Bøger af Mary Edward

When a teenage pupil disappears after a school trip, Sarah Blane, her English teacher, in Fruin High in the west of Scotland, is horribly reminded of the time twenty-five years before, when her sister Ruth disappeared in similar circumstances in Edinburgh. And when Rubina is found murdered, Sarah has to confront the possibility that her sister may also have met a violent end, and her long-held belief that Ruth is still alive somewhere is seriously questioned. Mark Mckenzie, an investigative journalist, persuades Sarah to look into Ruth's disappearance in Edinburgh all these years ago, and the mystery of who killed Rubina and what might have happened to Ruth are explored simultaneously. Step by step both mysteries unfold until they reach their dramatic conclusion.

It is January 1880. Dundee is mourning the collapse of the new Tay Railway Bridge and the many lives lost, including that of Sarah, wife of Andrew Mason, jute mill owner and reluctant director of the failed bridge project. Andrew is also mourning the loss of his illicit love, Beth Grant, who turns away from him in the aftermath of the tragedy. Depressed, he looks to changing his life by buying a mill in Calcutta, a growing source of Dundee's jute, and travelling to India with his small son at the end of 1880. There he struggles to cope with the mores of the Britsh Raj: finds new friends and a new love, and encounters familiar obstacles to his philanthropic intentions in the Scotia Jute Mill.

During a fierce storm, a train carrying seventy-five people is hurled into the Firth of Tay when the bridge it is crossing collapses. Everyone on board is killed. It is the night of 28th December 1879.Long before the incident, Andrew Mason, a jute mill owner and a reluctant shareholder in the venture had been sceptical and worried. Constructing the proposed, single track railway bridge over the yawning gap of the Tay Estuary seemed an almost impossible task. The story is told showing a catalogue of mismanagement, poor workmanship and use of inferior materials, leading to dramatic incidents and fatal accidents plaguing the workforce. As dreaded by Andrew, after only 18 months, the disaster occurs. He has been a voice in the wilderness and now his worst fears have been realised. His life is full of conflicts and traumas. He has a love affair, a wife addicted to laudanum and Spiritualism and he faces the hostility of his many notable contemporaries in the rapidly growing town of Dundee.Spider's Thread is a work of fiction, but the story of the Tay bridge disaster is real. The tragedy and the lives of the people it touches are vividly brought to life through the eyes of Andrew Mason.

In Rio de Janeiro, Lucy Fallon, the 14 year old privileged daughter of wealthy divorced parents, is never allowed to venture out on the dangerous streets of the city alone, until an emergency at her private school sends her home just as her soap opera star mother is leaving for Hollywood to collect an award. Left in the care of the housekeeper and the chauffeur, Lucy is bored, and she persuades Manoel Barreto, the housekeeper's son, to let her join him as he tries to help a couple of hungry street children find their brother. In the end Lucy has more excitement than she bargained for when their adventures on the streets of Rio reach their dramatic and dangerous conclusion.

Why are there so many Italian hairdressers and Chinese restaurants in Glasgow? With clear-sighted social analysis and an impressive assembly of historical evidence, Edward weaves a vivid tapestry of the many peoples and cultures that have created contemporary Glasgow.