Dan Smith

December 1930, Ukraine. Luka, a war veteran, wants a quiet life with his family. Their village is hidden from the advancing Soviet brutality--until the stranger arrives pulling a sled bearing a terrible cargo. When the villagers' fear turns deadly, they think they've saved themselves. But their anger has cursed them: a little girl has vanished. In these frozen lands, Luka has the skills to find the one who stole the child. With his sons, he sets out...

In 1941 twelve-year-old Karl is proud to be a member of the Hitler Youth, but when his father is killed on the Eastern Front everything changes--his family moves to the country to live with his grandparents, he encounters a brutal Gestapo officer, and he begins to realize that his sixteen-year-old brother has joined a youth group who opposes the Nazis.

"Every boy in Oskari's remote mountain village must face a ritual hunt on his thirteenth birthday--the Trial--to become a man. It's Oskari's turn, and whatever animal he kills--if he succeeds--will symbolize who he will become. But the idea of spending a night alone in the forest makes him queasy, and the ceremonial bow he has to use is too big for him. Not long after he sets out, Oskari comes across a strange creature in the woods, emerging in eerie...

"Leaving behind his life of violence in Brazil's darkest shadows, Zico is determined to become a better man. But it seems his old life isn't quite done with him yet when he's tasked with making one last kill." --

"From the author of The Penguin State of the World Atlas, an essential tool for understanding the modern Middle East The Middle East is in a constant state of change, and understanding it has never been more important. In this essential guide to the region and its politics, Dan Smith unravels the history of the Middle East from the Ottoman Empire to the present day. With the acute and fair-minded analysis readers have come to expect from him, Smith...