Most Popular Books by Martyn Bedford

Two went on the run. One came back. The day Gloria first met Uman Padeem her life changed. He was the new kid in school with a mysterious past, confidence and charisma, but what attracts Gloria most is the way he sees her deep longing to escape her humdrum life. And so they do. When Gloria returns, she sits with her mother facing a detective. Uman has disappeared; they must find him. As she retells their story, Gloria begins to wonder if it was Uman that took her away, or if she had started to disappear much, much earlier . . . With each question, the mystery surrounding Gloria''s disappearance deepens.

What does it mean to have a soul whose will to live knows no limits? This gripping psychological thriller establishes Martyn Bedford as a hot new literary talent for young adults. Friday, December 14th. Fourteen-year-old Alex rushes home that night to beat his curfew. The next morning, he wakes up in an unfamiliar house, in a different part of the country, and it''s the middle of June. Six months seem to have disappeared overnight. The family at the breakfast table? Total strangers. And when Alex looks in the mirror, another boy — called Philip, or Flip — stares back. The race against the clock is on, and unless Alex finds out what''s happened and how to get back to his own life, he''ll be forever trapped in someone else''s body and life.

When an out-of-work actor discovers his bedsit once belonged to an obscure, suicidal painter, he turns his talents to re-creating the ultimate site-specific performance… As a teenage girl drifts from depression into a permanent state of sleep, she becomes the focus of both scientific interest and an unexpected, cult following... Against a backdrop of hooliganism and hostility, an asylum seeker writes letters home assuring his family how welcoming England is... Many of the characters in Martyn Bedford’s stories find themselves at a point of redefinition, trading in their old identity for something new. Whether it is an act of retreat or escape – fantasising about storming out of a thankless job, or just avoiding a bad-tempered husband for a few moments on Christmas day – they each understand the first step in changing a reality, is to reconstruct it. ‘Martyn Bedford is the genuine article, a writer of unmistakable flair and accomplishment.’ - New York Times ‘Haunting and intimate portraits of vividly different lives that get under your skin and stay there.’ - Jeremy Dyson ''Letters Home further establishes Martyn Bedford as a stand-out writer of highly memorable fiction.’ - Jacob Ross

A deeply affecting new novel by the award-winning author of Flip! When a family holiday ends in the tragic death of their young son, the grieving parents struggle to cope, and Shiv, their fifteen-year-old daughter, must come to terms with what happened . . . and her part in it. Off the rails and tormented by guilt, she is sent away to an exclusive clinic that claims to "cure" people like her. But this is no ordinary psychiatric institution, and Shiv discovers that her release--from her demons, and from the clinic itself--will come at a bizarre and terrible price.

"Unusually deft and witty dialogue--. With great aplomb, [Bedford] has brought off an erotic thriller."--The New York Times Book Review In The Houdini Girl, award-winning mystery writer Martyn Bedford explores the pulsing spiritual chaos that lies at the heart of erotic obsession. Fletcher "Red" Brandon is a master magician who uses his talents to seduce Rosa, a flinty Irish woman. But when Rosa is killed suddenly, Red discovers secrets about the woman with whom he shared one sexy, combative, freewheeling year. Inside Rosa''s shoulder bag are a wig and a stranger''s passport. And when a routine investigation reveals that Rosa has vanished before--and that her father was a terrorist for the IRA--Peter suspects foul play. Red finds himself in Amsterdam, a stranger stumbling through his lover''s secret history. Following a trail of addiction, prostitution, and murder, Red''s search for the truth becomes more and more laden with mystery and forces him to reveal his own unsavory secrets. Masterfully plotted, The Houdini Girl transcends sleight-of-hand trickery for a stunning tale of love, loss, and the lure of illusion.

Millgarth Police Station reverberates with the early adrenalin-rush of a case they won''t close for years. A teenage boy trails the city centre bars of the eighties in thrall to his hero - a Leeds United football hooligan. A single woman finds her frustrations with men confirmed speed-dating in a city re-invented as a party capital. Bringing together fiction from some of the city''s most celebrated writers, The Book of Leeds traces the unique contours that fifty years of social and economic change can impress on a city. These are stories that take place at oblique angles to the larger events in the city''s history, or against wider currents that have shaped the social and cultural landscape of today''s Leeds: a modern city with both problems and promise.

A coroner reveals a body''s tell-tale clues to his students, as he unwittingly dissects his own relationship. . . A breakdown driver turns his roadside routine into a quite different type of pick-up . . . Two creative writing tutors discuss the merits of hardboiled versus cosy schools of crime writing, while a murderous student points out that it''s really procedure that counts . . . The second in this series of anthologies from the CWA picks up the primary scent of any investigation: the modus operandi; the signature that identifies any repeat offender, the how that supersedes the why . From the ex-doctor tenderly administering a final prescription to his victims, the party of finishing school debutantes exacting revenge on their lecherous host... these stories demonstrate that, even with the most despicable of crimes, there s methodology in the madness.

Computers are changing. Soon the silicon chip will seem like a clunky antique amid the bounty of more exotic processes on offer. Robots are changing too; material evolution and swarm intelligence are creating a new generation of devices that will diverge and disperse into a balanced ecosystem of humans and ‘robjects’ (robotic objects). Somewhere in between, we humans will have to change also… in the way we interact with technology, the roles we adopt in an increasingly ‘intelligent’ environment, and how we interface with each other. The driving motors behind many of these changes will be artificial life (A-Life) and unconventional computing. How exactly they will impact on our world is still an open question. But in the spirit of collective intelligence, this anthology brings together 38 scientists and authors, working in pairs, to imagine what life (and A-Life) will look like in the year 2070. Every kind of technology is imagined: from lie-detection glasses to military swarmbots, brain-interfacing implants to synthetically ‘grown’ skyscrapers, revolution-inciting computer games to synthetically engineered haute cuisine. All artificial life is here. Featuring scientific contributions from: Martyn Amos, J. Mark Bishop, Seth Bullock, Stephen Dunne, James Dyke, Christian Jantzen, Francesco Mondada, James D. O''Shea, Andrew Philippides, Lenka Pitonakova, Steen Rasmussen, Thomas S. Ray, Micah Rosenkind, James Snowdon, Susan Stepney, Germán Terrazas, Andrew Vardy and Alan Winfield. Supported by TRUCE (Training and Research in Unconventional Computation in Europe).

The relationship between sleep and storytelling is an ancient one. For centuries, sleep has provided writers with a magical ingredient – a passage of time during which great changes miraculously occur, an Orpheus-like voyage through the subconscious daubed with the fantastic. But over the last ten years, our scientific understanding of sleep has been revolutionised. No longer is sleep viewed as a time of simple rest and recuperation. Instead, it is proving to be an intensely dynamic period of brain activity: a vital stage in the re-wiring of memories, the learning of new skills, and the processing of problems and emotions. How will storytelling respond to this new and emerging science of sleep? Here, 14 authors have been invited to work with key scientists to explore various aspects of sleep research: from the possibilities of ‘sleep engineering’ and ‘overnight therapies’, to future-tech ways of harnessing sleep’s problem-solving powers, to the challenges posed by our increasingly 24-hour lifestyles. Just as new hypotheses are being put forward, old hunches are also being confirmed (there’s now a scientific basis for the time-worn advice ‘to sleep on a problem’). As these responses show, sleep and the spinning of stories are still very much entwined. Featuring scientific contributions from: Prof Russell G. Foster, Isabel Hutchison, Dr. Simon Kyle, Dr. Penny Lewis, Dr. Paul Reading, Stephanie Romiszewski, Prof Robert Stickgold, Prof Manuel Schabus, Prof Ed Watkins, Prof Adam Zeman, Dr. Thomas Wehr. This project was supported by the Wellcome Trust.

As he goes through his dead mother''s papers Englishman Gregory Lynn, 35, discovers his unflattering school reports, which revive memories of humiliation at the hands of teachers. One called him a donkey, another said he had a girl''s name. Lynn decides to even the score with cold-blooded acts of revision. A first novel.

Op een saaie doordeweekse dag stapt een nieuwe jongen Gloria’s klas binnen. En niet zomaar één. Uman is knap en mysterieus, en ook grappig en superslim. Hij komt meteen naast Gloria zitten en heeft alleen maar oog voor haar. Binnen de kortste keren wordt ze verliefd. Dus als hij voorstelt om te breken met hun saaie leven en er samen vandoor te gaan, hoeft ze niet lang na te denken. Ze nemen een tentje mee, gooien hun telefoons weg en gaan samen het avontuur tegemoet... Maar wie is deze raadselachtige jongen eigenlijk? En is hij wel te vertrouwen? Wanneer Gloria eindelijk achter de waarheid over Umans verleden komt is ze mijlenver van huis en stellen haar ouders en de politie zich de vraag: waar is Gloria?

No permitas que te desvelen nada acerca de esta novela... Un thriller psicológico que no va a dejarte indiferente. Gloria no es feliz, todo en su vida le aburre. Hasta que conoce a Uman. Con él todo es excitante, nuevo, se siente viva por primera vez. Pero las personas no son siempre lo que parecen... Nominada al Costa Book Award. La opinión de los lectores: «Una historia increíble y original; no se parece a nada que haya leído antes». «La mejor novela juvenil que he leído nunca». «Empecé el libro y ya no pude dejar de leer. TENÍA QUE SABER qué le había pasado a Gloria». «Martyn Bedford ha escrito un libro increíblemente bueno». «Solo es comparable a una versión adolescente de Perdida». «El libro se devora en nada. Una lectura entretenida, fresca y sorprendente». Y lo que ha dicho la crítica: «Los jóvenes fans de la novela negra disfrutarán mucho del suspense, el ritmo frenético, los diálogos cinematográficos y los personajes verosímiles de esta novela». School Library Journal «Emocionante, inteligente y muy bien escrita. Hay que leerla». The Children''s Book Magazine

Pourquoi attendre de vivre vraiment ? Gloria mène une vie normale d''adolescente de 15 ans. Et elle s''ennuie. Jusqu''au jour où un garçon mystérieux fait irruption dans sa classe : Uman est drôle, intelligent, d''une assurance désarmante. Il fait ce qu''il veut sans attacher la moindre importance à ce que les autres pensent. Il est tout ce que Gloria voudrait être. Il est la promesse de vivre enfin pleinement, de vibrer, d''aimer. Alors quand il lui propose de partir, de camper en forêt, de choisir leurs destinations à pile ou face... Gloria s''enfuit avec lui sans regrets, et sans prévenir personne.

Finn is drafted to fight in an escalating war against the enemies of democracy. He is twenty-four. Opposed to the conflict, disaffected with society and the state, afraid of dying. He sees no way out. Then a stranger slips him a calling card for an anti-draft network and the trauma of warfare is brought shockingly home to him with his brother''s return from the front. Just days before he reports for duty, Finn faces a stark choice: go to war … or go on the run, and be hunted down as a deserter and a coward. If he escapes, there is the promise of a new identity and a new life among people unlike any he has known. If he is caught, the punishment will be brutal. Finn must decide whether a government can order a young man to risk death for his country. And whether, in refusing to fight, he has what it takes to exchange bravery in battle for the courage of the dissident. Peace, if it comes at all, will come at a price.