The Shape Of Snakes

“I could never decide whether ‘Mad Annie’ was murdered because she was mad or because she was black.” So begins Minette Walters’ gripping new story of one woman’s twenty-year quest for justice—or is it for revenge?

When Annie Butts dies in a rain-soaked gutter in 1978, almost...Read more

Blacklands

EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO, Billy Peters disappeared. Everyone in town believes Billy was murdered--after all, serial killer Arnold Avery later admitted killing six other children and burying them on the same desolate moor that surrounds their small English village. Only Billy's mother is convinced...Read more

The Crimson Cryptogram

Dr Ellis is enjoying a quiet evening with his journalist friend Cass, when their mysterious neighbour, Mrs Moxton, bursts in upon them with startling news - her husband has been murdered! Rushing to the scene, the two men discover Mr Moxton, stabbed in the back, the only clue to his...Read more

The Players

The much-anticipated sequel to The Swift and The Harrier

England, 1685. Decades after the end of the civil war, the country is once again divided when Charles II's illegitimate son, the Protestant Duke of Monmouth,...Read more

The Defiance of Frances Dickinson

A woman who braved public disgrace to expose a brutal marriage.

1838, England: When eighteen-year-old heiress Frances Dickinson impulsively marries Lieutenant John Geils, she soon discovers there is much about her husband she did not know. A cruel and violent man, John keeps...Read more

A Fancy To Kill For

Actor Richard Corrington is a rich, handsome and a household name -but is he sane? Journalist Joyce Carter is murdered in her Devon cottage, a few miles from Richard's country home and forensics implicate Richard in the killing. Also among the suspects are Joyce's jealous, druggy toyboy...Read more

An Evil Hour

No one was more stunned than Annie Maddox when they found the body of Gerald Culver MP. Because Annie, the manager of the Wellington Hotel, Amblesea, was Culver’s mistress.

Enter Harry Lambert, ex-policeman-turned-reluctant-private-eye, who's hired by Culver's wife to find her...Read more

Bombproof

Sami Macbeth is not a master criminal. He's not even a minor one. He's not a jewel thief. He's not a safe-cracker. He's not an expert in explosives. Sami plays guitar and wants to be a rock god but keeps getting side-tracked by unforeseen circumstances. Fifty-four hours ago Sami was...Read more

Before I Go To Sleep

Christine wakes in a strange bed beside a man she does not recognise. In the bathroom she finds a photograph of him taped to the mirror, and beneath it the words ‘Your husband’.

Each day, Christine wakes knowing nothing of her life. Each night, her mind erases the day. But...Read more

A Death to Remember

Fifteen months ago Cliff Summers was brutally assaulted.

Recovered, although still suffering from memory loss, Cliff returns to his hometown with no job, no home and no prospects.

Also newly returned is Tony Clayton, a local garage owner who’s just been released from...Read more

All That is Lost Between Us

Seventeen-year-old Georgia has a secret – one that is isolating her from everyone she loves. She is desperate to tell her best friend, but Sophia is ignoring her, and she doesn’t know why. And before she can find out, Sophia is left fighting for her life after a hit and run, with Georgia a...Read more

The Crowned Skull

• TRILOGY - Three of British-Australian author Fergus Hume's mysteries are in this Kindle book: The Crowned Skull & The Silent House & The Mystery of a Hansom Cab 

The Crowned Skull 
A classic murder mystery involving the occult. Sir Hannibal Trevick, a...Read more

A Creature of the Night

A young Englishman witnesses a murder committed in a deserted house, a murder of such a nature that presents the murderer as a supernatural being. Was the murder really the work of some supernatural forces or were there some earthly explanation?Read more

Act of Oblivion

From what is it they run?
He took a while to reply. By the time he spoke the men had gone inside. He said quietly, "They killed the King."

1660. General Edward Whalley and his son-in-law Colonel William Goffe board a ship in London bound for the New...Read more

Home Truths

Livia Denby is on trial for attempted murder. The jury have reached a verdict.

Two years earlier, Livia was a probation officer in Yorkshire, her husband Scott a teacher. Their children, Heidi and Noah, round out a happy family until the day Scott's brother dies.

...Read more

Shakespeare is Hard, But So Is Life

Is Hamlet really mad or is the world mad? Is Othello merely gullible or is there something about his place in society that makes him vulnerable? Why can there be no happy ending to King Lear? In this radical approach to Shakespearean tragedy, Fintan O'Toole, Ireland's foremost theater critic, shows how Shakespeare's plays have been made unintelligible to modern students.Read more

Blood From Stone

Nobody really liked Marianne Shearer - but nobody murdered her either.  She did that all by herself, booking into a Kensington hotel for the sole purpose of checking out through a sixth-floor window.  But why would a stylish and highly successful criminal barrister do such a thing?  She was...Read more

The Water's Lovely

'Weeks went by when Ismay never thought of it at all. Then something would bring it back or it would return in a dream. The dream began in the same way. She and her mother would be climbing the stairs, following Heather's lead through the bedroom to what was on the other side, not a...Read more

Blockbuster! Fergus Hume and The Mystery of a Hansom Cab

Before there was Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, there was Fergus Hume’s The Mystery of a Hansom Cab—the biggest- and fastest-selling detective novel of the 1800s, and Australia’s first literary blockbuster.

Fergus Hume was an aspiring playwright when he moved from...Read more

The Hidden Room

Life is good for Laurie and Martha. They have three great kids, a much-loved home in the countryside, and after years of struggle, Laura's career as an architect is taking off at last. Everything's perfect.

Except, it isn't.

Someone is about to walk into their...Read more

The Caravan Crime

This early work by Fergus Hume was originally published in 1926 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Caravan Mystery' is a great crime novel by this classic fiction writer.Read more

She

She's everything he dreamed of. Isn't she?

Ben can't believe his luck when Bella walks into his life, just when he needs her most. Sexy, impulsive and intelligent, Bella is everything he ever wanted. And Bella wants him. All to herself.

In fact, Bella decides that...Read more

And Away ...

Bob Mortimer’s life was trundling along happily until suddenly in 2015 he was diagnosed with a heart condition that required immediate surgery and forced him to cancel an upcoming tour. The episode unnerved him, but forced him to reflect on his life so far. This is the framework for his...Read more

The Men Who Killed the News

Crikey owner and ex-News Corp and Fairfax editor lifts the lid on the abuse of power by media moguls – from William Randolph Hearst to Elon Musk – and on his own unique experience of working for (and being sued by) the Murdochs.  

What’s...Read more

A Case to Answer

Jerry and Peter have been successfully conning vulnerable householders for years. But then Jerry decides to try the straight and narrow, getting an honest job in a chip shop. Once there he meets Imogen, pregnant and temporarily living with her step-grandmother, Charlotte Frost. In his new...Read more

Murder At Madingley Grange

When Simon Hannaford is left temporarily in charge of his aunt's 20-bedroom Gothic pile he knows he must be able to make a profit from it somehow. Murder, he decides, is the only way to do it. For Madingley Grange is the perfect venue for a 1930s mystery weekend and, before long, he and his...Read more

Bleak Water

Beyond the new city center developments, the old Sheffield canal is overgrown, run down, and deserted. Signs of regeneration creep along its towpaths, including a small innovative gallery housed in one of the warehouses. But between the renovations it’s a dark and lonely place—the perfect...Read more

The Other Sister

Gina is incredibly thankful when a personal reference from her new boyfriend lands her an assistant position role in a television production company.  It’s not Gina’s ultimate dream job and the new boss is something of a controlling horror, but Gina has high hopes. Her suggestions for ways...Read more

A Traitor in London

A murder in the quiet English village of Chippingholt is only the first in a series of trials that will shape the lives of Brenda Scarse and her lover Harold Burton. Who is the mysterious stranger, so closely resembling Brenda's father, who was seen near the scene of the crime? And why does...Read more

Hide

It’s 1983 in Thatcher’s Britain. Alec Johnston has left his comfortable family home in Cardiff and taken a flat with bikers Minto, Stobes and Black. There he meets Sindy, Minto’s strange and vulnerable young girlfriend. When she starts to view Alec as a possible saviour from her abusive...Read more

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