London, 1896. Madame Tussauds opens to find one of its nightwatchmen decapitated and his colleague nowhere to be found. To the police, the case seems simple: one killed the other and fled, but workers at the museum aren't convinced and Scotland Yard enlists 'The Museum Detectives' Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton to aid the investigation. When the body of the missing nightwatchman is discovered encased within a wax figure, the case suddenly becomes more complex. With questions over the dead men's pasts and a series of bank raids plaguing the city, Wilson and Fenton face their most intricate and dangerous case yet.

Probably McCulley's second most popular character (after Zorro), the Black Star is a criminal mastermind -- the kind once termed a "gentleman criminal." He does not commit murder, nor does he permit any of his gang to kill -- not even the police or his arch enemy, Roger Verbeck. Black Star does not threaten women, always keeps his word, and is invariably courteous. Nor does he deal with narcotics in any of his stories. He is always seen in a black cloak and a black hood on which is embossed a jet black star. The Black Star and his gang use "vapor bombs" and "vapor guns" to render their victims instantly unconscious, a technique which pre-dated the Green Hornet's gas gun by several decades. The Black Star first appeared in the Street & Smith pulp Detective Story Magazine on 5 March 1916. The stories proved very popular, and some were reprinted by Chelsea House in a series of inexpensive hardback books. The character's last original story appeared in 1930.

A Monika Paniatowski British police procedural On the night the Whitebridge Players staged their last ever performance, the idealistic young actors in the company resolved that twenty years on they would return to the same theatre and stage the same play. But two decades later, old resentments have grown and new jealousies have germinated, and it is a very different company that returns to re-enact the Spanish Tragedy. The cast members all have their axes to grind - and some have clear targets for those axes . . . It is in this world - where normal rules and standards have no meaning - that DCI Monika Paniatowski finds herself, once a tragedy within the Tragedy has occurred. But how can she uncover the killer's motive when everyone seemed to want the victim dead? And how can she decide who is telling the truth - when all these people lie for a living?

From the bestselling author of The House at Riverton and The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton brings us her trademark mix of secrets, lies, and intricately layered mysteries in The Clockmaker's Daughter. My real name, no one remembers. The truth about that summer, no one else knows. In the depths of a nineteenth-century winter, a little girl is abandoned in the narrow streets of London. Adopted by a mysterious stranger, she becomes in turn a thief, a friend, a muse, and a lover. Then, in the summer of 1862, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, she retreats with a group of artists to a beautiful house on a quiet bend of the Upper Thames . . . Tensions simmer and one hot afternoon a gunshot rings out. A woman is killed, another disappears, and the truth of what happened slips through the cracks of time. Over the next century and beyond, Birchwood Manor welcomes many newcomers but guards its secret closely - until another young woman is drawn to visit the house because of a family secret of her own . . . As the mystery begins to unravel, we discover the stories of those who have passed through Birchwood Manor since that fateful day in 1862. Intricately layered and richly atmospheric, it shows that, sometimes, the only way forward is through the past.

The Sunday Times Bestseller - As read on BBC Radio 4

A BBC Radio 2 Book Club Choice 2019

'A sharp, scary, gorgeously evocative tale of love, art and obsession' - Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train

The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal is the intoxicating story of a young woman who aspires to be an artist, and the man whose obsession may destroy her world for ever.

London. 1850. The greatest spectacle the city has ever seen is being built in Hyde Park, and among the crowd watching two people meet. For Iris, an aspiring artist, it is the encounter of a moment – forgotten seconds later, but for Silas, a collector entranced by the strange and beautiful, that meeting marks a new beginning.

When Iris is asked to model for pre-Raphaelite artist Louis Frost, she agrees on the condition that he will also teach her to paint. Suddenly her world begins to expand, to become a place of art and love.

But Silas has only thought of one thing since their meeting, and his obsession is darkening . . .

September 1940 is finally drawing to a close. With London having endured the Blitz for nearly a month, people are calling for vengeance: Britain should retaliate even harder with their own bombing campaign in enemy territory. But once again the night heralds more destruction. At Custom House, anxious residents dutifully head to the nearest public air-raid shelter as the warning siren wails. When dawn brings the all-clear people disperse, but one man remains - he's dead, stabbed through the heart. As Detective Inspector John Jago begins his investigation, he discovers that the victim was one of a minority - a pacifist. But why, then, was he carrying a loaded revolver in his pocket?

The past comes back to haunt MI6 secret agent Cordelia Hemlock in this spy thriller from Sunday Times bestselling author David Mark "Top-level espionage fiction" - Booklist Starred Review Cordelia Hemlock is teetering on the verge of joining MI6 when she meets the enigmatic Walt, a high-ranking member of the Secret Intelligence Service, who tells her: They won't want you to do well. They won't ever trust you. They don't trust me and I'm one of them. She takes this as a challenge rather than a warning. She wants to protect the nation. Serve Queen and country. Who would turn down such a glorious opportunity? Fourteen years later, Cordelia is desk-bound after finishing an undercover operation and going quietly mad with boredom. So when the call comes through on the top-secret Pandora line - so-called after the locked-box the telephone is kept in - she answers it. It's Walt. No longer officially MI6, he still inhabits the murky world of intelligence, where information always comes with a price. He tells her he has a secret to share with her - and only her. And once she knows it, nothing will ever be the same again . . . A follow-up to the critically acclaimed psychological thriller The Mausoleum, this is a twisty, page-turning tale of friendship and divided loyalties set against the dark, forbidding landscape of the rural Borderlands.

Sherlock Holmes is dead. His body lies in a solitary grave on the Sussex Downs, England. But Dr. Watson survives, and is now given permission to release tales in Sherlock's 'classified dossier', those cases that are, dear reader, unbelievable - for their subject matter is of the most outre and grotesque nature. In this thrilling first instalment of The Classified Dossier, a Transylvanian nobleman called Count Dracula arrives at Baker Street seeking the help of Sherlock Holmes, for his beloved wife Mina has been kidnapped. But Dracula is a client like no other and Sherlock and Watson must confront - despite the wild, unbelievable notion - the existence of vampires. And before long, Sherlock, Watson and their new vampire allies must work together to banish a powerful enemy growing in the shadows....

**THE THRILLING SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER** 'If only all history mysteries could be as good as The Midnight Hour' The Times An old man lies dead and it looks like poison, but his wife isn't the only one who had reason to kill him. Brighton, 1965 When theatrical impresario Bert Billington is found dead in his retirement home, no one suspects foul play. But when the postmortem reveals that he was poisoned, suspicion falls on his wife, eccentric ex-Music Hall star Verity Malone. Frustrated by the police response to Bert's death and determined to prove her innocence, Verity calls in private detective duo Emma Holmes and Sam Collins. This is their first real case, but as luck would have it they have a friend on the inside: Max Mephisto is filming a remake of Dracula, starring Seth Billington, Bert's son. But when they question Max, they feel he isn't telling them the whole story. Emma and Sam must vie with the police to untangle the case and bring the killer to justice. They're sure the answers must lie in Bert's dark past and in the glamorous, occasionally deadly, days of Music Hall. But the closer they get to the truth, the more danger they find themselves in... *********** PRAISE FOR THE MIDNIGHT HOUR 'An intricately plotted whodunnit' Daily Mail 'Griffiths writes with verve and wit' Irish Times 'An entertaining period murder mystery' Irish Independent 'Layered with a gripping plot' Belfast Telegraph A Sunday Times bestseller w/c 24/04/2022

Crispin Guest is summoned to a London priory to unmask a merciless killer. Can he discover who is committing the deadliest of sins? 1399, London. A drink at the Boar's Tusk takes an unexpected turn for Crispin Guest, Tracker of London, and his apprentice, Jack Tucker, when a messenger claims the prioress at St Frideswide wants to hire him to investigate murders at the priory. Two of Prioress Drueta's nuns have been killed in a way that signifies two of the Seven Deadly Sins, and she's at her wits end. Meanwhile, trouble is brewing outside of London when the exiled Henry Bolingbroke, the new Duke of Lancaster, returns to England's shores with an army to take back his inheritance. Crispin is caught between solving the crimes at St Frideswide's Priory, and making a choice once more whether to stand with King Richard or commit treason again.