Why did Professor Sharpey, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist, commit suicide by throwing himself from a fast-moving train? And why were briefcases stuffed with cash found beside his shattered corpse? Major Hall of British Intelligence suspects Sharpey was a traitor selling secrets to the Communists. But Sharpey's colleague, Dr Harry Longman, believes his friend's strange behaviour is connected with his groundbreaking experiments using an isolation tank to test the effects of sensory deprivation. There's only one way for Longman to discover what really happened to Sharpey and clear his friend's name: he must subject himself to the same frightening experiments. But the terror he undergoes in the isolation tank is nothing compared to the horror that will follow: for what emerges from the lab is no longer Longman, but something else entirely . . .   A chilling and gripping story of espionage and mind control, James Kennaway's third novel, The Mind Benders (1963), was a...

Tunes of GloryHousehold GhostsSilence Introduced by Gavin Wallace. This volume collects three of the very best works by James Kennaway, the brilliant young novelist and screenwriter who tragically died in a car crash at the early age of forty. Memorably filmed with Alec Guinness and John Mills, Tunes of Glory is a grippingly dramatic exploration of the glamour and the brutality of post-war army life as the tensions and conflicts in the officers’ mess of a Highland regiment lead to shame and tragedy. Household Ghosts is a claustrophobic tale of family tension, love triangles and the persistence of the pastâ€"one of Kennaway’s favourite themes. Set in a country house in Scotland the book is haunted, like the privileged family it describes, by the ghosts of Scotland’s own turbulent history. Taken from completed drafts on the author’s desk, Silence tells of the accidental meeting and the complex union between a white man and a black woman in times...

Introduced by Douglas Gifford. Mr Alfred is an elderly schoolteacher dogged by a sense of failure. The rejection of his poetry and his nightly escape to the pub all contribute to his malaise. Perhaps most harrowing is his innocent but obsessive love for Rose, one of his pupils. This ‘affair’ is maliciously reported and he is torn from his familiar job and transferred to an even rougher school. Against a nightmarish background of gang warfare and public desecration the story reaches a frightening climax. This novel provides significant observation of a critical period in the saga of modern, urban youth. But its most striking achievement is in its portrait of Mr Alfred whose values and sensitive nature are so tragically at odds with his environment. ‘A bright book, full of perceptions.’ The Times ‘Skillfully done . . . the strange totemism of city gangs is used to great effect.’ TLS ‘This book has a rough and gutsy authenticity; it is entertaining...