists, friends, lovers, enemies, as well as the man himself to present a complex portrait of a unique soul driven by unseen spiritual forces.