The Assassini

In the Vatican, the pope is dying as priestly vultures gather around, whispering the names of possible successors. In a monastery on Ireland, a dangerous document is hidden, waiting to be claimed. And in a family chapel in Princeton, New Jersey, a nun is murdered. Sister Valentine, an outspoken activist, was a thorn in the Church’s side. When her brother, lawyer Ben Driskill, realises the Church will never investigate her death, he sets out to find the murderer himself — and uncovers a dangerous, explosive secret.

The Mountain of Light

The Mountain of Light, a London Indian Restaurant, is Balu’s great love, the delicious kulfis and dansaks he devises his sole connection to the land of his childhood. When Sarah, rents the flat upstairs, she, her boyfriend Jude, and Hari, a waiter, begin to gather after hours to chat around Balu’s tables. Meanwhile Jozef, an elderly Polish man, begins to reveal a story to Sarah, and so inspires a journey that will lead her to discover where — and with whom — she really belongs.

Autumn Bridge

The year is 1311, in the highest tower of Cloud of Sparrows Castle, a woman watches as the city is set alight and a mob runs riot. She begins to write down the events unfolding around her and the secret history of the Okumichi Clan. Six centuries later the lost scrolls fall into the hands of American missionary Emily Gibson. As she sifts through the scrolls, she begins to see threads of her own life woven into the writings. As past and present collide, a hidden history comes to life, and with it a secret prophecy.

The Gangster We Are All...

In 1978, six Vietnamese refugees were pulled from the sea off California. In San Diego, a little girl’s innocence masks the ghostly traumas that still haunt her: the cataclysm that engulfed her homeland; the memory of a brother who drowned; the heartbreaking spectacle of her parents trying to make a new home, their struggle backlit by the memory of a forbidden love when they were young.

The Sorrow of War

Winner of the Independent foreign fiction award This is the semi-autobiographical account of a soldier’s experiences. The hero of the story, Kien, is a captain. After 10 years of war and months as a MIA body-collector, Kien suffers a nervous breakdown in Hanoi as he tries to re-establish a relationship with his former sweetheart.

(To pick the bestsellers in town, do visit ‘The Saturday Cafe and Bookshop’ in Bouddha)