MICHAEL SHERIDAN

On 23 December 1996, the body of Sophie Toscan du Plantier was discovered outside her remote holiday cottage near Schull in West Cork. The attack had been savage and merciless. The murder caused shock waves in her native France and in the quiet Cork countryside that she had chosen as her retreat from the high-flying lifestyle of the film business in which she and her husband mixed. Six years later, and despite an extensive investigation, the killer of Sophie is still at largeand the file remains open. Death in December is the fascinating and compelling story of how an independent and beautiful woman sought peace and sanctuary and instead found violence and the ultimate terror. It gives a chilling profile of the killer whom pyschologists believe will strike again.

In the center of Copenhagen, on the sixth floor of the Royal Hotel, a single room preserves in microcosm the definitive masterwork of Danish architect Arne Jacobsen. Room 606 is the last surviving interior of the SAS House an unparalleled example of modern architecture and design. Best known beyond his Scan-dinavian homeland as a furniture designer, Jacobsen (19021971) was one of the outstanding architects of the twentieth century. Throughout his career, he created complete settings for daily life, dissolving the boundaries between architecture, interior, and indust-rial design. The SAS House represented the pinnacle of these efforts and, by the completion of the project in 1960, Jacobsen had designed every detail, including new furniture such as the now famous Egg and Swan chairs, fabrics, fixtures, and even the silverware. This book presents a unique insight into Jacobsens work, using the time capsule Room 606 as a lens through which to examine his entire career. The chapters are organized thematically and each consists of three sections that together look at Room 606 as a microcosm of the SAS House, reconstruct the original building, and trace the connections between Jacobsens masterpiece and his other works, from buildings to household objects.

Richard Harris was a giant who oozed charisma on screen. But off screen he was troubled and addicted to every pleasure life could offer. Coming from a repressed Irish Catholic background, he was forced by a teenage illness to abandon his beloved rugby, but not his macho appetites. Discovering theatre saved him. He had found his calling. Despite marrying the daughter of a peer, he never tried to fit in. He was always a hell-raiser to the core, along with legendary buddies Richard Burton and Peter OToole. But he was more; he was a gifted poet and singer. He was an intelligent family man who took great interest in his craft, a Renaissance man of the film world. Every time his excesses threatened to kill his career and himself he rose magnificently from the ashes, first with an Oscar-winning performance as Bull McCabe in The Field, then in the Harry Potter franchise.

A concise readable and revelatory biography of the most powerful man in the world