"The Man Who Falls" consists of a series of concentrated retellings of previously published Batman stories, including Detective Comics #33, which includes Gardner Fox and Bob Kane''s first version of Batman''s origin. O''Neil''s story begins with a young Bruce Wayne falling down a hole on the grounds of Wayne Manor. Bats begin to swarm towards him and out the hole. Bruce''s father, Dr. Thomas Wayne, rescues Bruce but chastises him for his carelessness, while Bruce''s mother, Martha Wayne, comforts him. When Bruce asks if he was in Hell, she reassures him it "was just some old cave." The story then cuts to the murder of Bruce''s parents and him kneeling at their dead bodies. The layouts of this version of the Waynes'' murder is designed to resemble Frank Miller''s Batman: Year One. At the age of 14, Bruce leaves Gotham City to explore and obtain skills in martial arts and forensics. Scenes of his early training as a teenager are depicted, including failed attempts at college, and a disillusioning experience in working with the FBI upon turning 20. He realizes that to achieve justice the way he sees fit, he cannot work "within a system." The story next turns to Bruce''s foreign travels, one extended scene depicts Bruce''s time training at a monastery, hidden in a mountainous region of Korea. After nearly a year of training, Master Kirigi tells Bruce he has exceptional intelligence and physique, but his traumatic past has made him self-destructive. Bruce Wayne leaves Korea and heads to France, where O''Neil summarizes events from Sam Hamm''s Batman: Blind Justice. Bruce trains with a bounty hunter named Henri Ducard, who shows him "the uses of brutality, deception [and] cunning." When Ducard kills a fugitive he had been tracking one night, Bruce abandons his training, disgusted. The narration explains that Bruce meets and learns from every great detective in the world, when he approaches Willie Doggett. Summarizing events from O''Neil''s own Legends of the Dark Knight story, "Shaman," Bruce (now 23) and Doggett track down a man named Tom Woodley to a mountain ledge, where Woodley shoots and kills Doggett. Woodley himself falls from a precipice. Bruce, without food or warmth, wanders the snowy mountains. After falling unconscious, he is rescued by a Native American shaman. When Bruce awakens, the old man tells Bruce he has the mark of the bat, an animal sacred in his tribe. Bruce returns to Gotham to begin his crime-fighting career. O''Neil again recounts events from Year One: Bruce''s first night out, fighting street thugs while still uncostumed, is deemed a failure. While brooding in the library of Wayne Manor that night, a bat crashes through the study window. Modeling himself after the recurring images of bats, Bruce creates his costumed identity: the Batman.

Batman: The Man Who Falls

The author relates how, traveling in the Sahara desert, he has encountered a remarkable vehicle and its pilot, David Innes, a man with a remarkable story to tell. David is a mining heir who finances the experimental "iron mole," an excavating vehicle designed by his elderly inventor friend Abner Perry. In a test run, they discover the vehicle cannot be turned, and it burrows 500 miles into the Earth''s crust, emerging into the unknown interior world of Pellucidar. In Burroughs'' concept, the Earth is a hollow shell with Pellucidar as the internal surface of that shell. Pellucidar is inhabited by prehistoric creatures of all geological eras, and dominated by the Mahars, a species of flying reptile both intelligent and civilized, but which enslaves and preys on the local stone-age humans. Innes and Perry are captured by the Mahars'' ape-like Sagoth servants and taken with other human captives to the chief Mahar city of Phutra. Among their fellow captives are the brave Ghak, the Hairy One, from the country of Sari, the shifty Hooja the Sly One and the lovely Dian the Beautiful of Amoz. David, attracted to Dian, defends her against the unwanted attentions of Hooja, but due to his ignorance of local customs she assumes he wants her as a slave, not a friend or lover, and subsequently snubs him. Only later, after Hooja slips their captors in a dark tunnel and forces Dian to leave with him, does David learn from Ghak the cause of the misunderstanding. In Phutra the captives become slaves, and the two surface worlders learn more of Pellucidar and Mahar society. The Mahars are all female, reproducing parthogenetically by means of a closely guarded "Great Secret" contained in a Mahar book. David learns that they also feast on selected human captives in a secret ritual. In a disturbance, David manages to escape Phutra, becomes lost, and experiences a number of adventures before sneaking back into the city. Rejoining Abner, he finds the latter did not even realize he was gone, and the two discover that time in Pellucidar, in the absence of objective means to measure it, is a subjective thing, experienced by different people at different rates. Obsessed with righting the wrong he has unwittingly done Dian, David escapes again and eventually finds and wins her by defeating the malevolent Jubal the Ugly One, another unwanted suitor. David makes amends, and he and Dian wed. Later, along with Ghak and other allies, David and Abner lead a revolt of humankind against the Mahars. Their foes are hampered by the loss of the Great Secret, which David has stolen and hidden. To further the struggle David returns to the Iron Mole, in which he and Dian propose to travel back to the surface world to procure outer world technology. Only after it is underway does he discover that Hooja has substituted a drugged Mahar for Dian. The creature attacks David but is overcome, and the return to the surface world proceeds successfully. Back in the world we know David meets the author, who after hearing his tale and seeing his prehistoric captive, helps him resupply and prepare the mole for the return to Pellucidar.

At the Earth''s Core

The Life traces the life story of Dennis Keith, now obese, mentally unwell and living in retirement village with his mother. A young would-be biographer arrives one day and begins to teases out his past. The story is told in different strands, one being reflections by Dennis (often in a variety of styles – first person, then third person) and also present day conversations with the biographer. Dennis is a poor gold coast kid who is mysteriously found and adopted by his mother "Mo" Keith. Dennis and his stepbrother Rod become obsessed with surfing at an earlier age. They prove to be talented and daring surfers and soon develop a reputation. They start entering competitions and eventually enter the nascent pro circuit all the while descending into heavy drug use. Dennis stumbles into an intermittent relationship with a singer Lisa Exmire. Lisa is found murdered and eventually charges are laid. Dennis drug use escalates and he drops out of the pro circuit. The novel concludes by revealing the truth about Dennis''s family, the murder and biographer.

The Life

The novel is basically without plot, instead episodically depicting the psychological changes in three LAPD officers caused by the stresses of police work, and particularly police work in minority communities of Los Angeles. The three officers—Serge Duran, Gus Plebesly, and Roy Fehler—are classmates at the police academy in the summer of 1960, and the novel examines their lives each August of succeeding years, culminating in their on-the-job reunion during the Watts Riot of August 1965. The New Centurions is likely the most autobiographical of Wambaugh''s novels and is a straightforward narration of events with little use of flashback. Each chapter is written third-person from the point of view of one of the three protagonists, who realistically have no contact with each other once they graduate from the academy but whose paths are at once both parallel and converging. Like Wambaugh, his protagonists move from a few years of uniformed patrol in minority districts to plain clothes assignments in juvenile and vice work, experiences which so impacted Wambaugh that they appear repeatedly in all his fiction. The significance of this structure is that while Wambaugh began his career writing entirely about police officers, he experimented with method until in his fourth book, The Choirboys, he "found his voice," using satirical black humor in a style he openly attributed to the influence of Joseph Heller but which is entirely absent in The New Centurions, The Blue Knight (first-person fiction), and The Onion Field (non-fiction in a novelistic style). Many of the characters of The New Centurions are the first appearances of police officer character types repeatedly found in Wambaugh''s LAPD novels. The atavistic beat officers Andy Kilvinsky and Whitey Duncan can be seen again in Bumper Morgan (The Blue Knight), Spermwhale Whalen (The Choirboys), and Rumpled Ronald (The Delta Star). Serge Duran is Detective Sergeant Mario Villalobos (The Delta Star) as a rookie, and Gus Plebesley working Wilshire Vice is indistinguishable from Harold Bloomguard (The Choirboys) working Wilshire Vice. Roy Fehler has much in common with Baxter Slate (The Choirboys), Sgt. A.M. Valnikov (The Black Marble), and Sgt. Al Mackey (The Glitter Dome). A character type not portrayed in The New Centurions is the brutal street cop. Known in the LAPD vernacular as a "black-glove cop" and epitomized by Roscoe Rules in The Choirboys and The Bad Czech of The Delta Star, Wambaugh only hints at the type in several vignettes. Wambaugh''s apparent reluctance to portray police brutality in his first work is balanced however by his frankness in depicting adultery, alcoholism, racism and suicide as rampant in the ranks of the LAPD. Police officer suicide in particular is a theme Wambaugh explores in nearly all of his books. A major theme explored throughout the book is what traits characterize a veteran officer, and how a rookie acquires them. Wambaugh consistently compares the attitudes of the new officers (one is not considered a veteran in the LAPD until one''s fifth anniversary on the job) to those of the older entrenched men.

The New Centurions

The Barnabas family is no stranger to mystery, one of the founder''s nephews, Tom Barnabas, having disappeared from the street in broad daylight never to be seen again. When it is remarked, at a Sunday evening gathering held by Gina Brande in her flat next door to the offices, that Paul Brande, her husband, has not been home for three days, no-one finds it too remarkable. Shortly after the arrival of his old friend Albert Campion to look into the vanishing, Mike, Paul''s younger cousin and clearly in love with Gina, goes to the vault to fetch some papers for the eldest cousin, the Barnabas MD, John Widdowson, and returns looking shaken, but says nothing. Next morning, Paul''s body is found sprawled in plain view at the front of the vault. The doctor is called, sees Paul has been dead for several days, and a decision is made to move the body upstairs. Mike is sent to warn Mrs Brande. Campion investigates the scene of the crime, and finds a recently-broken ventilator to the rear of the vault, leading to a garage. Questioning staff, he discovers that the position of the body made it impossible for Mike to have missed him the night before. The police find a length of rubber pipe stained with soot. At the inquest, the doctors and police reveal that Paul was killed by carbon monoxide inhalation, the pipe having been used to connect the exhaust of Mike''s car to the vault ventilator. A neighbour testifies she heard the car running for some time on the night Paul disappeared, from six to nine. Mike says he was out walking the streets until eight, but admits to running for a while around nine to warm up. Gina''s housekeeper says too much about her mistress''s relationship with Mike, and Mike is arrested for the murder. Campion befriends Ritchie, an odd and rather awkward cousin, and with his help questions Miss Netley, Paul''s suspicious secretary. He tracks down Paul''s mistress, but finds she knows nothing, except that he missed an appointment with her on the night he died. He learns of a valuable unpublished manuscript owned by the firm, which Paul hoped to display, and of a visit Paul paid to a London district, on business concerning a key. From Lugg, he learns that a renowned underground key copier lives in the area mentioned, and together they investigate, using Lugg''s criminal past to persuade the man to help - he provides a copy of a key he made for Paul. Campion visits the Barnabas offices, with Ritchie''s help, and finds someone in the vault. They fight, and Campion subdues the man, who he finds to be the accountant Rigget. Rigget confesses to having made a copy of the vault key, and sneaking in there at night to pry for valuable information. On the night after Paul''s death, he entered the room and found Paul curled up in a corner, the vault unlocked; he had locked it, but taken Paul''s key. He also took the vault key from inside the door, locked it and returned the key to its normal place. The trial begins the next day, and Campion, exhausted from his long night, attends. Things look bleak for Mike, but Campion has found out, from an uncle at the British Museum, that the document in the vault is not the original manuscript. He visits John Widdowson''s flat with Ritchie, looks around and questions the maid. He leaves a note for Widdowson, who calls him later and tells him to visit the firm''s other offices, where he will find the original in a certain locked cupboard. Campion gets there, still without sleep, and almost hurls himself at the jammed door. Changing his mind, he kicks it, and discovers it leads outside, to a terrible drop. At court next day, the case is suddenly called off. Widdowson has been found in his bath, an apparent suicide using fumes from a gas water-heater. Campion learns that the windows were wedged shut and the heater sabotaged, and that Ritchie has vanished. Later, holidaying in France with Mike, Campion finds the long lost Tom Barnabas, who tells him he took the old manuscript to buy a circus, in which Campion sees Ritchie performing, in his element as a clown.

Flowers for the Judge

The plot mainly deals with the title character, Latawnya, the youngest horse in her family. While out playing with her sisters Latoya and Daisy, they come across some other mares: Connie, Chrystal, Jackie and Angie. They ask Latawnya if she wants to engage in "smoking games" and "drinking games". Latawnya realizes that they want to smoke drugs and drink alcohol, and she joins in. Her sisters catch her with the three "bad" horses and proceed to criticize her for "smoking drugs and drinking", something that their parents tell them not to do. Although Latawnya begs Latoya and Daisy not to tell their parents, they tell on her anyway, resulting in an uncomfortable confrontation with them, as they are disappointed in her experimenting with smoking drugs and drinking. After an intense lecture from her parents (including a scene wherein an old friend of the father horse suffers an overdose after engaging in smoking games and drinking games), Latawnya realizes the error of her ways and promises never to engage in "smoking games" and "drinking games" again.

Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, Learns to Say \\"No\\" to Drugs

Martie Rhodes helps her friend Susan Jagger, who suffers from agoraphobia, attend visits to psychologist Dr. Ahriman. Martie''s husband, Dusty Rhodes, tries to help his brother Skeet, by providing employment in his roofing business. Skeet was in rehab for drug use, and when he first appears in the story, he is high and tries to commit suicide by jumping off a roof. Dusty decides to take him back to rehab due to drug overdose. Martie suddenly develops a mysterious case of autophobia, fear of oneself, and returns home to find herself frightened by her own reflection. Later, her condition worsens, and soon she becomes afraid of pointed objects, although she is actually afraid of the harm she might cause with them. When Dusty leaves Skeet at the rehab center, he notices a shadow lurking in his brother''s room window. From this point on, strange things begin happening to both Dusty and Martie, involving Skeet, Martie''s autophobia, and hypnotism. The couple eventually discovers that they''ve both been progressively brainwashed and programmed to obey Dr. Ahriman, a sexual psychopath who drugs and indoctrinates his patients, then either repeatedly rapes them or orders them to commit murders or suicide for his amusement. Dr. Ahriman orders Susan to commit suicide by slitting her wrists after discovering that she videotaped him raping her. The doctor has also programmed Skeet, which explains his inability to fully recover from drug use and distorted thinking. Dr. Ahriman establishes control, sending patients almost instantly into a detached state of consciousness by stating a name and then reading them a short haiku. He tries to justify this by stating that, by ordering certain patients to commit horrific crimes—mass murders, bombings, random shootings—he can force legislation in order to make the world a "better place." Dr. Ahriman is eventually killed by another patient, who had a fear of Keanu Reeves, based on his character in The Matrix. The woman believes that Dr. Ahriman is one of the Machine agents trying to control her. Dusty and Martie, receiving a substantial inheritance from Martie''s friend Susan, slowly begin to restore their shattered lives.

False Memory

Independent People is the story of the sheep farmer Guðbjartur Jónsson, generally known in the novel as Bjartur of Summerhouses, and his struggle for independence. The "first chapter summons up the days when the world was first settled, in 874 AD—for that is the year when the Norsemen arrived in Iceland, and one of the book''s wry conceits is that no other world but Iceland exists. ... The book is set in the early decades of the twentieth century but ... Independent People is a pointedly timeless tale. It reminds us that life on an Icelandic croft had scarcely altered over a millennium". As the story begins, Bjartur ("bright" or "fair") has recently managed to put down the first payment on his own farm, after eighteen years working as a shepherd at Útirauðsmýri, the home of the well-to-do local bailiff, a man he detests. The land that he buys is said to be cursed by Saint Columba, referred to as "the fiend Kolumkilli", and haunted by an evil woman named Gunnvör, who made a pact with Kólumkilli. Defiantly, Bjartur refuses to add a stone to Gunnvör''s cairn to appease her, and in his optimism also changes the name of the farm from Winterhouses to Summerhouses. He is also newly wed to a young woman called Rósa, a fellow worker at Rauðsmýri, and is determined that they should live as independent people. However, Rósa is miserable in her new home, which does not compare well to the luxury she was used to at Rauðsmýri. Bjartur also discovers that she is pregnant by Ingólfur Arnarson Jónsson, the son of the bailiff. In the autumn, Bjartur and the other men of the district ride up into the mountains on the annual sheep round-up, leaving Rósa behind with a gimmer to keep her company. Terrified by a storm one night, desperate for meat and convinced that the gimmer is possessed by the devil, Rósa kills and eats the animal. When Bjartur returns, he assumes that Rósa has set the animal loose. When he cannot find her when it comes time to put the sheep inside for the winter, he once more leaves his wife, by now heavily pregnant, to search the mountains for the gimmer. He is delayed by a blizzard, and nearly dies of exposure. On his return to Summerhouses he finds that Rósa has died in childbirth. His dog Titla is curled around the baby girl, still clinging to life due to the warmth of the dog. With help from Rauðsmýri, the child survives; Bjartur decides to raise her as his daughter, and names her Ásta Sóllilja ("beloved sun lily"). The narrative begins again almost thirteen years later. Bjartur is now remarried to a woman who had been a charity case on the parish, Finna. The other new inhabitants are Hallbera, Finna''s mother, and the three surviving sons of Bjartur''s second marriage: Helgi, Gvendur (Guðmundur) and Nonni (Jón). The rest of the novel charts the drudgery and the battle for survival of life in Summerhouses, the misery, dreams and rebellions of the inhabitants and what appears to be the curse of Summerhouses taking effect. In the middle of the novel, however, World War I commences and the prices for Icelandic mutton and wool soar, so that even the poorest farmers begin to dream of relief from their poverty. Particularly central is the relationship between Bjartur and Ásta Sóllilja.

Independent People

The central character, Ryan Perry, is the wealthy founder and owner of an online social networking site, Be2Do. Ryan is dating an author named Samantha, who had interviewed him for a magazine article. Although seemingly in good health and only 34 years old, Ryan begins to have seizures at random times of the day, and decides to seek the assistance of his doctor, Dr. Gupta. He is informed that he has a rare, inherited heart condition (cardiomyopathy) of which there is no cure. Ryan is only given one year to live unless he can receive a heart transplant, so he is put on a waiting list. Meanwhile, Samantha reveals to Ryan that her mother, assumed dead by Ryan, is in fact alive and living in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ryan becomes temporarily suspicious of Samantha, and believes she may have something to do with his sudden decline in health. He makes a secret trip to Las Vegas to investigate Samantha’s mother and her boyfriend, Spencer Barguest. While searching the home of Barguest, Ryan discovers photographs of dead bodies with their eyes taped open. One of the photographs appears to be of Samantha’s identical twin sister, who was declared brain dead after a car accident and later died. This discovery leads Ryan to believe that Barguest is involved in assisted-suicide, or euthanasia. Still distrustful of those close to him, Ryan secretly switches doctors from Dr. Gupta to Dr. Hobb, who specializes in wealthy clients. He also replaces his household staff. Within a month, Ryan is informed that a heart donor has been found and successfully receives the transplant. After returning home, his relationship with Samantha ends for unknown reasons. One year later, a series of mysterious events unfolds at Ryan’s home. His personal handgun is stolen from his vault, and several heart-themed items appear in his room with the message ‘Be Mine.’ After reading her first novel, Ryan attempts to rekindle his relationship with Samantha. He meets with her outside a book store, but she tells him that she can no longer love him. An Asian woman standing nearby tries to offer lilies to Ryan, but he refuses. Later on, the same woman stabs him in his stomach while at a parking lot mall and tells him that she can kill him whenever she wants. After answering his cell phone later, the same woman tells him that his heart belongs to her and she wants him dead. Concerned for his safety, Ryan decides to investigate his anonymous heart donor. Through Dr. Hobb, he is able to obtain a photograph and first name of the donor, who was declared brain dead after a car accident and later died when her heart was removed. The young woman’s name was Lily, and she is identical to the woman who has threatened Ryan. After reviewing security footage from within his estate, Ryan discovers that Lily''s twin sister looped the video to make her appear invisible to security cameras. This leads him to the belief that she is involved in a large conspiracy to kill him, but she later denies this and claims to be working alone. Ryan must once more fight to save his life – this time from a woman who claims his heart belongs to her.

Your Heart Belongs to Me

Alex Sawyer is a young teenage boy who world gets flipped upside down, after he and his friend Toby are trying to rob a house. They are ambushed by large, silver eyed men in black suits. These men shoot Toby, then frame Alex for the murder. Alex is sentenced to life imprisonment in Furnace Penitentiary, a juvenile prison buried a mile underground. On his way there, Alex meets Zee and Monty, who were also framed for murder. Furnace is quickly shown to be no ordinary prison. The silver eyed men, called blacksuits, that framed Alex are guards, assisted by skinless dogs during "Blood Watches". During blood watches, prisoners are ordered back to their cells and wheezers, creatures with gas masks stitched to their faces, come to take prisoners. Prisoners taken during blood watches never come back. When Alex first comes, his cellmate, Donovan, teaches him how to survive. The prison is ruled by a gang called the Skulls, who abuse the other prisoners mercilessly. Alex finds a passage leading to an underground river, but with no holes large enough to let him through. He, Donovan, and Zee hatch a plan to put gas from the kitchen in rubber gloves, and, when enough are collected, blow and exit in the rock. Monty is taken from his cell during a blood watch, and later the guards bring out a beast sharing Monty''s birthmark which they allow to kill his cellmate, who had beaten Monty. The leader of the Skulls is killed by a new prisoner, Gary Owens, who quickly reveals himself to be a psychopath without regard for human life. When Alex is almost killed by the Skulls,Donovan frantically tells Gary of their plan to escape the Furnace. Gary allows him to survive on the condition that he escapes with them. Donovan is then taken during a blood watch, putting their plans of escape in jeopardy. They try to escape before their plans are discovered. They find that Monty has become a blacksuit, but he is not fully brainwashed and allows them to continue. They blow the gas they have been collecting and jump into the underground river. The story continues in the next book in the series.

Furnace: Lockdown

The eponymous English protagonist, Edward Waverley, has been brought up in the family home by his uncle, Sir Everard Waverley, who maintains the family Tory and Jacobite sympathies, while Edward''s Whig father works for the Hanoverian government in nearby London. Edward Waverley is given a commission in the Hanoverian army and is posted to Dundee, then promptly takes leave to visit Baron Bradwardine, a Jacobite friend of his uncle, and meets the Baron''s lovely daughter Rose. When wild Highlanders visit the Baron''s castle Waverley is intrigued and goes to the mountain lair of Clan Mac-Ivor, meeting the Chieftain Fergus and his sister Flora who turn out to be active Jacobites preparing for the ''45 Rising. Waverley has overstayed his leave and is accused of desertion and treason, then arrested. Highlanders rescue him from his escort and take him to the Jacobite stronghold at Doune castle then on to Holyrood Palace where he meets Bonnie Prince Charlie himself. Encouraged by the beautiful Flora Mac-Ivor, Waverley goes over to the Jacobites and takes part in the Battle of Prestonpans, where he saves the life of a colonel who turns out to be a close friend of his uncle. Thus he escapes retribution and marries the Baron''s daughter, Rose Bradwardine.

Waverley

Part of the book takes place In 1945 Holland, during the last part of World War II. The story centers on two Dutch men codenamed Tamar and Dart, who are agents of a covert military group called the Special Operations Executive, or SOE. In this point in time Holland is occupied by the Nazis, and the Dutch resistance is “a bloody shambles”. Tamar and Dart, his WO (wireless operator), are sent into Holland to organize the different resistance groups into a more cohesive unit. This is Tamar’s second time in Holland as an SOE agent, and he is sent to recover his old alias, Christiaan Boogart. When he arrives he reunites with the woman he fell in love with the first time he was in Holland, Marijke. As the novel continues Dart begins to spend more time with Marijke, and begins to fall in love with her, oblivious to the fact that she and Tamar are in love. After realizing that Tamar and Marijke are involved Dart is described as feeling furious and comes to the conclusion “that it was not her fault. She had been seduced, cynically and deliberately, by the man [Tamar] who should have been protecting her.” Slowly he begins to hate and distrust Tamar. Meanwhile, a group of the resistance led by Koop de Vries open fire on a Nazi vehicle. One of the men they shot turns out to be the head of Nazi internal security in Holland, SS Lieutenant General Hanns Albin Rauter. Rauter is rushed to a hospital and dispatches his deputy to execute the number of Dutch prisoners as there are bullet holes in his car, 243. When Tamar hears about this, and the executions begin, he tracks down Koop and confronts him, telling him “I know where to find you.” As the story continues, Koop and his group are ambushed by the Nazis at their hideout, and everyone is killed except for Koop, who manages to run. At the asylum where Koop receives medical treatment he reveals to Dart that he believes Dart and Tamar have betrayed the resistance. Dart believes he gains Koop’s confidence by telling him “I believe you. I think Tamar betrayed your group.” The two create a plan to get rid of Tamar. Their plan goes smoothly, they kill Tamar, but Koop attacks Dart, and is shot by Marjke. When she sees Tamar’s body “she [throws] her head back and [begins] to howl like an animal.” Eventually Dart convinces Marijke that it is too dangerous to stay in Holland, and the two flee to England. In the prologue of the novel, before Tamar is born, her grandfather, William Hyde, requests her father Jan to name her Tamar. The novel then fast forwards to when Tamar is fifteen-years-old in London, 1995 and lives with her mother after her father, Jan, disappears. Her grandmother, Marijke, is slowly going mentally downhill, and speaks more Dutch than English. Tamar and her mother accompany her grandfather to the assisted living center where her grandmother will be staying. Her grandmother rejects the company of her grandfather and insists on riding only with Tamar “I’m not going with you! I’m staying with Tamar, here with Tamar.” Shortly after her grandmother is sent to the living center her grandfather commits suicide. Tamar takes his death hard, and waits months to go and visit her grandfathers flat with her mother. Once at the flat she finds a box laying on her bed labeled Tamar. Inside the box lay many clues leading to her grandfather’s past. She takes the box to her distant cousin Yoyo (Johannes van Zant) who decides they should follow the clues and see where they lead. In the middle of the plot, during Tamar and Yoyo’s adventure along the Tamar river they slowly start to fall in love with each other, despite their age differences. As the novel continues Tamar and Yoyo explore the river just as Tamar’s father happens upon them, “And I couldn''t look at him, because I was watching the other man’s face and he was watching mine,” and invites them into his home. After settling everyone down Tamar’s father begins to unravel the secret he has kept hidden since the day he left Tamar and her mother. He tells Tamar and Yoyo that her supposed grandfather, William Hyde, is not actually her grandfather. Her real grandfather is Tamar (Christaan Boogart) who was killed in World War II by a man named Koop de Vries, and was led to do so by William Hyde, or Dart as he was known during that time. It takes Tamar awhile to take all this in; “I couldn’t imagine how he could have kept all that stuff dammed up inside him all this time without being at least three parts crazy,” and she even forgives Hyde. In the epilogue she ends up marrying Yoyo.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Batman: The Man Who Falls

By Dennis O''Neil

At the Earth's Core

By Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Life

No Author Listed

The New Centurions

By Joseph Wambaugh

Flowers for the Judge

By Margery Allingham

Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, Learns to Say \\"No\\" to Drugs

No Author Listed

False Memory

By Dean Koontz

Independent People

By Halldór Laxness

Your Heart Belongs to Me

By Dean Koontz

Furnace: Lockdown

By Alexander Gordon Smith

Waverley

By Walter Scott

Tamar

By Mal Peet