It is May, 1944 - a time of international tension where nothing is certain. Two weeks before D-Day, the French Resistance attack a chateau containing a telephone exchange vital to German communications - but the building is heavily guarded and the attack fails disastrously.

Salisbury, the landscape - as old as time itself - shapes the destinies of five families: the Wilsons and the Shockleys, locked in a cycle of revenge and rivalry for more than 400 years; the Masons, who pour their inspired love of stone into the creation of Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral; the Porters; and, the aristocratic Norman Godefrois.

A sweltering week in late August. Where better to enjoy the last days of summer than on the beautiful Bay of Naples? But even as Rome's richest citizens relax in their villas around Pompeii and Herculaneum, there are ominous warnings that something is going wrong.

A specially priced edition to mark the 25th anniversary of the original publication of the first chronicle of Brother Cadfael.

Three corpses had been found in Moscow. But why the horrific mutilations? And why had they been buried in the snows of Gorky Park? It did indeed become a triple murder investigation for Chief Investigator Arkady Renko.