{"title":"Craig Cliff","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"mannequin-makers-book-craig-cliff-9781911545293","title":"The Mannequin Makers","description":"'The skin was smooth and bright as porcelain, but looked as if it would give to the touch. What manner of wood had he used? What tools to exact such detail? What paints, tints or stains to flush her with life?' So wonders the window dresser Colton Kemp when he sees the first mannequin of his new rival, a silent man the inhabitants of Marumaru simply call The Carpenter. Rocked by the sudden death of his wife in childbirth and left with twins to raise, Kemp hatches a dark and selfish plan to make his name and thwart his rival. What follows is a gothic tale of art and deception, strength and folly, love and transgression, which ranges from small-town New Zealand to the graving docks of the River Clyde in Scotland. Along the way we meet a Prussian strongman, a family of ship's carvers with a mysterious affliction, a septuagenarian surf lifesaver and a talking figurehead named Vengeance. Lives and stories will intertwine as fate takes its cruel trajectory, leaving you feeling as if waking from an unsettling dream.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49541349933329,"sku":"GOR009886760","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53482096263441,"sku":"GOR009975091","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1911545299.jpg?v=1751062073"},{"product_id":"mannequin-makers-book-craig-cliff-9781571311276","title":"The Mannequin Makers","description":"Excitement is rare in the small town of Marumaru, New Zealand. So when a young Maori man arrives on the morning train one day in 1903--announcing the imminent visit of a famous strongman--the entire town turns out to greet him, save one. Colton Kemp, a department store window-dresser, is at home, watching his beloved wife die in premature childbirth. Tormented by grief, he hatches a plan to make his name and thwart his rival, the silent and gifted Carpenter: over the next sixteen years he will raise his newborn twins in secrecy and isolation, to become human mannequins in the world's most lifelike window display. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e From this moment of calamity emerges a work of masterful storytelling, at once wildly entertaining and formally ambitious. The novel leaps fearlessly from the epistolary to the castaway narrative to the picaresque, as Kemp's plot goes awry and as he, his children, and the Carpenter converge in the New Zealand hinterland. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Mannequin Makers\u003c\/i\u003e is an adventure-filled and thoroughly delightful yarn, introducing Craig Cliff, one of international literature's most promising young talents, to American audiences.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50764425527569,"sku":"CIN1571311270VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51000606195985,"sku":"CIN1571311270G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1571311270.jpg?v=1750959555"},{"product_id":"offshore-service-book-craig-cliff-9781991348241","title":"Offshore Service","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53469952311569,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53469952409873,"sku":"NGR9781991348241","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781991348241.jpg?v=1782877401"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-craig-cliff.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}