Alexander Starritt

A letter from a German soldier to his grandson recounts the terrors of war on the Eastern Front, and a postwar ordinary life in search of atonement, in this “raw, visceral, and propulsive” novel (New York Times Book Review).A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice In the throes of the Second World War, young Meissner, a college student with dreams of becoming a scientist, is drafted into the German army and sent to the Eastern Front. But soon his regiment collapses in the face of the onslaught of the Red Army, hell-bent on revenge in its race to Berlin. Many decades later, now an old man reckoning with his past, Meissner pens a letter to his grandson explaining his actions, his guilt as a Nazi participator, and the difficulty of life after war. Found among his effects after his death, the letter is at once a thrilling story of adventure and a questing rumination on the moral ambiguity of war. In his years spent fighting the Russians and attempting afterward to survive the Gulag, Meissner recounts a life lived in perseverance and atonement. Wracked with shame—both for himself and for Germany—the grandfather explains his dark rationale, exults in the courage of others, and blurs the boundaries of right and wrong. We Germans complicates our most steadfast beliefs and seeks to account for the complicity of an entire country in the perpetration of heinous acts. In this breathless and page-turning story, Alexander Starritt also presents us with a deft exploration of the moral contradictions inherent in saving one's own life at the cost of the lives of others and asks whether we can ever truly atone.

For the first time since university, James and Roland's paths through life – one drawn in straight lines, the other squiggled and meandering – began to cross…James Drayton has always found things too easy. By the time he leaves university, he's still searching for a challenge worthy of his ambitions, one that will fulfil the destiny he thinks awaits him.Roland Mackenzie, on the other hand, is an impulsive risk-taker, a charismatic drifter with boundless enthusiasm but a knack for derailing his own attempts to get started in life.When a chance encounter in a pub reunites these old acquaintances, it sets them on an unpredictable course through the upheavals of the 21st century, and triggers an unlikely alliance. Against the backdrop of the financial crash and its aftermath, they strive to create something that outlasts them, something that will matter.Drayton and Mackenzie is a stunningly ambitious, immediately engaging and ultimately deeply moving novel both about trying to make your mark on the world, and about how a friendship might be the most important thing in life.

Jeremy Underwood is a long-suffering subeditor on The Daily Beast, Britain's mightiest tabloid. Returning from holiday, he notices two burqa-clad figures lurking outside the paper's offices in Kensington. Fear is in the air since two male suspects escaped from a mosque. Jeremy's observation sets off a chain of events that rapidly escalates, as the great Beast comes under siege.Alexander Starritt's novel is a vivid anatomy of that most uncontrollable and irresponsible of large creatures, the British tabloid newspaper. He writes with pinpoint precision about the ways in which scapegoats are selected by an institution that sees itself as the voice of Middle England. The fearsome professionalism and manic rivalries of a newsroom have rarely been so well described. This is a compelling novel in which comedy teeters on the edge of horror.

Everybody needs a little more sex in their life, and the Pigeon has you covered with a sensational anthology from veteran eroticists and virgin voices alike.