Qwilleran - a prize-winning reporter with a nose for crime, Koko - a Siamese cat with extraordinary talents and a flair for mystery, Yum Yum - a loveable Siamese adored by her two male companions. The most unlikely, most unusual, most delightful team in detective fiction.
Lilian Jackson Braun and her husband her husband, Earl, live with their two cats, Koko III and Pitti Sing, in the mountains of North Carolina.
Kill the Witch is the fourth entry in the vibrant and colourful historical crime series which feature Dr Simon Foreman - Elizabethan doctor, horoscope-caster and solver of mysteries. Dr Forman is a fictional character based on a real figure from the sixteenth century.
In this case Simon is invited to a wedding in Pinner and as one evil deed is followed by another the townsfolk believe they are under a curse. Only Simon can reveal the truth and hopefully in time to convince them that they are wrong to kill the witch.
'A good pacy read...Cook is keen on fine historical detail and has obviously mastered her subject' Evening Standard
Judith Cook has the unique ability to write about mystery and crime across the ages, drawing from her days as an investigative journalist and her knowledge as an Elizabethan scholar. She began her career as a journalist for The Guardian and went on to become a freelance writer, winning awards for investigative journalism and having several highly acclaimed works of fiction and non-fiction published. The acclaimed Death of a Rose Grower dealt with the highly suspicious death of Hilda Murrell, the anti-nuclear campaigner, in the early 1980's.
Born and brought up in Manchester, Judith Cook now lives in the fishing port of Newlyn, Cornwall where she is a part-time lecturer in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama at Exeter University. She is currently working on a genuine biography of Dr Simon Forman, as well as working on two professional theatre productions early next year, one in Chichester and one in Suffolk.
Someone is sending King Henry VIII threatening letters demanding money and stamped with the seal of Edward, one of the princes supposedly murdered in the Tower. Benjamin Daunbey and his servant Roger Shallot investigate, and King Henry makes it clear that their lives depend on their success.
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In his second dazzling psychological thriller Jeremy Dronfield explores the roots of love, madness and obsession through the story of a tormented musical genius and the bizarre aristocratic family that made him.
Four friends lived together in almost perfect harmony, considering their differences in temperament and outlook. Rachel's dreamy goodness clashed with Audrey's waspish cynicism, but Beth's common sense and Lydia's soothing beauty always seemed to balance everything in the end.
Then along came Salvador, child prodigy grown up bad, and perhaps the finest classical guitarist of his generation. Lydia cannot help but be drawn into the dark and strange world of his family, a world dominated by the Chateau de Gondecourt and its eerie simulacrum resurrected in Dartmoor, places where ancient dreams have turned into Gothic nightmares, and where the terrifying matriarch Madame de La Simarde still spins her intricate webs.
Praise for Jeremy Dronfield's first novel The Locust Farm:
" Dronfield unpeels the mysterious layers with great skills and has a real gift for atmosphere. The ending will take your breath away." The Mirror
'a refreshingly dense psychological thriller" Daily Mail
Jeremy Dronfield was born in Tredegar in 1965 and brought up in Cwmbran, Gwent, the son of a joiner. After forceful attempts to pleach and topiarise his mind, Croesyceiliog Comprehensive finally allowed Jeremy to drop out at the age of 16. He trained as a land surveyor with the local County Council for three years before leaving to pursue a career as a musician and songwriter, a vocation for which he had the talent but not the will. After a year of this, in order to allay parental pressure, he took a job as site assistant with the Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust, which then led to an academic career at Southampton University followed by Cambridge where he wrote a thesis on hallucinatory drugs and Palaeolithic ritual. His first novel, The Locust Farm has received some excellent reviews and was shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association John Creasy First Novel Award.
From the author of "Say it with Poison". The Caswells move to rural Oxfordshire to get some peace. But they don't get any peace - Liam Caswell receives a letter bomb from an unknown source and then a body is found.
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Life is sweet again for Oz Blackstone, private enquiry agent turned money magnet. Lottery winner, television performer and reunited out of tragedy with his partner Primavera Philips he has just been offered a part in a movie and it seems like an offer to good to miss. But after a visit from his policeman pal, DI Mike Dylan, resurrects his part-time career as a private investigator, on the trail of a poison pen, his own life seems to developed a dramatic storyline of its own with a spate of accidents occurring to those closest to him. And when the female lead in the movie is kidnapped from the set in a bizarre echo of the movie's rollercoaster plot, fiction and reality come together in a terrifying climax. But has Oz got what it takes to save the day?
Screen Savers is the fourth title in the Oz Blackstone series.
Quintin Jardine was a journalist before joining the Government Information Service where he spent nine years as an advisor to ministers and civil servants. Later he moved into political PR, until in 1986 he 'privatized' himself, to become and independent public relations consultant. He is the author of the acclaimed Skinner series as well as the Oz Blackstone series.
A Distinction of Blood is the third mystery featuring the complex and intuitive Robert Fairfax, set in an age of elegance and squalor, and of powdered wigs with lice underneath... Engaged as a tutor to the children of wealthy and ambitious sugar merchant, Mr Samuel Appleton, Robert Fairfax soon finds himself embroiled in a world of gambling debts, love affairs and deep intrigue.
In The Devil's Highway, Robert Fairfax chances upon a stagecoach tipped into a ditch, two of its passengers lying dead. He soon suspects that this is more than a simple highway robbery. Fairfax soon traces murderous designs behind an intricate pattern of deception.
'March has created a felicitously realized Georgian mystery, and setting a detective novel in the age of Moll Flanders is a masterstroke.' The Times
'Written well with a great deal of self-assurance.' Shots
Hannah March was born and brought up in Peterborough
The tenth mystery in the Doomsday series takes Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret to Gloucester, where a monk has been found in the Abbey, his throat slit from ear to ear. The Abbot is ill equipped to deal with such a heinous crime and is still reeling from his conversation with the Sheriff, who is convinced that one of the monks must be guilty. This is the confusion that greets Domesday Commissioners Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret when they arrive, having been sent there to resolve a land dispute. They begin to realise that the killing is just a symptom of a sinister presence that threatens the whole community and must be stopped at any cost.
Edward Marston was born in South Wales. A former history lecturer, he has worked as a full-time writer since 1966 and has written over forty original plays for radio, television and theatre, as well as children's books, literary criticism and novels. He was recently shortlisted for the prestigious Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel.
Jake is older, talented and exciting. But when Sigrid is isolated with him in a remote cottage on the moors, he becomes as dangerous and frightening as the landscape.
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Amateur sleuth Dominic Felse finds himself in a deadly game of cat and mouse in Czechoslovakia in "The Piper on the Mountain" before finding himself embroiled in two more mysteries set in India in "Mourning Raga" and "Death to the Landlords".
Rosemary Rowe is the maiden name of Rosemary Aitken, who has written bestselling
sagas for many years. The Germanicus Mosaic is her first crime novel. She was born
in Cornwall, lived in New Zealand for many years and now lives in Cheltenham.
It is the second century AD and Freedman Libertus is drawn into a deadly web of intrigue when he is called to Corinium (modern Cirencester) to investigate the death of a local dignitary.
Praise for The Germanicus Mosaic
`There are charming details about innocent life on the fringes of empire' Independent
'... a considerable achievement' The Times
'The story is agreeably written, gets on briskly with its plot, and ends with a highly satisfactory double-take solution' The Scotsman
Rosemary Rowe is the maiden name of Rosemary Aitken, who has written many bestselling sagas. She was born in Cornwall, lived in New Zealand for many years and now lives in Cheltenham.
Praise for previous Sister Fidelma novels includes:
'A brilliant and beguiling heroine. Immensely appealing... difficult to put down'
Publishers Weekly
'The background detail is marvellous' Evening Standard
'Sister Fidelma is fast becoming a world ambassador for ancient Irish culture'
The Irish Post
Hemlock at Vespers is the first anthology featuring Sister Fidelma, star sleuth of the increasingly popular bestselling Celtic crime series.
Sister Fidelma originally made her debut as one of the decade's most interesting sleuths in short story form. The sharp-witted and astonishingly wise religieuse captured the hearts of many readers as she successfully tackled the most baffling of crimes in her other role as advocate of the law courts of Ireland, using the ancient Brehon Law system. The overwhelming response to these stories launched Fidelma as the heroine of a bestselling series of Celtic crime novels. But it also created a demand for further short stories.
Hemlock At Vespers is the first collection of these stories ever to be published. With its breathtaking range of settings and crimes, it is guaranteed to entertain and intrigue - and is an anthology that no lover of Celtic culture or historical crime should be without.