{"title":"Martin Connolly","description":"\u003cp\u003eDive into the gritty world of crime with Martin Connolly. Explore tales of Glasgow's dark underbelly, filled with complex characters and gripping suspense. Perfect for fans of hard-boiled detective fiction.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"mary-ann-cotton-dark-angel-britain-s-first-female-serial-killer-book-martin-connolly-9781473876200","title":"Mary Ann Cotton - Dark Angel: Britain's First Female Serial Killer","description":"A female thief, with four husbands, a lover and, reportedly, over twelve children, is arrested and tried for the murder of her step-son in 1872, turning the small village of West Auckland in County Durham upside down. Other bodies are exhumed and when they are found to contain arsenic, she is suspected of their murder as well. The perpetrator, Mary Ann Cotton, was tried and found guilty and later hanged on 24 March 1873 in Durham Goal. It is claimed she murdered over twenty people and was the first female serial killer in England. With location photographs and a blow by blow account of the trial, this book challenges the claim that Mary Ann Cotton was the 'The West Auckland Borgia', a title given to her at the time. It sets out her life, trial, death and the aftermath and also questions the legal system used to convict her by looking at contemporary evidence from the time and offering another explanation for the deaths. The book also covers the lives of those left behind, including the daughter born to Mary Ann Cotton in Durham Goal.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49535429214481,"sku":"GOR007973470","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49734343917841,"sku":"NGR9781473876200","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49785415270673,"sku":"GOR008281078","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50002408440081,"sku":"GOR008401871","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50719623577873,"sku":"CIN1473876206VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51848646885649,"sku":"CIN1473876206G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52829847290129,"sku":"GOR011024153","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1473876206.jpg?v=1751420837"},{"product_id":"murder-of-prime-minister-spencer-perceval-book-martin-connolly-9781526731241","title":"The Murder of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval","description":"England entered the nineteenth century having lost the American states and was at war with France. The slave trade had been halted and the country was in torment, with industrialisation throwing men and women out of work as poverty haunted their lives. As the merchants of England and America saw their businesses stagnate and profits plummet, everyone blamed the government and its policies. Those in charge were alarmed and businessmen, who were believed to be exploiting the poor, were murdered. Assassination indeed stalked the streets.  The man at the centre of the storm was Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. From the higher reaches of society to the beggar looking for bread, many wanted him dead, due to policies brought about by his inflexible religious convictions and his belief that he was appointed by God. In May 1812 he entered the Lobby of the Houses of Parliament when a man stepped forward and fired a pistol at him. The lead ball entered into his heart. Within minutes he was dead.  Using freshly-discovered archive material, this book explores the assassin's thoughts and actions through his own writings. Using his background in psychology, the author explores the question of the killer's sanity and the fairness of his subsequent trial.  Within its pages the reader will find an account of the murder of Spencer Perceval and a well-developed portrait of his assassin.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49541067571473,"sku":"GOR013429000","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/152673124X.jpg?v=1750797885"},{"product_id":"founding-of-israel-book-martin-connolly-9781526737151","title":"The Founding of Israel","description":"Here [In the State if Israel] their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance, and gave the world the Eternal Book of Books.' David Ben-Gurion, 14 May 1948  Seventy years ago in 1948 the State of Israel came into being amidst great controversy. For many, the Jews did not belong in Palestine and around them many nations sought to eradicate the new state from the map.  How did the State arise? What led to the founding of Israel?  This book sets out to give a chronological journey of the Jewish people from the time Abraham came out of the land of Ur 3,000 years ago, until 6 million of them died in the horror of the Holocaust under Hitler and his Nazi regime.  It recounts the many expulsions from the land in which they lived, the suffering under Babylonians, Greek, Persians, the destruction of their Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD, and finally, genocide and the expulsion by the Romans in 132 AD creating a diaspora across the world.  The Jews would be charged with killing God and throughout the following centuries would be expelled from countries, burned alive after being locked in Synagogues and at the stake, have all their property seized and herded into ghettoes. All of this until that fatal Holocaust, which attempted to wipe them from the face of the earth.  This book recounts their story to achieve a homeland, using a wide-range of historical documents to tell the story of humiliation, suffering, poverty and death. It tells of religious persecution that would not let them rest, and as their journey enters the twentieth century, gives a behind-the-scenes look at how governments manipulated the Middle East and exacerbated divisions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49619933069585,"sku":"GOR011395092","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50490744045841,"sku":"GOR012611717","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1526737159.jpg?v=1750894218"},{"product_id":"mary-ann-cotton-book-martin-connolly-9780957465107","title":"Mary Ann Cotton","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50104331895057,"sku":"GOR007285048","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0957465106.jpg?v=1750748456"},{"product_id":"kind-of-green-book-martin-connolly-9781911100263","title":"Kind of Green","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51056874291473,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51056877273361,"sku":"NIN9781911100263","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1911100262.jpg?v=1751413620"},{"product_id":"eri-a-japanese-ghost-story-book-martin-connolly-9781911100003","title":"Eri, a Japanese ghost story","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51258559365393,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51258561003793,"sku":"NIN9781911100003","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1911100009.jpg?v=1750804064"},{"product_id":"conjuring-cowboy-book-martin-connolly-9781911100089","title":"The Conjuring Cowboy","description":"This is Martin Connolly's first full-length novel. And it's a dilly. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Conjuring Cowboy\u003c\/i\u003e is a comedic novel. No, it's a ridiculously comedic novel. The main character, a recent university graduate with more time on his hands than sense, finds an advertisement in the paper which piques his curiosity: 'MAGICIAN WANTED. NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED'. Coming face to face with the author of this curious notice marks the beginning of both a remarkable journey and an even more remarkable transformation. Before long, he will find himself spectacularly transitioned from the late 1980s in a small town in the north of Ireland to late 1800s small town America, and... in possession of the magical ability to conjure up all manner of high-quality late nineteenth century items from his fingertips. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe reader may take all this with a pinch of salt, of course, but be prepared for a journey into the Wild, Wild West, where guns shoot deadly, unfunny bullets, and the towels that hang beneath the saloon counter are splattered with all manner of unmentionable... stuff. (Note, for buffs, the book is crammed full of meticulously researched detail.) There's a lot of drinking in this novel, and a lot of gunplay, too. This novel goes to the very heart of the American Wild West, and to the heart of a man who never felt very serious about taking anything very seriously. Talking of 'hearts', be prepared for a bit of romance, too, all played out against a backdrop of stringy, twangy, bluesy, and not always quite perfectly executed, music... \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThere are serious aspects to all this, however. Or so you might think with reviews like this: \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFrom Academy Professor Emeritus at Ohio State University, Morris Beja (former President of the International James Joyce Foundation): \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e'I thoroughly enjoyed \u003ci\u003eThe Conjuring Cowboy\u003c\/i\u003e  This novel is different and original, and courageously reflective and discursive, including the narrator's dreaded linguistic tendency for repetition, even as, obviously, the narrative doesn't lack incident.\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eFar from it  The incidents are examples of, I guess you'd call it all, magic realism, with, as in the best magical realism, more than a psychological hint hovering over everything. What an achievement ' \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAnd, from the eminent British poet Gavin Bantock: \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e'You would certainly have to travel far and wide to find a novel anything like this one. The putting together of the two worlds-apart elements - modern conjured magic and the nineteenth-century Wild West, as indicated by the title \u003ci\u003eThe Conjuring Cowboy\u003c\/i\u003e - sets off a chain of events that can only be described as almost impossibly eccentric. The author is without doubt a genuine real-world leprechaun with a fairly raunchy gift of the gab combined with a flamboyant flair for the poetic and the dramatic. There is perhaps something of the tinniness of substance that we find in \u003ci\u003eThe Wizard of Oz\u003c\/i\u003e, a kind of mismatch of European faery folklore with the harsh and ruthless realities of the modern world. It does seem a bit unnatural to marry the settings of Stetson-wearing cowboys wielding vintage revolvers with those of the children's party magician producing rabbits and bouquets out of a top hat. But it is precisely these most unlikely juxtapositions that give Martin Connolly's novel its extraordinary if often raucous panache. Walt Disney had the same, perhaps a more assured, mastery over the interactions and blendings of these worlds - the mystical past and the comical modern..... When all these things are put together in the zany way Martin Connolly has done it, one cannot help but laugh at the sheer mad audacity of some of the doings in his book. There is no doubt that his novel does entertain. It really is a slapstick Irish stew with the punch of a poteen  If you do have an interest in cowboys, guns, the Wild West and conjured magic then surely you will enjoy this book.' \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Conjuring Cowboy\u003c\/i\u003e is now al","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52755692126481,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52755693109521,"sku":"NIN9781911100089","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781911100089.jpg?v=1763574141"},{"product_id":"belfast-with-dinosaurs-1979-book-martin-connolly-9781910044421","title":"Belfast, With Dinosaurs, 1979","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52994872967441,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52994873032977,"sku":"GOR014686120","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781910044421.jpg?v=1767627706"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-martin-connolly.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}