Peter is a planning officer at Nottingham City Council. Every day, as he boards the bus for work, he notices a girl who gets on at the same stop and spends the journey scribbling furiously in a battered notebook. One day she doesn't get off at her usual stop, but dashes off to the railway...Read more
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Ross Ransome is at the top of his profession; one of the most successful, and certainly one of the richest, plastic surgeons in the business. Such a man would expect his wife to be perfect - and why not? After all, he has spent enough hours in surgery to get her that way. But when his wife...Read more
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
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
• 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 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
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
After years spent saving souls, Otis Joy, the rector of St. Bartholomew’s Church in Foxford, Wiltshire, has found a new ending lives. His young French wife? Anaphylactic shock, what a shame. The bishop? Fell into a quarry. Tragic. It’s not Joy’s fault, really—not that he’s concerned about...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
James Scotland, a young pathologist, has come to Melchester on a much-needed vacation. But amid the cathedral town's quiet medieval atmosphere, he finds a hornet's nest of church politics, town and country rivalries. . . and murder. When one of the community's most influential figures dies...Read more
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
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'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
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
Murray Shaw has bought his dream home - the imposing St Margaret's House in the exclusive Edinburgh district of Corstorphine. However, for his wife Rowan his dream is about to become her nightmare. Because St Margaret's House has a dark past. And, unknown to Rowan, that's exactly why Murray...Read more
Every Monday evening, six people gather in a smart North London house to talk about addiction. There they share their deepest secrets: stories of lies, regret, and above all, shame.
Then one of them is killed - and it's clear one of the circle was responsible.
...Read more
Ten years on from the disappearance of his young girlfriend Layla, Finn has well and truly taken charge of his own destiny. Engaged to be married to a wonderful woman, Finn has worked hard and built up enough cash reserves to be able to work from home, support his dog and live the quiet...Read more
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
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
Laurence Deegan, QC, had just won his latest case. At fifty, already a distinguished and famous barrister, he seemed set to become a judge at an early age. That same evening, his triumph still fresh, he ran his bath, got into it and slit the veins in both wrists. Why had he done it? His...Read more
In snow smothered Warsaw, Luke Case, a boozy English hack with a dark secret, starts a dangerous affair with a gangster’s wife. Case escapes to the sweltering Spanish heat where he meets a colourful cast of characters, including a mysterious torch singer and a former East End villain with a...Read more
A man is found poisoned at the foot of Cleopatra's Needle on London's Embankment, apparently having taken his own life. His identity is a mystery that Octavius Rixton (alias Octavius Fanks, detective) is determined to solve. A mysterious cryptogram leads Fanks to believe that oriental...Read more
When Anna Flores' adored older sister goes missing as a teenager, Anna copes by disappearing too, just as soon as she can: running as far away from her family as possible, and eventually building a life for herself abroad.
Thirty years later, the death of her mother finally...Read more
A regular weekday morning veers drastically off-course for five strangers whose paths cross in a London café - their lives never to be the same again when an apparently crazed gunman holds them hostage. But there is more to the situation than first meets the eye and as the captives grapple...Read more
From Blackadder to Call the Midwife, from the Cadbury's Caramel Rabbit to Harry Potter, Miriam Margolyes is the outspoken great aunt (after two sherries) we all wish we had - this is (at last) her extraordinary life story, and it's well worth the wait.
Award-winning actor,...Read more