It's Tommy Hambledon, of course, and this time on the track of a counterfeiting ring which keeps him racing from London to Brussels to France, with way stops for every kind of action in the book. It all started when Tommy observed some curious byplay in a café called the Taverne Gruber in Brussels. The restaurant provided cardboard circular mats, and one of these was carefully inspected by a solitary patron, then pocketed. Whereupon the patron left hurriedly and was promptly followed by another man who had been looking through the window. Tommy, intrigued by this, made a third in this procession and, unknown to him, was himself followed by a fourth person. The first man was murdered. The fourth turned out to be an agent of the Paris Sûreté. Tommy and the agent joined forces and became involved in a series of adventures which included a hair-pulling contest between two volatile Frenchwomen and the hijacking of a police car. They eventually nailed the expert engravers who were churning out bills by the thousands in a nefarious scheme to debase the currency of the Allied countries. Tommy has never been in better form than in this fast-moving, adventure-packed thriller.

An English businessman finds his life in danger when he accidentally receives secret information from a defector from East Germany.

''Happy Returns'' is a humorous supernatural novel and the second installment in the Charles and James Latimer series (sandwiched between Brief Candles and Come and Go). The book follows a pair of chaotic, benevolent ghosts wreaking light-hearted havoc in 1950s Europe. The story centers around James and Charles Latimer, two 19th-century English cousins who met an untimely end in 1870. Emboldened by strong drink, they foolishly tried to halt a German military advance during the Franco-Prussian War and were buried in a small French cemetery. However, death didn't stick; whenever a modern-day relative falls into trouble, the cousins rise from their graves to set things right. In this adventure, set in 1954, their living relatives Jeremy and Sally invoke the spooks to rescue their bachelor Uncle Quentin. Quentin has travelled to Lake Como, Italy, and is desperately trying to escape the adhesive clutches of Poppy Thompson, an aggressive widow who refuses to take no for an answer. The ghostly trio-James, Charles, and their mischievous, wine-loving pet monkey, Ulysses-embark on a chaotic road trip across Europe in a poorly driven Citroën. Along the way, they manage to: Fumble through an incredible mix-up involving 32 different passports, Outwit a pair of bank robbers, Stage an old-fashioned duel, Solve a local homicide with the direct assistance of the murder victim (who is also a ghost), And accidentally release an entire circus troop of animals-including an overachieving, educated elephant-into a French garrison town, courtesy of Ulysses.

This book consists of 12 action-paced short stories featuring the famous series spy, Tommy Hambledon, as he travels between England and continental Europe solving international intrigue. A must-have for any Manning Coles and historical WW2-era spy novel fan!

''Come and Go'' is a whimsical story which serves as the third and final installment in their popular Charles and James Latimer series. The story follows Richard Scroby, a well-to-do young man who accidentally knocks a burglar out of his window with an ugly vase. To escape his formidable Aunt Angela, who uses the scandalous event as an excuse to force him into marriage, Richard flees to Paris. Unfortunately, he accidentally runs straight into the path of the incarcerated burglar's dangerous criminal associates. Because a living relative is in danger, James and Charles Latimer-two gentlemanly ghosts killed eighty years prior-are permitted to return to the living world to protect him. Chaos ensues, heavily aided by their ghostly pet monkey, Ulysses, whose fondness for drinking claret causes absolute havoc for a local troupe of trapeze artists.

It started the night a safe-cracker was shot on a Stepney street by a soft-spoken killer. Through an ingenious piece of detection - and with the help of his underworld friends - Tommy Hambledon succeeded in identifying the killer as the notorious Louis Magid. The problem was to find a man so vicious and so feared that even the criminals let him walk alone. The trail led to a small French village, an old castle and a mysterious woman. And, as Hambledon discovered in crime the female of the species is indeed deadlier than the male.

This one's about murder and kidnapping and smuggling diamonds and turning lead into gold...

Tommy's Swedish vacation turns into a hunt for Nazis who still dream of restoring the third Reich.

There may be a grandson of the Sultan living. If so, Hambledon must  find  him. So begins Tommy Hambledon's craziest adventure...

British Intelligence agent Tommy Hambledon had the mistaken notion when he arrived at Innsbruck that he had left behind all connections with Herr Bastien, who had been shot in the railway compartment they shared on the Anglo-Swiss Express. But when he was commanded by a belligerent Austrian taxi driver to disrobe, and then forced at gunpoint to hike barefoot over the Alps, Hambledon ruefully decided that his vacation was over.

A British diplomat, looking natty in a green hat, walks into the brooding hills above Lake Como and disappears. The police investigate but can uncover no clues or evidence. This is a job for British Intelligence in the person of none other than the intrepid Tommy Hambledon. Hambledon takes on Italy's vicious underworld, is diverted by some society types, and side-steps some unrepentant fascists in this rapid-transit chase for a mastermind and a hidden treasure.

Crime Club classic with Scotland Yard on one side, a sinister gang on the other and the novel's Tommy Hambledon right in the middle in this, his first post-war adventure.

When the new ambassador from Esmeralda is killed in London, Tommy Hambledon becomes involved in the investigation. He goes to Paris, where Letord of the Sûreté is puzzled by some unauthorized help he's been getting. As an officer of the law, of course, Letord cannot countenance vigilante behavior, but does it hurt so much to get these jewel thieves off his books? Hambledon feels much the same, especially when the mysterious person saves his life...

Léonard de Vinci est un peintre italien et un homme d'esprit universel, à la fois artiste, scientifique, ingénieur, inventeur, peintre, sculpteur, architecte et écrivain. Ses premiers travaux importants sont réalisés au service du duc Ludovic Sforza à Milan. Il oeuvre ensuite à Rome, Bologne et Venise et passe les trois dernières années de sa vie en France, à l'invitation du roi François Ier. Léonard de Vinci est souvent décrit comme l'archétype et le symbole de l'homme de la Renaissance, un génie universel, un philosophe humaniste, observateur et expérimentateur, avec un " rare don de l'intuition de l'espace ", et dont la curiosité infinie est seulement égalée par la force d'invention. Nombre d'auteurs et d'historiens le considèrent comme l'un des plus grands peintres de tous les temps et certains comme la personne la plus talentueuse dans le plus grand nombre de domaines différents ayant jamais vécu. Ces 100 citations visent à donner accès à son oeuvre monumentale par une sélection de ses pensées les plus marquantes, dans un format accessible à tous. Une citation est plus qu'un extrait d'un propos, ce peut être un trait d'esprit, un résumé d'une pensée complexe, une maxime, une ouverture sur une réflexion plus profonde.

Sally and Jeremy Latimer are pleased, if somewhat puzzled, when two gentlemen with decidedly old-world manners choose to befriend them when their car mysteriously breaks down in the small French village of St. Denis-sur-Aisne while on holiday one fine day in 1953. What they don't know is that the two men, James and Charles Latimer, are ancestors of theirs. These two ectoplasmic gentlemen and their spectral pet monkey Ulysses have been summoned from their final resting place in an unmarked grave because their visiting relatives are in serious trouble. But before they can solve the younger Latimers' problems, the three benevolent spirits light brief candles of insanity for a tipsy policeman, a recalcitrant banker, a convocation of English ghost-busters, and a card-playing rogue who's wanted for murder.

Tommy Hambledon goes undercover to break up a gang that specializes in helping prisoners escape from jail. Tommy goes flying, hiding, boating and as always, succeeding in his endeavours. Full of adventure and wry British humor, this one is even more funny and even more un-put-downable than usual and will definitely not disappoint Manning Coles fans!

More adventures of Tommy Hambledon, that inconspicuous, deadly English agent who now goes to work on home territory to solve a series of English battleship explosions, followed by murder. Involved are a hairdresser, a governess, a wine merchant, and their affiliates. Close shaving for Hambledon, assisted by young Bellair, until the Nazi prime mover is qualified and nabbed...

Tommy Hambleton, a British Foreign Intelligence officer, impersonates the Deputy Chief of the German Police in order to pass on information about the Nazi regime...

Drink to Yesterday was based on the early life of one of its two collaborators, Cyril Henry Coles, who left school, lied about his age and enlisted as a teenager in the British army during World War I. He was transferred to intelligence when his remarkable aptitude for conversational German was noticed, and he became the youngest member of Britain's Foreign Intelligence Office (later MI6). Like Bill Saunders of the book, Coles spent much of the rest of war working behind enemy lines. Coles and his collaborator, a Hampshire neighbor, Adelaide Oke Manning, chose to cast his story in the form of the novel so as not to run afoul of the Official Secrets Act. Grimmer than later books in the series, it's also an ingenious circular story of murder, enlivened by the sardonic humor of Bill's mentor, Tommy Hambledon.

Tommy is back, and again he's in Germany, posing as a camera-toting tourist while trailing Fascists. The investigation starts in Cologne when a corpse is found hung out like a batch of wash from a ruined building. Then Tommy learns about two girls whose custom it is "to frolic among the ruins" late at night and finds that his buddies are on hand to help him unravel the mystery of the Silver Ghosts, the Nazi outfit he is after. After another man has died among the wrecked buildings, can Tommy and his cohorts blow the top off an intrigue that might turn all Europe topsy turvy?

Enjoy Manning Coles in top form with this spy tale of murder and intrigue taking place in the glamorous settings of the City of Paris and of the Canary Islands!

A Hambledon espionage story set in Central Europe behind the Iron Curtain. A 13-year-old princeling has been sent into Russia to a school for leadership and Hambledon is assigned to his rescue and spiriting him out of Russian hands to safety in England. Plenty of violence, quick thinking, fast talking and changes of identity before a plane is used to make a speedy getaway!

It's the same Hambledon, but far from his usual European haunts. Plunked down in a Central American republic, Tommy finds himself trapped between hot Latin temperaments and cold "hostile powers". Full of page-turning suspense and intrigue, DANGEROUS BY NATURE is top-drawer Manning Coles to be sure!

Tommy Hambledon, a British secret agent, investigates a case that includes stolen jewels, secret airplane plans, gangsters, and international assassins!

British secret agent Tommy Hambleton is believed to have been killed in an explosion, but will spies inside wartime Germany find out that a famous explosives expert cooperating with the Nazis is really Hambleton?... He is impersonating a scientist who has developed a new and powerful explosive.