Meet Agatha Raisin, high-flying public relations boss turned village sleuth. After Agatha's many stressful years of bullying and cajoling others her early retirement to a picture-perfect village in the Costwolds is a dream come true. And how better to start making friends than by entering the village quiche-making competition? However, Agatha is not used to being an also-ran, so to ensure first prize, she buys her entry from a London delicatessen. Alas, Agatha's perfect product is soon exposed - as not only store-bought but poisoned! The contest judge, rumoured to be connoisseur of women as well as food, succumbs soon after eating it, and with him go Agatha's chances of rural bliss - unless she can expose the real murderer...

The feisty Agatha Raisin, unitl recentlya London public-relations executive, believes that the attractive new village vet has taken a shine to her. Yet before romance can bloom, Dr Paul Bladen accidently kills himself under suspicious circumstances while attending to Lord Pendlebury's horse. Oh well, for Agatha there's still her distinguished neighbour, James Lacey, a retired military man who's been playing hard to get. Perhaps they may get chummier as they share a common interest, like a murder investigation. Though numerous village ladies are devestated by Dr Bladen's death, other people- including his divorced wife- feel its good ridance. All agree, however, that Agatha would be well advised to let sleeping dogs lie- before someone else meets death by accident...

Publishers Weekly ... surpasses the work of Agatha Christie... This marvellous historical delivers on the promise of the first two mysteries.
Guardian American heiresses, handsome Afghan tribesmen - they are all here in spades. A great blood and guts blockbuster. Literary Review, Philip Oakes. Solidly plotted...with lots of energy and all period accoutrements up to scratch and true to the Raj.

Barbara Cleverly was born in the north of England and is a graduate of Durham University. She now lives in the middle of Cambridge where she is working on her fifth Joe Sandilands novel. The first, The Last Kashmiri Rose, was named a New York Times 'Notable Book of the Year'.

(LAWRENCE KINGSTON MYSTERY)

The 20th century saw the rise of the motiveless murder and the serial killer, and with it the development of forensic science and the use of DNA and psychological profiling as weapons against it. In this book Brian Lane examines year by year, from 1900 onward, every major murder case in the light of its investigative, forensic, social or legal significance. In over 200 cases listed there are those that are not only landmark cases for criminologists but represent gruesome highlights of popular mythology. The chilling roll call includes Dr Crippen, Charles Manson, the Kray Twins, Bonnie and Clyde, the Moors Murderers, the Waco massacre and Beverley Allitt, as well as the last woman to be hanged in Britain, convicted murderer Ruth Ellis, whose execution hastened the abolition of the death penalty in Britain. A grim and gripping catalogue of killers in contemporary times, and society’s desperate attempts to capture and comprehend them.

St Benjamin’s Museum of Pathology is the greatest of its kind. Any death occurring within its walls would have created ripples within the academic world, but the death of Nikki Exner is far from being ordinary. Raped, and then grotesquely executed, her theatrical murder horrifies everyone. John Eisenmenger, a former forensic pathologist, finds himself dragged unwillingly into the Exner case, despite his desire to forget the awfulness he has had to endure in his past professional life. The results of the second autopsy just don’t add up to the findings of the first. Teaming up with solicitor Helena Flemming – who has her own reasons for wanting to prove the police wrong – Eisenmenger sets out to discover the truth. And as they progress in the investigation they find there is much more at stake than uncovering the identity of a murderer: there are scores to be settled, demons to be exorcised, and, not least, vengeance to be taken.

When consultant pathologist Mark Hartmann is asked to perform an autopsy on laboratory assistant Millicent Sweet, it seems to be a case no different from any other – despite the fact that Sweet was only 22 when she died of cancer. What he finds, however, is puzzling, for she appears to have died of several different but highly aggressive tumours. Before he can discuss his findings with colleagues he is called away to a conference, where, drunk and depressed one night, he ends up in bed with one of the sales reps. The consequence of his one-night stand is blackmail by a pharmaceutical company who have videoed Hartmann’s excesses. They threaten to send the tape to his wife – unless he falsifies his report on Millicent Sweet’s death. But they are not the only people interested in Sweet. Her father, convinced his daughter died as a result of a laboratory accident, has contacted lawyer Helena Flemming. And when Helena’s partner, John Eisenmenger, an insightful forensic pathologist, begins to dig deeper, he finds a trail of very sinister deception.
This darkly compelling tale builds on McCarthy’s highly acclaimed debut novel, A Feast of Carrion, consolidating the author’s reputation for strong, atmospheric writing and mesmeric plotting.

From the Author
When I wrote The Laundrymen, I said there was $100-$300 BILLION worth of dirty money circling the globe, looking to get clean. A few years later in The Merger, I put the figure at $300-$500 BILLION. Now, in The Sink, the figure is $600-$700 BILLION. Call that the turnover of Transnational Organised Crime, PLC. But dirty money looking to get laundered represents a mere 10% of the wealth hidden offshore. That means a staggering $6-$7 TRILLION is stashed anonymously in island nations. It’s hidden behind duck blinds, purposely constructed by nations selling secrecy. This book is about that secrecy, and about those nations, and also about the people and businesses --- from drug traffickers to terrorists to the many Enron’s around the globe --- whose very existence depends on stealth. This book is about how the real world works.

The Sunday Times, 'Saylor evokes the ancient world more convincingly than any other writer of his generation.' --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

The civil wars that have consumed both Rome and Egypt are about to reach their climax in the fabled city of Alexandria, capital of Egypt. Gordianus will witness the death throes of the old world, and play a crucial role in the birth of the world to come. For years, across seas and continents, the rival Roman generals Caesar and Pompey have engaged in a contest for world domination. Now Pompey, his forces destroyed at the battle of Pharsalus in Greece, flees to Egypt, hoping to make a last desperate stand on the banks of the Nile. But Egypt is a treacherous land, torn apart by the murderous rivalry between Queen Cleopatra and her brother King Ptolemy. Caesar, too, is on his way to Egypt, where his legendary encounter with the goddess-queen will spark a romance that reverberates down the centuries. Into this hothouse atmosphere of intrigue and deception comes Gordianus the Finder, seeking a cure for his wife Bethesda in the sacred waters of the Nile. But when his plans go awry, he finds himself engaged in an even more desperate pursuit - to prove the innocence of the son he once disowned.