A stunningly powerful novel of humanity's will to survive against all odds during an epidemic by a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
An International Bestseller • "This is a shattering work by a literary master."—Boston Globe
A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive,...

Leaving her best friend and the familiarity of Seattle for the paper mill town of "Stinkville, " South Carolina, twelve-year-old Alice, who lives with albinism and blindness, takes on the additional challenge of entering the Stinkville Success Stories essay contest.

"No one knows her name, but now everyone wants to. As an assistant publicist in Hollywood, Nicola spends her days (and nights) sweeping up the scandals of singers, movie stars, and TV actors. Fresh from Ohio, she's rapidly discovering the real Hollywood is rotten under its glittering skin. Everyone is a hustler with a hard bottom line and a soap opera sob story. When she breaks her own rules and starts dating a movie star, the Los Angeles scene starts...

"London, summer 1927. Frederick Rowlands, a First World War veteran who was blinded at Ypres, is working as a switchboard operator in the City when an over-heard telephone conversation draws him into a murder case. From then on, his safe and conventional life, painstakingly reconstructed after the horrors he experienced in the trenches, is shaken to its very foundation. As Fred is drawn deeper into a web of lies and half-truths, he must rely on his...

Summer, 1937. Frederick Rowlands' peaceful holiday in Cornwall is derailed when a film star is found dead in his hotel. The suspicious nature of Dolores La Mar's death points to murder and Rowlands soon finds himself caught up in the police investigation. When his old flame, Secret Service agent Iris Barnes arrives, it transpires that the killing has links to the political turmoil of the Spanish Civil War. Rowlands and Barnes begin to follow a treacherous...

"Berlin, 1933. The Nazi regime is gaining devastating power as Hitler is appointed Chancellor and stark oppression begins to unfold in Germany, blind war veteran Frederick Rowlands takes on the most challenging investigation of his life . A glamorous film star has been murdered and the menacing political undercurrents drag Rowlands into the heart of the German film industry. Rowlands discovers that he is closer to the action than he originally thought...

Ireland, 1939. The Second World War looms ever closer. Blind war veteran, Frederick Rowlands, seeks refuge in the neutral grounds of Ireland under the orders of Lady Celia Swift, whose husband, Lord Castleford, has been receiving mysterious death threats. When a body is discovered, Castleford finds himself being accused of a murder he did not commit. As Castleford's trial begins, Fred must fight for his friend's innocence and to save his reputation....

Zatoichi, the blind masseur and undefeatable swordsman, is caught in turf war between rival gangs, becomes a wanted man when he learns of a lord's dangerous secret, returns home to discover his teacher has been working for kidnappers, and seeks vengeance on a powerful ronin, dueling with his most skilled samurai.

When Zatoichi discovers the lord who has hired him suffers from a madness that, if made public, would bring ruin to his empire and the livelihood of the samurai warriors he employs, the blind masseur becomes a wanted man for the secret he now possesses. Attacked at every turn by the crazed lord's samurais and hired yakuza thugs, Zatoichi manages to escape relatively unscathed. But in a final duel, masseur Ichi must face his old foe, the infamous one-armed...

Zatoichi seeks bloody vengeance on a ruthless gang and a powerful ronin. Arriving in the village of Shimonita, Ichi learns that a local gang has placed a bounty on his head. A powerful hired ronin attacks Ichi and nearly claims his life, but when a defenseless woman is slain by the assassin, Ichi can no longer control his rage. After laying waste to the entire gang, Ichi's final duel becomes a deadly meeting of the samurai's superior swordsmanship...