Related to: 'The Daughters of Mars'

The story of Joan of Arc has always held a special fascination for writers - among them Voltaire, Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw and Jean Anouilh. Here Thomas Keneally transforms the legend, presenting a Joan who is at once a tough radical, an instinctive soldier, a nagging prophet and a touchingly vulnerable girl - a haunting and compelling heroine framed by the tumultuous times in which she lived.

In the waning years of the Edwardian era, a group of gentlemen wait out a raging blizzard in the perpetual darkness of the Antarctic winter, poised for a strike at the South Pole. As the storm lifts, a new challenge faces Captain Sir Eugene Stewart - to discover which of his twenty-five carefully chosen men has become a murderer. The quest for adventure has become a quest for justice.

In wartime Sydney, young Daniel Jordan's life is dominated by two conflicting influences: the religion he imbibes at school and the communism of his terrifying neighbour, the 'Comrade'.  Through Daniel's often amusingly confused view of the adult world, Thomas Keneally deftly explores the effects of rigid adherence to dogma and the fine line between innocence and guilt.

In 1943, when Grace and Leo Waterhouse married in Australia, they were part of a young generation ready to sacrifice themselves to win the war, while being confident they would survive. Sixty years on, as Grace recounts what happened to her doomed hero, she can say what she suspected then: that for many men, bravery is its own end. The tale she tells is one of great love, lost innocence, a charismatic but unstable Irish commander, dashing undercover missions against the Japanese in Singapore, and - in her eyes - reckless, foolhardy exploits. As fresh details continue to emerge, Grace is forced to keep revising her picture of what happened to Leo and his fellow commandoes - until she learns about the final piece in the jigsaw, and an ultimate betrayal. As absorbing as it is thought-provoking, this timely novel poses unsettling questions about what drives men to battle and heroic deeds, and movingly conveys the life-long effect on those who survive them.

In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist defied the SS and risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. His name was Oskar Schindler.Thomas Keneally's unforgettable novel recreates the story of this unlikely angel of mercy, and of the people he saved. Winner of the Booker Prize in 1982, it was subsequently dramatised as the Oscar-winning film Schindler's List.'Keneally has done marvellous justice to a marvellous story' THE SUNDAY TIMES'Brilliantly detailed, moving, powerful and gripping' THE TIMES