Leslie Thomas - Free Library Land Online - Biography

Dangerous in Love

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:55:50 +0300

A walk through Kensal Green Cemetery, a meat pie in the greasy spoon, a weekend away complete with flannel pyjamas - Dangerous Davies knows how to treat the woman he loves.

Detective Constable Davies has two things on his mind: Jemma Duval, the beautiful, black, hymn-singing social worker, and 'Lofty' Brock, the harmless old eccentric who drowned in the canal. To prove that Lofty's death was no accident, our hero sets out to do some undercover detective work. He soon discovers that something sinister is going on. Something that requires intuition, dedication, brilliant deduction - and a timely blow with a blunt instrument.

About the Author

Born in Newport, Monmouthshire, 1931, Leslie Thomas is the son of a sailor who was lost at sea in 1943. His boyhood in an orphanage is evoked in This Time Next Week, published in 1964. At sixteen, he became a reporter, before going on to do his national service. He won worldwide acclaim with his bestselling novel The Virgin Soldiers, which has achieved international sales of over four million copies. Waiting for the Day, his twenty-eighth novel published to great acclaim in hardback in November 2003, will be published in paperback in time for the sixtieth anniversary of the D-Day landings in June 2004.

Dangerous Davies and the Lonely Heart

Fri, 23 Jul 1999 18:11:39 +0300

Dangerous is back...

In this, the fourth of Leslie Thomas's novels about Dangerous Davies, the last detective, Davies has retired from the Metropolitan Police and set up as a private eye.

Cases are hard to come by until he is aburptly thrown into two mysteries - the murders of women answering lonely hearts advertisements, and the disappearance of a young girl student, a psychologist and a secret worth millions. But can Davies solve any of the mysteries and will his new career as a private detective be a success?

People with the amazing characters that are the trademark of any book by Leslie Thomas, this is a highly original detective story that is as ingenious as it is touching and funny.

Dangerous Davies and Lonely Heart

Wed, 26 Aug 1998 07:55:52 +0300

Kensington Heights

Tue, 23 Jul 1996 18:11:43 +0300

Frank Inigo Savage simply wants to be alone and the top flat of Kensington Heights seems just the place. Until the other bizarre and eccentric inhabitants of the building start arriving on his doorstep.And the Savage gets a visit from a homeless waif he meets in the local launderette called Korky.Korky's intrusion on Savage's private world alters his whole existence. High above the London rooftops this strange and contradictory relationship blooms like an improbable flower and Savage begins to realise that the world can creep under even the most firmly closed doors.'As ever in a Thomas novel, we constantly shift from tears to laughter and back again' Daily Express' A moving and jolly book ... with hardly a dull moment and difficult not to be cheered by' Times

Arrivals & Departures

Fri, 23 Jul 1993 18:11:41 +0300

My World of Islands

Sun, 23 Jul 1995 18:11:37 +0300

03 Dangerous Davies and the Lonely Heart [Ver. 3.0]

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 07:55:51 +0300

The Dearest and the Best

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 08:56:38 +0200

In the spring of 1940, the spectre of war turned into grim reality. And on the English home front, men, women and children found themselves swept into a maelstrom of fear and uncertainty while events abroad led inexorably from the debacles of Norway and Dunkirk to the horror and glory of the Battle of Britain. For the Lovatt family -- James, seconded on a hush-hush assignment to work with Churchill, and his brother Harry, a naval officer -- for Bess Spofford, Joanne Schorner, Graham Smit and all the inhabitants of the history villages of the New Forest, it was the beginning of the most bizarre, funny and tragic episode of their lives.

Other Times

Sat, 21 Nov 1992 08:56:42 +0200

At the start of the war in 1939 James Bevan is a junior officer approaching middle-age, attached to a small anti-aircraft unit on the south coast.Abandoned by his wife, the soldiers he command are his family: Bairnsfather, whose sexual encounters with his girl friend Muriel take place in an air-raid shelter; Cartwright, trying to keep two women on his gunner's pay of a shilling a day; Hignet, cosily educating himself in the orderly room. It is a rude awakening when they are called upon for the real war.Hugely absorbing, rich and rewarding, Other Times brims with history and experience, love, sorrow and humour.

The Complete Dangerous Davies

Mon, 21 Nov 2016 08:56:42 +0200

As plain-clothes men go, Dangerous Davies looks like a non-starter. The small fry of petty larceny and minor disturbances in the backwaters of north-west London are his daily round. His philosophising Welsh drinking companion Mod, his outsized and unruly dog Kitty, his quarrels with his landlady Mrs Fulljames - none of these bodes well for the efficient solving of crimes and outwitting of villainy. But Davies is encouraged by his beautiful friend Jemma, and every so often he stumbles upon something really big. Gathered together for the first time in one volume, here are Leslie Thomas's three books about the most endearing comic hero he has ever created.

That Old Gang OfMine

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 08:56:40 +0200

Ormerod's Landing

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 08:56:41 +0200

The Love Beach

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 08:56:41 +0200

In My Wildest Dreams

Sat, 21 Nov 1998 08:56:37 +0200

From Barnardo boy to original virgin soldier; from apprentice journalist in London's Fleet Street to famous novelist...At times funny, at times sad, but always honest and utterly compulsive, Leslie Thomas's story is straight out of fiction. As an orphan, he picked his way through the rubble of post-war Britain and was sent on national service to the Far East. Later he became a Fleet Street reporter, with hilarious experiences to relate, and then became the bestselling author of The Virgin Soldiers - the novel that, although scandalous in its day, is now recognised as a classic of its kind. He is also the creator of Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective, which has been adapted into a popular television series. In 2005, Leslie Thomas was awarded an OBE for services to literature.With a new introduction for this edition, this is an amazing story, and Leslie Thomas's magic touch brings it crackling to life with warmth, wit and humour.