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
For years the infamous Phelans, known with equal horror to the Social Security office and the local school, have lived in slovenly squalor in their council house in the run-down Belfield Grove Estate in the northern English city of Sleate.
The Phelans' infamy has even...Read more
Ordeal by Innocence / One, Two Buckle my Shoe / Adventure of the Christmas PuddingRead 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
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
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
During a twenty-four-hour period, the officers of a British police section must deal with a number of crises including a bomb explosion that injures two policemen and a man who has murdered his wife and her loverRead more
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
Goldsmith and Templewood investigate the background of a man, whom they think may be a Nazi war criminal, and plot his deathRead more
Schoolmaster Joe Askern has made a truce with life. His interests are simple and kept within safe bounds - until he meets Cess Carter, the friendly local criminal and father to one of Joe's more delinquent students, and he finds that he has risked everything that matters to him.Read more
Charlie Leathers was not the most popular man in the charming English village of Ferne Basset, but few people seemed to hate him enough to murder him. Still, that was his fate one night, and it brings Inspector Barnaby to the scene to investigate. What Barnaby doesn't know is that before...Read more
In 1959 Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance, risks everything to open a bookshop—the only bookshop—in the seaside town of Hardborough. By making a success of a business so impractical, she invites the hostility of the town's less prosperous shopkeepers. By daring to...Read more
After being passed over for the position of Head of Personnel, Graham Marshall despairingly perceives the underpinnings of his secure middle-aged existence slipping awayRead more
All about love, lust, and loneliness, the book introduces Vic Brown, a young working-class Yorkshireman. Vic is attracted to the beautiful but demanding Ingrid, and as their relationship grows and changes, he comes to terms the hard way with adult life and what it really means to love. The...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
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
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
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
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
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