Donald Langham and Maria Dupre must navigate a rocky road to find a killer when a body is found next to a standing stone. Newlyweds Donald Langham and Maria Dupre have moved to the country. They're excited about starting a new life in the picturesque village of Ingoldby-over-Water - and about meeting their new neighbours. But they've barely moved into Yew Tree Cottage when their new neighbour at Standing Stone Manor, Professor Edwin Robertshaw, invites Donald over to discuss some 'fishy business'. Shortly after, a body is found by the professor's precious standing stone in the manor grounds. Donald and Maria discover tensions, disputes and resentment raging below the surface of this idyllic village, but can they find out which of the villagers is a cold-blooded killer?

Baghdad, the capital of the world, is a city crowded with stories, and founded on secrets. But some secrets, and some stories, can be deadly...Ismail al-Rawiya is a thief who dreams of being a poet. He is drawn to Baghdad, and to the court of the Khalifah Harun al-Rashid, where fabulous wealth can be attained by those who survive the rivalries, the politics and the whims of the capricious monarch. In the turbulent city, Ismail falls into the company of the poet Abu Nuwas, known as the Father of Locks. Abu Nuwas is a brilliant artist, but also a decadent drunkard with a taste for trouble. The Father of Locks has his own secret: he is an irregular and reluctant agent of the scheming Wazir, Ja'far al-Barmaki, who now assigns him to investigate reports that the Devil is stalking the streets of Baghdad. Together the poet and the thief uncover a hidden world, of forbidden cults, foreign spies, and a mysterious Brass Bottle. When children start to disappear, it seems that there must be substance to the dark rumours of evil spirits and human sacrifice that haunt the city. But the truth that Ismail and the Father of Locks uncover is more shocking still.

'A detective story with a very considerable difference. Ingenious, stimulating and very enjoyable' SUNDAY TIMES 'As interesting and enjoyable a book as they will meet in a month of Sundays' OBSERVER Scotland Yard inspector Alan Grant, recovering from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III, believed to have brutally killed his brother's children - the Princes in the Tower - to make his crown secure. But is the hunchback with such a sensitive, noble face really one of the world's most heinous villains? Or was he the victim of one of the most insidious plots in history? 'One of the best mysteries of all time' NEW YORK TIMES 'Suspense is achieved by unexpected twists and extremely competent storytelling . . . credible and convincing' SPECTATOR

Armistice Day, 1940. The nation remembers the Great War while a new and harrowing conflict rumbles on. The Blitz Detective, John Jago, must set aside his own painful memories to investigate a suspicious death in Pimlico, south-west London. The body of a young man has been discovered in an Anderson shelter, with two white poppies in his pocket. As the investigation progresses, Jago and his assistant, DC Cradock, find themselves knee-deep in Pimlico's shady underworld and connections with Mosley's fascist party. It will take all their skills to uncover the truth behind the young man's brutal death.

Sleuthing duo Lillian Frost and Edith Head investigate a behind-the-scenes scandal in this delightful Golden Age of Hollywood mystery. 1939, Los Angeles. Lillian Frost is shocked when her friend, glamorous costume designer Edith Head, hands her the script to a new film that's about to start shooting. Streetlight Story is based on a true crime: the California Republic bank robbery of 1936. Lillian's beau, LAPD detective Gene Morrow, was one of the officers on the case; his partner, Teddy, was tragically shot dead. It seems the scriptwriter has put Gene at the centre of a scandal, twisting fact with fiction - or has he? With Gene reluctant to talk about the case, the movie quickly becoming the hottest ticket in town, a suspicious death on the Paramount studio lot and the police reopening the investigation into Teddy's death, Lillian is determined to find answers. Can Lillian and Edith uncover the truth of what happened that fateful day and clear Gene's name?

The year is 1869. A brutal triple murder in a remote community in the Scottish Highlands leads to the arrest of a young man by the name of Roderick Macrae. A memoir written by the accused makes it clear that he is guilty, but it falls to the country's finest legal and psychiatric minds to uncover what drove him to commit such merciless acts of violence. Was he mad? Only the persuasive powers of his advocate stand between Macrae and the gallows. Graeme Macrae Burnet tells an irresistible and original story about the provisional nature of truth, even when the facts seem clear. His Bloody Project is a mesmerising literary thriller set in an unforgiving landscape where the exercise of power is arbitrary.

August 1895. When the Museum Detectives are asked to investigate a vandalised dinosaur skeleton at the Natural History Museum, there is evidence that the fossil-hunting mania of the notorious Bone Wars in America may have reached British shores. But for Daniel Wilson, famed for his involvement in the Jack the Ripper case, and renowned archaeologist Abigail Fenton, events soon take a sinister turn . A museum attendant is found dead by the famous theatre manager Bram Stoker, who may be more involved than he is willing to admit. Facing pressure from both an overseas business and a local celebrity, Wilson and Fenton must rely on their talents and instincts to solve their most intriguing case yet.

The Murder of Willie Lincoln is an exciting historical fiction debut by award-winning political journalist Burt Solomon. Washington City, 1862: The United States lies in tatters, and there seems no end to the war. Abraham Lincoln, the legitimate President of the United States, is using all his will to keep his beloved land together. But Lincoln's will and soul are tested when tragedy strikes the White House as Willie Lincoln, the love and shining light in the president's heart, is taken by typhoid fever. But was this really the cause of his death? A message arrives, suggesting otherwise. Lincoln asks John Hay, his trusted aide--and almost a son--to investigate Willie's death. Some see Hay as a gadfly--adventurous, incisive, lusty, reflective, skeptical, even cynical--but he loves the president and so seeks the truth behind the boy's death. And so, as we follow Hay in his investigation, we are shown the loftiest and lowest corners of Washington City, from the president's office and the gentleman's dining room at Willard's Hotel to the alley hovels, wartime hospitals, and the dome-less Capitol's vermin-infested subbasement. We see the unfamiliar sides of a grief-stricken president, his hellcat of a wife, and their two surviving and suffering sons, and Hay matches wits with such luminaries as General McClellan, William Seward, and the indomitable detective Allan Pinkerton. What Hay discovers has the potential of not only destroying Lincoln, but a nation.

The discovery of a body in a pigsty, shot to death, leads Coroner Titus Cragg and Dr Luke Fidelis into a complex and baffling murder investigation. April, 1746. When County Coroner Titus Cragg is called to examine a body found shot to death at a local farm, he finds himself drawn into a bizarre and complex case where nothing is as it first appears. As he questions those who knew the victim, it becomes clear that not everyone is telling him the whole truth. Could the motive for the murder lie in a dangerous contract the dead man had signed more than twenty years before, a so-called tontine agreement? Just what does the victim's enigmatic lawyer, Ambrose Parr, know that he's not revealing? As he and Dr Luke Fidelis attempt to track down the six other signatories to the contract, Titus realizes that if they do not find answers - and fast - more violent deaths will surely follow.

A Times 'Best New Thriller' for May 2022 'Enthralling ... Sharp dialogue and flashes of dry wit' Financial Times 'Ben Creed has a genuine gift for conjuring up Stalin's Leningrad in all its beauty and misery' The Times 'A cleverly constructed thriller' Sunday Times 'A fantastically tense atmosphere ... A spine-tingling page-turner' The Sun ___________Leningrad, winter 1952. An invisible killer known as Koshchei - a nightmare of Slavic folklore - stalks the streets, leaving a distinctive and gruesome mark upon its victims. Three thousand kilometres away in a Gulag labour colony, threatened by the vicious criminals who rule the camp and tormented by the Arctic cold, former militia lieutenant Revol Rossel is close to death. But then a brutal saviour descends from the skies: the state security interrogator who years ago ruined his life is back, tasking Rossel with tracking down the murderer. As the hunt continues, the two men uncover riddle after riddle, including a clue to finding a weapon of unimaginable power - a weapon the Kremlin's scheming plotters will kill for...

Two hearts. Twice as vulnerable. Manhattan, 1850. Born out of wedlock to a wealthy socialite and a nameless immigrant, Cora Lee can mingle with the rich just as easily as she can slip unnoticed into the slums and graveyards of the city. As the only female resurrectionist in New York, she's carved out a niche procuring bodies afflicted with the strangest of anomalies. Anatomists will pay exorbitant sums for such specimens-dissecting and displaying them for the eager public. Cora's specialty is not only profitable, it's a means to keep a finger on the pulse of those searching for her. She's the girl born with two hearts-a legend among grave robbers and anatomists-sought after as an endangered prize. Now, as a series of murders unfolds closer and closer to Cora, she can no longer trust those she holds dear, including the young medical student she's fallen for. Because someone has no intention of waiting for Cora to die a natural death.

A Grand & Batchelor Victorian mystery March, 1875. Although he has never had much time for George Custer, hero of the American Civil War and Commander of the 7th Cavalry, Matthew Grand feels duty bound to respond to a call for help from his West Point contemporary. Arriving at Fort Abraham Lincoln, deep in Dakota territory, private enquiry agents Grand and Batchelor discover the fort to be a powder keg of rumour and suspicion, petty rivalries, resentments - and closely-guarded secrets. When a body is discovered during a routine scouting patrol, some of those secrets rise uncomfortably close to the surface. Are the Lakota Sioux responsible? Or does the killer lie closer to home? Could it have been a case of mistaken identity - and was Custer himself the real target? The General has made many enemies - but does someone have a good enough reason to kill him?

'There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life.' In Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet a popular cultural phenomenon is born. We meet two of the most famous characters in modern literary history: the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, an army doctor home on sick leave, for the first time. Through Watson we learn a little about the eccentric figure who is his new room-mate at 221B Baker Street, before they encounter their first case: an American visitor to the city has been killed in an empty house off the Brixton Road, and the only clue the police have is the mysterious word 'Rache', scrawled in blood-red letters on the wall. As Holmes sets to work with his unique forensic methods, behind the murder a tangled skein of love, religion, and revenge gradually unwinds, taking us from the streets of London to the Utah Territory, and back again. As Nicholas Daly's Introduction describes, out of this gripping tale grew the Holmes and Watson stories that would make Conan Doyle the best-paid author of his time. His creations have become household words, inspiring not only countless adaptations and imitations, but a Sherlock Holmes museum, Sherlock Holmes-themed pubs, and a whole array of Holmesian merchandise, from cushions to jigsaw puzzles. Here, though, we meet Holmes and Watson before they became famous, and we can see how their extraordinary impact on our popular culture derives from the late-Victorian world from which they emerge.

September 314 AD and once more death strikes the sprawling streets of Imperial Rome. When two prostitutes are found murdered - their bodies ripped open and their right eyes gouged out - it's feared a notorious killer, the Nefandus, has returned. Rumoured to be an imperial officer, he once waged bloody murder amongst Rome's prostitutes but vanished before his identity could be discovered. Has he reappeared, or is someone working in his guise? Desperate to retain order, the Empress Helena turns to her most trusted agent, Claudia. Helena commands her to discover the truth behind the Nefandus, before Rome descends further into chaos and confusion.

London, May, 1911. The new king, George V, is preparing for his coronation. The suffragettes are campaigning for women to get the vote. The East End seethes with unrest. And 18-year-old Kitty Challoner is looking forward to 'coming out' in London society. But Kitty's secure, sheltered world is about to be torn apart. Lydia Challoner is shot dead while out riding in Hyde Park, and during the ensuing murder investigation Kitty discovers that there was so much she didn't know about her mother. Was Lydia really the killer's intended target? Is there a link to her Russian heritage? Why had she been behaving so strangely in recent weeks? Was she having an affair? As Kitty determines to uncover the truth and wonders exactly whom she can trust, she learns that the household in which she lives harbours a number of dangerous secrets.

Sister Fidelma returns in the thirty-first Celtic mystery by Peter Tremayne. Ireland. AD 672. The body of a dead man has been found on a lonely mountain road and taken to the isolated abbey of Gleann Da Loch for a proper burial. The abbot quickly identifies him as Brehon Brocc, who had been travelling to the abbey on a secret mission with Princess Gelgeis and her steward. When news reaches Colgu, King of Muman, that his betrothed, Princess Gelgeis, has disappeared, Fidelma with her trusted companions, Eadulf and Enda, enter the hostile Kingdom of Laigin in search of the truth. But one death is quickly followed by another and warnings of demonic shapeshifters and evil lurking in the mountains must be taken seriously. Are there really brigands stealing gold and silver from the ancient mines? And are rumours of a war between the Kingdoms of Laigin and Muman to be believed? As Fidelma searches for answers, she must do everything in her power to avoid danger and death in a land where no one is to be trusted . . .

Charlie Marder is an unlikely Congressman. Thrust into office by his family ties after his predecessor died mysteriously, Charlie is struggling to navigate the dangerous waters of 1950s Washington, DC, alongside his young wife Margaret, a zoologist with ambitions of her own. Amid the swirl of glamorous and powerful political leaders and deal makers, a mysterious fatal car accident thrusts Charlie and Margaret into an underworld of backroom deals, secret societies, and a plot that could change the course of history. When Charlie discovers a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of governance, he has to fight not only for his principles and his newfound political career...but for his life.

Lucca, City State for hundreds of years, keeper of secrets and relics, possessor of the Holy Face of Christ, has Napoleon's army at its gates, the emperor having declared himself King of All Italy. A continent away in Bexleyheath, Mabel Flinchurst gazes down from her window upon the Advent Fair. With all the hustle and bustle she doesn't see the pilgrim walk into the church of St Anthony's across the square, and slit his own throat. But Lucca and this suicide are strands from the same rope, a rope that is being wound unseen about Mabel, ready to rip her from her cosy world. When Mabel's friend, Toby, is kidnapped she enlists the help of compulsive list-maker and missing-persons finder, Whilbert Stroop. Together they are drawn into a mystery that began many centuries ago, and soon they find themselves losing a race against time and treachery, as an unknown enemy, and murder, begin to snap at their heels...

In this gripping forensic mystery set in Stuart England, Gabriel Taverner uncovers a series of shocking secrets when he's summoned by his former naval captain to investigate strange goings-on aboard his ship. October, 1604. Former ship's surgeon turned country physician Gabriel Taverner is surprised to receive an urgent summons from his old naval captain. Now docked in Plymouth harbour, having recently returned from the Caribbean, Captain Colt believes his ship is haunted by an evil spirit, and has asked Gabriel to investigate. Dismissive of the crew's wild talk of mysterious blue-skinned ghosts, Gabriel is convinced there must be a rational explanation behind the mass hallucinations. But matters take a disturbing turn when he and the captain discover a body hidden behind one of the bulkheads. Calling on the help of his old friend, Coroner Theophilus Davey, piece by piece Gabriel uncovers a terrifying tale of treachery, dark magic, unimaginable cruelty - and cold-blooded murder.