“... of them is quite as sinister as the people Unwin discovers lurking deep underground in previously unknown and unimagined departments of the Agency. The plot’s bursting with as many twists and surprises as you could hope for. And as it steams along the smooth rails of Berry’s neatly constructed sentences, barrelling round each well-cambered turn with ...”

“... wide range of printing methods, often in sparkling condition, many beautifully hand-coloured, yet unknown to the wider public – are as much about the making of landscape in Britain as are the great paintings by the Big ...”

“... runs a small business producing material for footballs, encouraged their passion for the sport. Unknown to them, earlier that day armed robbers had been in action close to the cricket field and escaped with some loot. As the boys set off back home on their bikes with a bag containing cricket equipment, someone shouted: ‘It’s the robbers.’ The kids ...”

“... on perpetually by his listening bosses in another place. What’s happened in Skyfall is that some unknown enemy or enemies – if you’ve read the credits you’ll know it’s Javier Bardem – has stolen the hard drive of an MI6 computer which contains the names of all the Nato agents embedded in terrorist groups around the world. Don’t ask why the agent ...”

“... mistake. He was raising a perfectly sensible question (to which, by the way, the answer is still unknown). In a nutshell: Wittgenstein thought that meaning is somehow a matter of use; Putnam raises the ante by understanding ‘use’ anthropologically, as the totality of a word’s (concept’s) ‘entanglements’ with how we speak, think and live. Thus ...”

“... is a retrospective of the esteemed Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi (1937-90), who is virtually unknown in the United States. With an extensive array of paintings, drawings, photographs and diaries on view here, one can follow the development of her distinctive version of geometric abstraction; though her art appears intimate, even introspective, it also ...”

“... ship fitted out to carry seven hundred slaves and a hundred crewmen. (An explosion, its cause unknown, destroyed the Parr during its first voyage.) Then there was the Brooks, the most famous of all slave ships. Abolitionists circulated a diagram of the vessel crammed with slaves on both sides of the Atlantic, the era’s most effective piece of visual ...”

“... of the Gaza settlers when the evacuation begins – scarcely civil war, but a threat of rebellion unknown since the sinking in 1948 of the Altalena, the right-wing arms ship, on Ben Gurion’s orders. For his (belatedly) uncompromising stand on Gaza, Ariel Sharon, until recently a hate figure for Israeli liberals, is now called a ‘Mapainik’ – a ...”

“... the equation are a few constants – the corpse, perhaps the time and cause of death – and a few unknown quantities. The detective isolates y and z by means of some rigorous and attentive sleuthing, and is then able, with a little lateral thinking, to deduce x: the identity of the murderer. Take, by way of concrete illustration, Michael Innes’s Death at ...”

“... in the hope of averting her daughter’s expulsion. The exact motive for Lena’s arson is unknown, although it may be a protest at her husband Bob’s recent and untimely death. Understanding the importance of making a good impression, Ella brings a ‘strategic’ box of See’s candy for Mrs Lowenstein and wears a pair of bone-coloured Italian ...”

“... force of more than a thousand American troops and their local auxiliaries. Eight Americans and an unknown number of ‘AQT’ – between 40 and 500, depending on who you believe – died. But the fighting was tough and US planners clearly felt that, should something similar happen again, it would be useful, politically and militarily, to have some Brits ...”

“... more diaries existed, recording the experiences and thoughts of thousands of people, most of them unknown. And then in the early 1990s Jochen Hellbeck, a young student at Columbia University, went to do research in Moscow. The Soviet Union was changing every day, as new newspapers appeared, archives and documents were declassified, and the country experienced ...”

“... Canning demanding ‘satisfaction from you’. Duels were certainly uncommon by this time but not unknown. Castlereagh’s challenge took the form of an interminable, whingeing letter complaining about deceit ‘at the expense of my honour and reputation’ and ending: ‘I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient, and humble, Servant.’ This was ...”

“... recently published memoir, My Father and Myself, which disclosed his father’s two families (unknown to each other until Roger Ackerley’s death) and Ackerley’s own sexual problems. I had read it, with great enjoyment, in a proof copy that Nancy had lent me. (Soon afterwards she gave me a bound copy inscribed: ‘Dearest Richard, I know you like this ...”

“... in 1910, Winslow Homer was considered one of America’s greatest painters, yet he remains largely unknown in the UK. No work by Homer can be found in a British public collection, and the current retrospective at the National Gallery (until 8 January) is only the second exhibition of his work, though Homer painted a number of English scenes and stayed near ...”