It was supposed to be the holiday of a lifetime …
When Nell Forrest’s life hits a speed bump (which is most definitely not a midlife crisis) a cruise around the Mediterranean seems like just the ticket.
Unfortunately, that’s an idea shared by her mother, her ex-husband...Read more
In this delightful collection of Wimsey exploits, Dorothy L. Sayers reveals a gruesome, grotesque but absolutely bewitching side rarely shown in Lord Peter's full-length adventures.
Lord Peter views the body in 12 tantalizing and bizarre ways in this outstanding collection. He...Read more
'It was suffocatingly hot, and the audience of howling children was viciously indifferent to the violence being done to my integrity as an artist by every ghastly syllable I was obliged to utter and by every mincing step I was obliged to take. As the foul smell of the ancient wig I was...Read more
When one of Cassie Swann’s bridge partners, Naomi Harris, dies from an overdose, she is shocked but not suspicious. But things look rather different with the appearance of a young woman claiming to be Naomi’s daughter, given up for adoption twenty years earlier, and a secret lover who...Read more
Murray Whelan is in trouble. A disastrous election is looming, and his days as advisor to Angelo Agnelli, minister for transport, may be numbered. His son, on loan to his ex-wife, is missing and may be in danger. His ex-fling, Heather, is prowling for his inner prince. And on an icy...Read more
With the customary mixture of wit and comic social comment, Oxford don Gervase Fen investigates the bizarre and ominous events going on at a girls' high school and a neighboring boys' public schoolRead more
Corinna Chapman, owner of Earthly Delights, detests Christmas. The shoppers are frantic and the heat oppressive. Neither of which this perfect size 20 with a genius for baking breads finds congenial. She's dreaming of quiet, air-conditioned comfort but instead finds herself dealing with a...Read more
Who's got time to think about murder when there's a wedding to plan?
It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing...Read more
It was Big John Little, the village inebriate, who late one night stumbled about in the flower-beds beneath the bedroom window of Little Gidding’s hated postmistress, Mae Holliday, shaking his huge fist and bawling out to her that she was a mouldy old witch he wished were dead…...Read more
Dr Siri Paiboun, the spry seventy-three-year-old reluctant national coroner of Laos, is out of town when a booby-trapped corpse is delivered to the morgue in Vientiane. The lives of visting doctors, the morgue attendant, and Madame Daeng, Dr Siri's fiancée, are saved by the intervention of...Read more
In her fifth outing, pushy and endearing Agatha Raisin has wedding to Cotswold neighbor James Lacey interrupted by her first husband, not divorced, thought-dead, Jimmy Raisin. Matters go quickly from bad to worse. Jimmy is found murdered; Agatha and James are the prime suspects.Read more
"Wickedness...such wickedness...."
The dying woman turned to Father Gorman with agony in her eyes. "Stopped....It must be stopped....You will...."
The priest spoke with reassuring authority. "I will do what is necessary. You can trust me."
...Read more
When Darina Lisle is asked to write a cookery book sponsored by Finer Foods, a firm that imports exotic gourmet delicacies, she sees it as an exciting challenge. But Darina soon discovers that Finer Foods' profits are plummeting and the finances are in a shambles. To add to all of this, she...Read more
Salander is confined to the secure unit of a women's prison, with violence all around her, but for a hacker of her skills, there are no boundaries.
She gives Mikael Blomkvist a lead that could give him an important exposé for Millennium magazine, an investigation into a sinister...Read more
It was a fatal mistake for Nigel Playford to bring his beautiful sister Cynthia to the magicians’ convention at the small seaside hotel in Wales. She had no talent at all for sleight of hand, and an absolute genius for making enemies. Before the curtain could rise on the main event, she...Read more
This time it's personal ...
The last thing Nell Forrest expected when she tried to plant a tree was to unearth the skeletal remains of a former resident. Now her new backyard is swarming with police, there's a television news crew camped next door, and once again she is smack in...Read more
Meet Madeleine Brooks. Ex-probation officer. Ex-wife.
Finally free of her failed marriage, Maddie has transformed herself into a successful estate agent in her delightful but not-so-sleepy English village in Oxfordshire.
Maddie’s most recent listing is a renovated...Read more
Scones, tea, and a stabbing…
When Tabitha Darling entered Cafe La Femme in a reality TV show hosted by an infamous “bad boy” Chef, she never expected to be a suspect in his murder.
When Xanthippe Carides quit working in a cafe to become a private detective, she never...Read more
When Erik Make Loud, retired rock star and a major World War Two nut, hires Cordelia, the Paperback Sleuth, to track down a series of lurid paperbacks about his favourite global conflict—the “Commando” novels by the blatantly pseudonymous Butch Raider—it seems like a routine job. But...Read more
For once, Jack Susko is feeling pretty good: his secondhand bookshop is on the up, and the cops haven’t been around in ages. Even his cat, Lois, is being nice to him.
Then one morning a beautiful woman knocks on Jack’s door and hands him an eviction notice. His former boss, a...Read more
Dr Elizabeth Pimms, enthusiastic archaeologist and reluctant librarian, has returned to Egypt.
Among the treasures of the Cairo museum she spies cryptic symbols in the corner of an ancient papyrus. Decoding them leads Elizabeth and her newly formed gang of Sleuthers to a tomb...Read more
When a movie about an Australian war hero takes Alby Murdoch to Vietnam, he discovers that some old soldiers never die and that it's not just the cameras doing the shooting . . .
A job as stills photographer and some top-notch nosh were two good reasons for Alby Murdock to be in...Read more
It wouldn't be Christmas without a visit to Fredericks' department store, whose festive atmosphere and lavish decorations are famous. The sounds of carols and tiny silver bells lilt and tinkle through the halls, glittering ornaments adorn the trees and angels, and the delightful Fredericks...Read more
Sheer chance put Oxford don Patrick Grant on the Acropolis in Greece when the first victim, elderly Miss Amelia Brinton, suffered a fatal fall. Curiosity, however, sent him to the English village of Meldsmead to visit the charming 17th-century cottage Miss Amelia had left to her niece....Read more
Stella Hardy, the wisecracking social worker, is back to tackle crooked private contractors, an exotic cattle scam, and a delicious Mushroom Jalfrezi.
All Stella Hardy wants is a romantic country getaway with her artist boyfriend, Brophy. Instead, she must head...Read more
Ex-cop Ted Conkaffey is slowing rebuilding his life in Crimson Lake, and getting to know his three-year-old daughter, Lillian. But when he and his PI partner Amanda take on the case of a boy who seems to have literally disappeared into thin air, his job once again threatens everything...Read more
The darkness felt tangible. Like it was pressing against my blind eyes … We were going to die here. Slowly, slowly.
Two people struggle on a ledge high above the surge pool at Punakaiki’s Pancake Rocks. One falls to their death, beginning a sequence of violence as Department of...Read more
A grisly torture-murder, a haunting northern Sweden backdrop, and a dark drama of twisted sexuality collide memorably in Åsa Larsson’s masterpiece of suspense—a tale of menace, hope, longing, and darkness beyond imagining.
The dead woman was found on a frozen lake, her body...Read more
When former high-powered lawyer turned PI Selma Falck is shot and her oldest friend, a junior MP, is killed in a sniper attack, everyone - including the police - assume that Selma was the prime target.
But when two other people with connections to the MP are also found murdered,...Read more
Agatha Raisin has a crush on James Lacey. In order to endear herself to him, she takes up gardening, hoping to participate with him in the prestigious Carsely Horticultural Contest. But as the contest approaches, plants are being mysteriously uprooted, poisoned, and burned. When the prime...Read more