A man lies hidden in an abandoned boat. Stifling screams, he draws a knife across his arm, letting the blood flow free. Soon he'll be dead and life can begin again. Three decades later Declan McIlroy, a 39-year-old loner, is found frozen to death in his flat as Arctic temperatures grip the cathedral city of Ely. His is not the only cold death that winter, but nevertheless reporter Philip Dryden has worrying doubts, for it seems Declan may not have been alone as he slowly froze to death . . .

When a reader contacts local newspaper The Crow to report a rare sighting of the Boreal or so-called 'Funeral' owl, the paper's editor Philip Dryden has a sense of foreboding. For the Funeral Owl is said to be an omen of death. It's already proving to be one of the most eventful weeks in The Crow's history. The body of a Chinese man has been discovered hanging from a cross in a churchyard in Brimstone Hill in the West Fens. The inquest into the deaths of two tramps found in a flooded ditch has unearthed some shocking findings. A series of metal thefts is plaguing the area. And PC Stokely Powell has requested Dryden's help in solving a ten-year-old cold case: a series of violent art thefts culminating in a horrifying murder. As Dryden investigates, he uncovers some curious links between the seemingly unrelated cases: it would appear the sighting of the Funeral Owl is proving prophetic in more ways than one.

For seventeen years, the Cambridgeshire hamlet of Jude's Ferry has lain abandoned, requisitioned by the Government for military training. In its thousand-year-old history, it had been famous for one thing, never having recorded a single crime. But when local reporter Philip Dryden joins the Territorial Army on exercise in the empty village, its spotless history is literally blown apart. For the Territorial Army's shells reveal a hidden cellar beneath the old pub. And inside the cellar hangs a skeleton, a noose around its neck . . .

An explosion on a Norfolk beach leads to far-reaching consequences for detectives Shaw and Valentine When an explosion rips across Hunstanton Beach on the north Norfolk coast, an abandoned Second World War bomb is assumed to be the cause . . . but is it? Could there be a connection with the new pier being built - and the increasingly bitter campaign to halt its construction? At the same time, DI Shaw and DS Valentine are on the hunt for an elderly female killer with a uniquely macabre method of despatch. And a 63-year-old Dutch engineer is missing, presumed drowned . . . but where is the body? All seemingly unrelated investigations - but in each case nothing is as it seems. To find the answers, Shaw must delve into the past, and a mystery that has remained unsolved for more than sixty years.

An explosion on a Norfolk beach leads to far-reaching consequences for detectives Shaw and Valentine When an explosion rips across Hunstanton Beach on the north Norfolk coast, an abandoned Second World War bomb is assumed to be the cause . . . but is it? Could there be a connection with the new pier being built - and the increasingly bitter campaign to halt its construction? At the same time, DI Shaw and DS Valentine are on the hunt for an elderly female killer with a uniquely macabre method of despatch. And a 63-year-old Dutch engineer is missing, presumed drowned . . . but where is the body? All seemingly unrelated investigations - but in each case nothing is as it seems. To find the answers, Shaw must delve into the past, and a mystery that has remained unsolved for more than sixty years.

The stunning new Shaw & Valentine mystery When the newspapers turn up to cover Ruby Bright's 100th birthday, they find her seaside care home is a murder scene. Someone spirited Ruby away by wheelchair down to the water's edge on the idyllic north Norfolk coast, and strangled her. But why kill a harmless centurion? As Detective Inspector Shaw and Detective Sergeant Valentine investigate, it's clear Ruby wasn't the first victim, and nor is she the last. All trails seem to lead back to the old Parkwood Springs estate, close to the docklands. There's only one way in and one way out of the estate - through the derelict Lister Tunnel. But what is the secret within .?

A Shaw & Valentine mystery When a body is discovered beneath the waves off Scolt Head Island, the contents of the dead man's pockets lead Detective Inspector Peter Shaw to suspect an outbreak of 'samphire wars': a turf battle for control of the prized sea asparagus which sells for a small fortune along the affluent North Norfolk coast. Or does the killer merely want it to look that way? Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant George Valentine is investigating a series of break-ins targeted at wealthy second-home owners. And a lethal strain of adulterated cocaine is flooding the streets of nearby Lynn, leaving devastation in its wake. Then the second body is found - and the simmering tensions underpinning this remote coastal community come bursting into the open . with devastating consequences.

Trail running is one of the fastest developing areas of physical fitness and the countryside of North Wales is one of the most scenic parts of the UK in which to practice it. With a rugged coastline, lush countryside, deep sylvan forests and all set against the backdrop of the high mountains of Snowdonia, this part of Wales is a joy upon which to plant the trainer. In a series of fifteen runs, join the authors as they set foot to trail on some of the most exhilarating running routes within the UK. Beach, coast, field, forest and hill, to the runner who wants to get away from the mundane of pounding the tarmac these are some of the most stirring words in the English language. If you've never tried trail running then let this book guide you to some of the most memorable running experiences around. If you are a veteran of the trail running scene then, in the two writers, you've got expert guidance to routes that you simply must put foot to. To the runner, running may be a necessity but there are some runs you just owe it to yourself to experience...

Journalist Philip Dryden is shocked to be informed by police that his father has been killed in a car accident - he drowned during the fenland floods of 1977, 35 years before. At the same time, two unrelated cases are demanding Dryden's professional attention: a body riddled with bullets found hanging in the middle of a lettuce field, and a couple protesting that the local council has buried their baby daughter in a pauper's grave without permission. As Dryden pieces the clues together, he realizes that the three cases may be related after all . . .

Summer, 1976. A plane crashes on a farm in the Cambridgeshire Fens. Out of the flames walks young Maggie Beck, clutching a baby in her arms… Twenty-seven years later, investigative journalist Philip Dryden – visiting his wife, Laura in hospital – is witness to Maggie’s deathbed confession. But some secrets are best kept secret, and what started out for Dryden as a small and curious story about the only survivor of an almost-forgotten plane crash soon escalates into a full-blown murder investigation. And while Dryden is wondering what other secrets Maggie carried, his semi-conscious wife is trying to tell him something that might just save his life…

From beneath a wartime POW camp near Ely, deep in the Cambridgeshire Fens, a man crawls through an escape tunnel. But he won’t emerge until fifty years of peace have passed. When he does, unearthed by archaeologists seeking a Saxon burial tomb, local journalist Philip Dryden knows he has a mystery to solve. First the man appears to have been shot in the head – and second, he was breaking into the camp not out. The police treat the body as an historical curiosity, but Dryden digs deeper – and soon unearths a corpse of much more recent origin…

In the bleak snowbound landscape of the Cambridgeshire Fens, a car is winched from a frozen river. Inside, locked in a block of ice, is a man’s mutilated body. Later, high on Ely Cathedral, a second body is found, grotesquely riding a stone gargoyle. The decaying corpse has been there more than thirty years. When forensic evidence links both victims to one awful event in 1966, local reporter Philip Dryden knows he’s on to a great story. But as his investigations uncover some disturbing truths, they also point towards one terrifying foggy night in the Fens two years ago. A night that changed Dryden’s life forever…

Aisling embarks on a fun filled adventure from London to a remote part of Ireland. Living with her family in England, Aisling, aged 5, really misses her Granny who lives in the west of Ireland. She enjoys visiting for holidays in the summer but is so sad to leave when it is time to go home. One day Aisling comes up with a plan to get to her Granny's home. Along the way Aisling makes friends with a mischievous mouse and together they share an unforgettable adventure with a happy ending. This is a heart-warming tale about the love between grandchildren and their grandparents. Wonderfully written by Jim Kelly and beautifully illustrated by Rita Dineen, this book appeals to all ages.

Wickhead believes Give somebody a candid compliment and its memory can last for years; maybe a lifetime. But just because it comes from the heart doesn t preclude a little topspin. That s where this offbeat opus sallies forth. Why fore? Forsooth, it puts at your nimble fingertips synapse-stimulating words and concepts which aid your supple mind in tapping your soaring intellect to create the vibration refreshing my liege. All this results not only in you generating compliments with artistic flair, but also in you being catapulted to the status of writer extraordinaire at the apex of your game and this is good. For example: you could tell your girlfriend she looks great. Or you could sprinkle in a little verbal spice and say You re resplendent beyond regulations and as radiant as a Nassau sunrise. Plus, I might add, the crem de la crem, no whip Or, perhaps, you re at the computer and an unwanted ad keeps popping up. You could ask your computer-whiz son for help for the umpteenth time, or you could stay loose, write tight, and inquire My good and skillful offspring, since you are renowned and revered throughout the hood as the Commodore of Communication, might you be able to jettison the ad into the ocean blue? And wouldn t ya know, there s no hot water in the house; time to call your handyman husband. But alas, you get his voicemail. The perfect time for Hark, yon husband, tis I, the Lady of the Manor, and forsooth, the royal water heater appears to no longer be all systems go. Perhaps, when the affairs of state permit, you could inspect the once bubbling cauldron and insight its triumphant return of warmth to the castle s frosty faucets. I bid you a fond, albeit a sans BTU adieu. There s a small sample demonstrating how easy it is to be a more creative writer when you ve got the right resource and, this is the right resource. Because when you use verbal gusto you not only make a positive point, you become an edifying and entertaining exponent of the art of the compliment. Adure my friends, and may the bon mot be with you, not to mention the auspicious aesthetic. Wickhead.

A lone German bomber crosses the east coast of Britain on a moonless night in the long, hot summer of 1940. The pilot picks up the silver thread of a river and, following it to his target, drops his bomb over Cambridge's rail yards. The shell falls short of its mark and lands in a neighbourhood of terraced streets on the edge of the city's medieval centre. DI Eden Brooke is first on the scene and discovers the body of an elderly woman, Nora Wylde, in a house on Elm Street, two fingers on her left hand severed, in what looks like a brutal attempt by looters to steal her rings. When the next day Nora's teenage granddaughter Peggy, a munitions worker, is reported missing, Brooke realises there is more to the situation than meets the eye.

This short story collection offers snapshots of a life. A kid is set up by an old uncle to think he's going to be scalped. Seeing demons in every shadow a few nights later, he's told by an older cousin it was all a joke, that adults always seem to want kids to go through the same bad things they did. Just how they are. Shut up, he's advised. Get used to it. Hunkered in the dark listening. In the next room, bubbling a bottle with a drinking buddy, his Old Man telling tales of roadhouse glory. Bad odds fist fights, rearranged faces that stay that way. For weeks he wakes afraid to touch his face. Will his nose, ears and eyes have shifted places while he slept, his face forever scrambled, rearranged? Riots and war. Conscription. The fights, the violence no longer just yarns heard late at night. Drafted at eighteen, he has to decide, will he go halfway round the world to kill people he has no earthly quarrel with? Considers conscientious objection. His girlfriend bluntly asks him when he became a pacifist. You can't, she suggests, the minute you get drafted, suddenly announce yourself as some kind of Instant Gandhi. Not, anyway, and expect a Draft Board made up of World War II vets to buy it. Teaching in a tiny mountain town. Some kids, he's told early on, are just too dumb to bother with. Signing on for a salesman's pay. Hit your quota or hit the road. Logic of a kiss, that sprung free promise of what life can be, the one constant throughout. A better way glimpsed, lost and found, here and gone. Pitchman's blues.

On the football field NFL great Jim Kelly was a strong-armed passer, leading his team to victory after victory. In THE PLAYBOOK FOR DADS he passes principles instead of footballs, still using his talent to lead men but now he leads them to greatness as fathers, in his view the world's most important job. With an emphasis on preparation, hard work and perseverance, Kelly tackles such essential issues as respect, character, accountability and spiritual discipline. From commitment and courage to honesty and humility, Kelly's lessons-learned on and off the field- guide men striving to be the fathers God designed them to be - so their children can grow to be everything they are meant to be. Conversational and refreshingly honest, Jim challenges fathers to work hard, pray for their children often, love their wives and implement these principles. Both practical and inspirational this is Jim Kelly coaching every dad how to be the star quarterback for the home team-his family