Thief-taker Simon Westow is used to finding stolen goods, not stolen bodies . . . Can he hunt down those committing crimes against the dead in Leeds? Leeds. April, 1824. Wealthy engineer Joseph Clark employs thief-taker Simon Westow to find the men who stole the buried corpse of Catherine Jordan, his employee's daughter. Simon is stunned and horrified to realize there's a gang of body snatchers in Leeds. He needs to discover who bought Catherine's body and where it is now. As he hunts for answers, he learns that a number of corpses have vanished from graveyards in the town. Can Simon and his assistant Jane bring the brutal, violent Resurrection men who are selling the dead to medical schools to justice and give some peace to the bereft families?

Praise for Punishment of A Hunter: 'The most successful retro-detective since Akunin' Literratura 'Gritty and gripping' Will Ryan 'It will pull you in and leave you breathless' Chris Lloyd 'Yulia Yokovleva's thrilling debut was a bestseller in her native Russia. It's not difficult to see why' The Times, Best New Crime Fiction ________________ On the eve of Stalin's deadly great purge, a rider and his horse mysteriously collapse in the middle of a race in Leningrad. Weary detective Zaitsev, still reeling from his last brush with the Party, is dispatched to the soviet state cavalry school near Ukraine to investigate. There he witnesses the horror of the man-made Holodomor Famine as he struggles to penetrate the murky, secretive world of the school. Why has this murder attracted so much attention from Soviet officials? Zaitsev needs to answer this question and solve the case before the increasingly paranoid authorities turn their attention to him...

When the truth lies out of sight...West Wales, 1850. When an old tree root is dug up, the remains of a young woman are found. Harry Probert-Lloyd, a young barrister forced home from London by encroaching blindness, has been dreading this discovery. He knows exactly whose bones they are. Working with his clerk, John Davies, Harry is determined to expose the guilty. But the investigation turns up more questions than answers and raises long-buried secrets. The search for the truth will prove costly. But will Harry and John pay the highest price? An exceptional Victorian Welsh crime thriller, perfect for fans of Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Andrew Taylor and S. W. Perry. Praise for Alis Hawkins'Beautifully written, cunningly plotted, with one of the most interesting central characters' E.S. Thomson 'The most interesting historical crime creation of the year' Phil Rickman

Solve a murder, bring a killer to justice... but at what cost?Harry Probert-Lloyd, a young barrister forced home from London by encroaching blindness, has begun work as the acting coroner of Teifi Valley with solicitor's clerk John Davies as his assistant. When a faceless body is found on an isolated beach, Harry must lead the inquest. But his dogged pursuit of the truth begins to ruffle feathers. Especially when he decides to work alongside a local doctor with a dubious reputation and experimental theories considered radical and dangerous. Refusing to accept easy answers might not only jeopardise Harry's chance to be elected coroner permanently, but could, it seems implicate his own family in a crime. An absolutely scintillating historical crime thriller full of suspense and intrigue perfect for fans of S. J. Parris, C. J. Sansom and Abir Mukherjee. Praise for Alis Hawkins 'Beautifully written, cunningly plotted, with one of the most interesting central characters' E.S. Thomson 'The most interesting crime creation of the year' Phil Rickman

The fabulous Phryne Fisher, her sister Beth and her faithful maid, Dot, decide that Luna Park is the perfect place for an afternoon of fun and excitement with Phryne's two daughters, Ruth and Jane. But in the dusty dark Ghost Train, amidst the squeals of horror and delight, a mummified bullet-studded corpse falls to the ground in front of them. Phryne Fisher's pleasure trip has definitely become business. Digging into this longstanding mystery takes her to the country town of Castlemaine where it's soon obvious that someone is trying to muzzle her investigations. With unknown threatening assailants on her path, Phryne seems headed for more trouble than usual.... ""Greenwood weaves historical data into the plot like gold thread, giving it richness without weighing it down. -Booklist ""An unforgettable character, with a heart as big as her pocket-book, a fine disregard for convention and an insatiable appetite for life."" -Denver Post ""Appealing characters and witty banter...an enjoyable caper.""- Publishers Weekly Kerry Greenwood is the author of more than 40 novels and the recipient of the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award from the Crime Writers' Association of Australia. www.phrynefisher.com -Publishers Weekly

The year is 1738; the place, Paris. A baby is born under a fish-monger's bloody table in a marketplace, and abandoned. Orphaned, passed over to the monks as a charity case, already there is something in the aura of the tiny infant that is unsettling. No one will look after him; he is somehow too demanding, and, even more disturbing, something is missing: as his wet nurse tries to explain, he doesn't "smell" the way a baby should smell; indeed, he has no scent at all.
Slowly, as we watch Jean-Baptiste Grenouille cling stubbornly to life, we begin to realize that a monster is growing before our eyes. With mounting unease, yet hypnotized, we see him explore his powers and their effect on the world around him. For this dark and sinister boy who has no smell himself possesses an absolute sense of smell, and with it he can read the world to discover the hidden truths that elude ordinary men. He can smell the very composition of objects, and their history, and where they have been, he has no need of the light, and darkness is not dark to him, because nothing can mask the odors of the universe.
As he leaves childhood behind and comes to understand his terrible uniqueness, his obsession becomes the quest to identify, and then to isolate, the most perfect scent of all, the scent of life itself.
At first, he hones his powers, learning the ancient arts of perfume-making until the exquisite fragrances he creates are the rage of Paris, and indeed Europe. Then, secure in his mastery of these means to an end, he withdraws into a strange and agonized solitude, waiting, dreaming, until the morning when he wakes, ready to embark on his monstrous quest: to find and extract from the most perfect living creatures--the most beautiful young virgins in the land-- that ultimate perfume which alone can make him, too, fully human. As his trail leads him, at an ever-quickening pace, from his savage exile to the heart of the country and then back to Paris, we are caught up in a rising storm of terror and mortal sensual conquest until the frenzy of his final triumph explodes in all its horrifying consequences.
Told with dazzling narrative brilliance and the haunting power of a grown-up fairy tale, "Perfume" is one of the most remarkable novels of the last fifty years.

In this absorbing new entry in the acclaimed New York Times bestselling series, Scotland Yard's Ian Rutledge is caught up in a twisted web of vengeance and murder. On the north coast of Cornwall, an apparent act of mercy is repaid by an arrest for murder. Four young women have been accused of the crime. A shocked father calls in a favor at the Home Office. Scotland Yard is asked to review the case. However, Inspector Ian Rutledge is not the first Inspector to reach the village. Following in the shoes of a dead man, he is told the case is all but closed. Even as it takes an unexpected personal turn, Rutledge will require all his skill to deal with the incensed families of the accused, the grieving parents of the victim, and local police eager to see these four women sent to the infamous Bodmin Gaol. Then why hasn't the killing stopped? With no shred of evidence to clear the accused, Rutledge must plunge deep into the darkest secrets of a wild, beautiful and dangerous place if he is to find a killer who may-or may not-hold the key to their fate.

Includes BONUS short story *****Part of the bestselling John Shakespeare series of Tudor spy thrillers from Rory Clements, winner of the Ellis Peters Historical Fiction Award***** '[Clements] does for Elizabeth's reign what CJ Sansom does for Henry VIII's' Sunday Times ********** England is a Judas nest of conspiracy It is 1582, and the conflict between Protestant and Catholic threatens to tear the country in two. While Queen Elizabeth I holds the reins of power, there are those whose loyalty lies with her imprisoned cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. On his first major mission for Sir Francis Walsingham, the young John Shakespeare is ordered to discover a conspiracy to free the Stuart queen from Sheffield Castle. All too soon, he realises that the tentacles of the plot reach deep into his native Warwickshire and threaten his own friends and family. His duty lies with Elizabeth - but how far will he go to protect those he loves?

AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW 'Banville writes dangerous and clear-running prose and has a grim gift of seeing people's souls.' DON DELILLO 'Crime writing of the finest quality, elegant, distinctive and utterly absorbing.' Daily Mail 'John Banville is one of the best novelists in English.' Guardian '[The Strafford and Quirke series] promises to elevate the crime novel to new artistic heights.' Financial Times The Sunday Times bestselling author of Snow and April in Spain returns with Strafford and Quirke's most troubling case yet. 1950s Dublin, in a lock-up garage in the city, the body of a young woman is discovered, an apparent suicide. But pathologist Dr Quirke and Detective Inspector Strafford soon suspect foul play. The victim's sister, a newspaper reporter from London, returns to Dublin to join the two men in their quest to uncover the truth. But, as they explore her links to a wealthy German family in County Wicklow, and to investigative work she may have been doing in Israel, they are confronted with an ever-deepening mystery. With relations between the two men increasingly strained, and their investigation taking them back to the final days of the Second World War, can they join the pieces of a hidden puzzle?

Forget Deadwood, Dodge, and Tombstone, the biggest, baddest boomtown of the 1880s was San Diego, California. The attraction wasn't gold or silver but cheap land, the promise of an oceanfront paradise where it never snows and rarely rains, and the too-good-to-be-true deals offered by local real estate merchants. In the wake of bona fide settlers came the hucksters, con artists, and snake oil vendors-so many flimflam men (and women) that those duped called the town "Scam Diego." Abetting the crime and chaos was the nearby Mexican border, a convenient refuge for the rustlers, ex-Rebels, and banditos who floated back and forth across the unmarked frontier. Caught up in this perfect storm are two men: U.S. Marshal Cradoc Bradshaw and San Diego Times reporter Nicholas Pinder. Best friends growing up, Bradshaw and Pinder are now sworn enemies-all because of a woman. Having once cooperated to catch bad guys, Bradshaw and Pinder now compete-Pinder with his quill pen or Bradshaw with his sawed-off shotgun and Colt single action Army revolver. The competition heats up when someone starts killing the town's movers and shakers. As the bodies pile up, the question becomes which of the former friends will track down the killer first?

It's the summer of 1922, and nineteen-year-old Paulien Mertens finds herself in Paris - broke, disowned, and completely alone. Everyone in Belgium, including her own family, believes she stole millions in a sophisticated con game perpetrated by her then fiance, George Everard. To protect herself from the law and the wrath of those who lost everything, she creates a new identity, a Frenchwoman named Vivienne Gregsby, and sets out to recover her father's art collection, prove her innocence - and exact revenge on George. When the eccentric and wealthy American art collector Edwin Bradley offers Vivienne the perfect job, she is soon caught up in the Parisian world of post-Impressionists and expatriates - including Gertrude Stein and Henri Matisse, with whom Vivienne becomes romantically entwined. As she travels between Paris and Philadelphia, where Bradley is building an art museum, her life becomes even more complicated: George returns with unclear motives . . . and then Vivienne is arrested for Bradley's murder. B. A. Shapiro has made the historical art thriller her own. In The Collector's Apprentice, she gives us an unforgettable tale about the lengths to which people will go for their obsession, whether it be art, money, love, or vengeance.

It is the autumn of 1910, and for fifteen long years Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson have battled R'lluhloig, the Hidden Mind that was once Professor James Moriarty. Europe is creeping inexorably towards war, and a more cosmic conflict is nearing its zenith, as in a single night all the most eminent members of the Diogenes Club die horribly, seemingly by their own hands. Holmes suspects it is the handiwork of a German spy working for R'lluhloig, but his search for vengeance costs an old friend his life. The companions retreat to Holmes's farm on the Sussex Downs, and it is not long before a client comes calling. Three young women have disappeared from the nearby town of Newford, and the locals have no doubt who is responsible. For legend has it that strange amphibious creatures dwell in a city on the seabed, coming ashore every few centuries to take fresh captives. As Holmes and Watson seek out the terrifying interlopers, the scene is set for the final battle that will bring them face to face with the Sussex Sea-Devils, and perhaps with Cthulhu himself...

Who should rule Russia? In an era of oligarchs and growing Russian wealth, the issue is not irrelevant. Equally, in the late nineteenth century, funding in university colleges was as essential as it is now. The novel is set in St George's College, Oxford, where mismanagement and factional rivalry have led to the urgent need to raise funds. A Russian Grand Duke, Eugene Saltanovich, has promised an endowment. Long resident in England, the Anglophile Prince Rostov, a former student at the college, is invited along with his wife, Princess Alisa, to a memorial dinner where he is to interpret the Grand Duke's speech. The occasion turns out to be a fiasco when the Grand Duke claims his dancing doll will save Russia. What follows is apparently murder and an attempted coverup that rouses the prince's suspicions. The Grand Duke's dancing doll proves to be a fact, but the alleged presence of nuns in the college leads the prince to realize that they offer a vital clue to the Grand Duke's, er, great idea. Rostov is witness to a further death, provokes a duel, finally uncovers the ambitious plan at the heart of the cover-up and the even more startling likelihood that, had the Grand Duke's, er, great idea worked, the history of the twentieth century might have been completely different. Ingenious, witty and original, The Grand Duke's, er, Great Idea is a quality crime novel based on historical fact, but strictly of relevance to the present day.

Enthusiasts call Harry Gysel a psychic. To others he is a fraud, a meddler in the occult. When he appears to predict the death of a woman in the audience of one of his shows and that woman is subsequently murdered, Harry becomes an instant celebrity. But Chief Inspector Morgan isn't so easily convinced.

"Boardwalk Empire" meets "Miss Universe" in 1927 Galveston, Texas-the "Sin City of the Southwest." Jasmine ("Jazz") Cross is an ambitious 21-year-old society reporter for the Galveston Gazette who wants to be taken seriously by the good-old-boy staff, but the editors only assign her fluffy puff pieces, like writing profiles of bathing beauties. The last thing Jazz wants to do is compare make-up tips with ditzy dames competing in the Miss Universe contest, known as the "International Pageant of Pulchritude and Bathing Girl Revue." She'd rather help solve the murders of young prostitutes who turn up all over town, but city officials insist on burying the stories during Splash Day festivities. After Jazz gets to know the bathing beauties, she realizes there's a lot more to them than just pretty faces and figures. Jazz becomes suspicious when she finds out the contest is also sponsored by the Maceos, aspiring Beach Gang leaders and co-owners of the Hollywood Dinner Club, where the girls will perform before the parade and pageant. Worse, her half-brother Sammy Cook, owner of the Oasis, a speakeasy on a rival gang's turf, asks her to call in a favor from handsome Prohibition Agent James Burton: He wants Agent Burton to raid the Hollywood Club during the bathing beauties dance routine--or risk revenge from the Downtown Gang leader. Her loyalties torn, Jazz is faced with an impossible task that could compromise both of their jobs and budding romance. Meanwhile, Jazz fends off advances from Colin Ferris, an attractive but dangerous gangster who threatens Sammy as well as Burton. In the end, she must risk it all to save her friends from a violent killer hell-bent on revenge. Inspired by actual events. (Sequel to FLAPPERS, FLASKS AND FOUL PLAY, the first "Jazz Age Mystery" in the series.)

Sherlock Holmes Historical Fiction Thriller"Novelist and literary historian, Breck England, sheds light on the little-known detective work of super sleuth Sherlock Holmes in America. " Leonard Carpenter, author of Conan the Barbarian series Learn the answers to many tantalizing Sherlock Holmes questions in a book that takes you into the dark place in the life of Holmes B.W. (Before Watson), or, as he said, "before my biographer came to glorify me." Historical fiction thriller. The Tarleton Murders, the record of "one of those pretty little problems" Holmes solved in the pre-Watson years, has never been brought to light until now. The discovery of this previously unknown manuscript opens a window onto the mysterious early years when Holmes was struggling to set himself up as a "consulting detective" a previously unknown profession. The early Sherlock Holmes. So begins a frantic journey that takes Holmes and his friend from Rome (where they save the Pope) to Paris to London to Liverpool, across the Atlantic during the most dangerous hurricane in twenty years, to the backwoods of Georgia (infested by the Klan), and eventually into the midst of Atlanta's highest society with growing awareness of a plot that threatens the very existence of the United States. Along the way we encounter George Bernard Shaw, Joel Chandler Harris, Pope Leo XIII, the artist Mary Cassatt, Moriarty himself and Moriarty's wife! And in the midst of the fun we make some astounding discoveries, such as the true identity of Moriarty, the fate of the Vatican Cameos, and to top it all off, Mycroft's schoolboy nickname. Also discover: How did Holmes know so much about the Ku Klux Klan? How did he acquire such a rich acquaintance with America? Did he really prevent a Second Civil War? If you've read Sherlock Holmes in America by Martin H. Greenberg or Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Undead Client by M. J. Downing, you'll love Breck England's The Tarleton Murders.

Spring, 1858. The route of the Caledonian Railway through the Scottish countryside is disrupted by a fatal crash. The Railway Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and his trusty Sergeant Victor Leeming are called from London to investigate, and must contend with old enemy Superintendent Rory McTurk to uncover the criminals behind the disaster. The motive for the crash is unclear, with suspects including the North British Railway, a group of sabbatarians and those with personal vendettas to pursue. Can Colbeck and Leeming crack the case before the Royal family makes their train journey to Balmoral?

'Leo Stanhope is a wonderful creation, his world atmospheric and terrifying, and his own story as powerful and enthralling as the mysteries he investigates' Sam Blake

The second book in the acclaimed new historical crime series following on from the Richard & Judy Book Club 2019 pick, The House on Half Moon Street

It's been a year since Leo Stanhope lost the woman he loved, and came closing to losing his own life. Now, more than ever, he is determined to keep his head down and stay safe, without risking those he holds dear. But Leo's hopes for peace and security are shattered when the police unexpectedly arrive at his lodgings: a woman has been found murdered at a club for anarchists, and Leo's address is in her purse. When Leo is taken to the club by the police, he is shocked to discover there a man from his past, a man who knows Leo's birth identity. And if Leo does not provide him with an alibi for the night of the woman's killing, he is going to share this information with the authorities.

If Leo's true identity is unmasked, he will be thrown into an asylum, but if he lies... will he be protecting a murderer?

When the wise woman Magda Digby is suspected of murder, Owen Archer sets out to prove her innocence in this intricately plotted medieval mystery. May, 1375. Owen Archer returns from London to find York in chaos. While the citizens are living in terror of the pestilence which is spreading throughout the land, a new physician has arrived, whipping up fear and suspicion against traditional healers and midwives. With the backing of the new archbishop, he is especially hostile towards Magda Digby, the wise woman who has helped and healed the people of York for many years. At the same time, Magda is uneasy about the arrival of two long-lost kinsfolk. Though they say they are seeking her help, she senses a hidden agenda. Magda's troubles deepen when she discovers a body in the river near her home - and finds herself under suspicion of murder. Days later, fire rips through a warehouse in the city. Amongst the charred debris lies the body of a man - not burned, but stabbed in the back. Could there be a connection to the corpse in the river? Determined to prove Magda's innocence, Owen sets out to find answers - but the more he uncovers, the deeper the mystery becomes . . .