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 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
Friday afternoon, and the traffic is bloody murder.
Sergeant Belinda 'Billy' Kidd is driving home from the airport, jet-lagged and ready to resign from a career that has left her traumatised. Menopause has robbed her confidence too - now she's a traffic...Read more
Only the weak fall in love. The strong survive on their own. Tina was weak a scrawny, vulnerable child, deserted by her father, bullied at school, an object of derision and fun. Not any longer. Now she's Chrissie. Bold, self-reliant, beautiful. Girls envy her. Men desire her. She is...Read more
Journalist Harry Fizglen is sceptical when his editor asks him to investigate the background of Simone Anderson, a new Bloomsbury artist. But once he's met the enigmatic Simone, Harry is intrigued.
Just what did happen to Simone's twin sister who disappeared without trace several...Read more
Meticulously chronicles a typical night at police headquarters, capturing the rythms of the shift, the quiet beat of the foot patrols, and the explosive unpredictability of emergency calls
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
Arthur Johnson doesn't look like a murderous psychopath; he is a mild-mannered man who has never known how to talk to women.
Years of loneliness has warped his mind, turning his desire for a woman's love and respect into a pathological need for carefully controlled violence....Read more
Amidst the chaos of wartime London, criminals hunted their prey without fear of reprisal. Many operated under the cover of darkness, emerging when the city sank into the oblivion of its nightly blackout; others simply struck whenever opportunity presented itself. At a time when Londoners...Read more
Grammy night, 2021. Ruby wins 'Best Song' and makes an impulsive acceptance speech that excites nature lovers across the world. While Ruby and her band celebrate, an extreme evangelical sect, funded by covert paymasters, dispatches a disciple on a ruthless mission to England.
...Read more
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
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
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
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
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
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
You can run from a guilty conscience, but you can't hide . . .
James wasn't much more than a child when he had an affair with Lily. And now, twenty-four years later, Lily confesses to James that their affair led to a daughter, Kate. And Kate desperately needs her...Read more
A country village, a family home, a quiet evening...
When two armed intruders break into the Jarvises’ country house, the lives of Derek, his wife Janet and daughter Hannah are to be changed forever. Fearing for their safety, Derek offers no resistance, but one of the men is not...Read more
Victor Jenner is a sociopath. After ten years in prison for shooting - and permanently crippling - a young policeman, Victor is released to a strange new world and told to make a new life for himself. It's hard to adjust to civilian life, but at least there's one blessing - he was never...Read more
In a small village in the north of England, an elderly woman is brutally hanged with piano wire, and a detective’s hunt for the killer uncovers, instead, the shocking double – and triple – identify of the victim. Now, assassin and murdered imposter, connected by horrors long buried with the...Read more
• 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
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
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
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
'The riot lost momentum as news of the butchery spread through the estate. The details were vague, no one knew how many had been killed or how, but castration, lynching and a machete attack were all mentioned.'
'Acid Row' is the name the beleaguered inhabitants give to...Read more
When Kim Philby fled to Moscow in 1963, he became the most notorious double agent in the history of espionage. Recruited into His Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service at the beginning of World War II, he rose rapidly in the ranks to become the chief liaison officer with the CIA in...Read more
You thought you knew who you were. A stranger knows better.
You've left the city - and the career that nearly destroyed you - for a fresh start on the coast. But soon after the move, your daughter starts to withdraw, because her new best friend, George, is unfairly...Read more
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
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
Meet Tommy Akhtar, Ugandan Asian cricket fan, devoted son, and not very successful private investigator with offices over his brother Gundappa's mini-cab firm in deepest West London.
He's just woken up from his hangover (combing the parting on his tongue) when his next case comes...Read more