Geoff Cook

2065 - Thirty-five years have passed since the global attacks of eleven/eleven reduced the supply of fossil fuels to a trickle and curtailed economic activity for a century. As civilisation totters on the brink of disaster, an international coalition emerges out of the chaos and confusion. Hard lessons must be learned; personal liberties restricted, and national governance ceded to the new, collective authority known as INCOL. For Deputy Jack Tirrand, a rising star in the London Assembly, his family's future appears secure. But appearances are deceptive. As his wife, Rebecca and twin daughters, Harriet and Alison, wrestle with personal crises, Jack finds himself forced to confront his demons from the past and present alike. His life is under threat and time is running out for him to avert the terrifying consequences of the project - codename - OCTOGEN.

April 1945 - As the war in Europe draws to a chaotic and bloody finale and the days of the Third Reich are numbered, a train filled with a cargo of Nazi gold sets off from Berlin destined for a secret location in Bavaria. On board a young Polish Jew is about to witness a chain of events leading to the greatest robbery and criminal conspiracy of all time. October 2018 - After nearly eight decades later, a Lisbon bank is about to finally close its safe deposit facility. The secrets and treasures locked away over decades will soon be revealed. Influential people in powerful positions have reasons to be concerned. Fusing together the two events are the recollections of Rita Krakowski, Holocaust survivor, condemned as a Nazi collaborator and a fugitive from justice. Memories are branded into her soul like the number on her forearm, revelations with far-reaching international and financial implications. Powerful forces are being mobilised to find and silence her forever. For private investigators, Chas Broadhurst and Ren Marchal, what appears to be a straight-forward assignment rapidly becomes a deadly race against time to find the woman before it is too late and to expose a cover-up seventy years in the making.

Pretend you're deaf and seek to listen with your eyesfor the silent scream of vengeance your fractured heart denies'Believe me, there is nothing bold or courageous in making the decision to sacrifice everyone and everything you've worked for in exchange for a new life thousands of miles away with a woman you hardly know. Don't kid yourself. All it takes is a heady mix of bravado, false conviction, cowardice and a total lack of conscience. I should know. I did it. Sixteen years have passed and an opportunity comes out of the blue to make amends, to rekindle the bonds of family I once too easily discarded. Or so I hoped. But I was na ve. I thought words could heal. They can't. All they achieve is to distort the pain of rejection that feeds the prospect of revenge. Nor could I foresee the treacherous path ahead as I stumble into the bitter secrets of all our pasts. But I can now. My hearing might be shot, my memory failed and I know I should have taken the advice and walked away. Somehow, I couldn't. My grandson has given me a reason to exist and I needed to discover the truth. But some people have different ideas and will go to any lengths to make sure I do not. My name? It's Gilbert Hart, but call me Gil. Some people know me as Hartless.'Deaf Wish is a dark, contemporary family drama set in Wales, Northern Portugal and Spain's Costa de La Luz. Gil is a man seeking reconciliation with the wife and two sons he abandoned sixteen years earlier for a younger woman and a new life in Spain. As he faces the prospect of a reunion with his bitter ex-wife at their younger son's wedding little does he realise the need for revenge of those he cast aside and the lengths to which they are prepared to go to exact retribution.

The Sator Square. A terrorist is on the loose in the UK - his target - a member of the Royal Family. In France, a killer stalks the ranks of the paparazzi as he prepares to commit a series of ritual murders. When compromising pictures of the Prince are published in a French tabloid, Broadhurst, the Palace's head of security is drawn into a murky world of fundamentalist fever, brutal revenge and sinister international conspiracy. Across the Channel, Marchal, a widowed detective on the verge of retirement, is trying to investigate a series of suspicious deaths, but being thwarted at every turn. Tying the two conspiracies together is the enigmatic Sator Square - an ancient code with a deadly new resonance.

The Sator Square. A terrorist is on the loose in the UK - his target - a member of the Royal Family. In France, a killer stalks the ranks of the paparazzi as he prepares to commit a series of ritual murders. When compromising pictures of the Prince are published in a French tabloid, Broadhurst, the Palace's head of security is drawn into a murky world of fundamentalist fever, brutal revenge and sinister international conspiracy. Across the Channel, Marchal, a widowed detective on the verge of retirement, is trying to investigate a series of suspicious deaths, but being thwarted at every turn. Tying the two conspiracies together is the enigmatic Sator Square - an ancient code with a deadly new resonance.

The Technology of Building Defects has been developed to provide a unique review of the subject. Defects are considered as part of the whole building rather than in isolation. General educational objectives are set out which offer the reader the opportunity of self-assessment. Each section is generously illustrated with photographs and diagrams, forming an accessible self contained review covering the following: objectives; core information; exercises; revision notes; further reading. Taken together these sections build up to offer the reader an understanding of a range of technical topics concerned with building defects. This core text can be used for direct lecture material, seminar and tutorial information, assignment work and revision notes. It is a convenient one stop resource which dispenses with the need to consult a mass of different information sources.

The Technology of Building Defects has been developed to provide a unique review of the subject. Defects are considered as part of the whole building rather than in isolation. General educational objectives are set out which offer the reader the opportunity of self-assessment. Each section is generously illustrated with photographs and diagrams, forming an accessible self contained review covering the following: objectives; core information; exercises; revision notes; further reading. Taken together these sections build up to offer the reader an understanding of a range of technical topics concerned with building defects. This core text can be used for direct lecture material, seminar and tutorial information, assignment work and revision notes. It is a convenient one stop resource which dispenses with the need to consult a mass of different information sources.