British Fiction

A tenant farmer’s son had no business daring to dream of a future with an earl’s daughter, but that couldn’t keep Amos Darby from his secret friendship with Charlotte Terrington…until the reality of the Great War sobered youthful dreams. Now decades later, he bears the brutal scars of battles fought in the trenches and their futures that were stolen away. His return home doesn’t come with tender reunions, but with the hollow fulfillment of opening a bookshop on his own and retreating as a recluse within its walls.

As the mists roll over the fens and enigmatic lights twinkle in the distance, only the locals know their way along the hidden paths through the mysterious watery terrain of one of England's most beautiful and sometimes dangerous places. Detective Matt Ballard may have retired but there's still plenty going on in the fens to keep him busy. Someone trashes an old lady's garden and daubs her isolated cottage with hateful graffiti. Emilia Swain seems to be totally harmless, so why is she being targeted?

The bodies of four men have been discovered in the town of Bradfield. Enlisted to investigate is criminal psychologist Tony Hill. But profiling the psychopath is not beyond him. Hill's own past has made him the perfect man to comprehend the killer's motives. It's also made him the perfect victim. A game has begun for the hunter and the hunted. But as Hill confronts his own hidden demons, he must also come face-to-face with an evil so profound he may not have the courage—or the power—to stop it.

In a world of lies, one truth remains. Dead men tell no tales...When the body of an unidentified man is found at the foot of Sheringham cliffs with injuries inconsistent with a fall, DI Tom Janssen must piece together his final days to determine how he fell to his death...or who pushed him...The investigation quickly reveals a network of locals with ties to the victim, but as for the man himself...he remains something of a mystery. The dead man doesn't fit in; not with his social circle, not with his business interests, and when others come looking for him, the intrigue only deepens.

What kind of woman would leave her husband, her children, and her home to live behind the Iron Curtain and work for the KGB? From the brilliant Oxford graduate who understands the espionage game better than her male colleagues, to the beguiling woman who uses her charm and brains to deceive everyone around her, Fiona Samson presents a complex puzzle. She is by no means alone.

When eight-year-old Daisy Mason vanishes from her family’s Oxford home during a costume party, Detective Inspector Adam Fawley knows that nine times out of ten, the offender is someone close to home. And Daisy’s family is certainly strange—her mother is obsessed with keeping up appearances, while her father is cold and defensive under questioning. And then there’s Daisy’s little brother, so withdrawn and uncommunicative . . .

Mrs. Braithwaite, self-appointed queen of her English village, finds herself dethroned, despised, and dismissed following her husband’s selfish divorce petition. Never deterred, the threat of a family secret being revealed sets off hot-foot to London to find the only person she has left - her clever daughter, Betty, who took work there at the first rumbles of war. But when she arrives, Betty’s landlord, the timid Mr. Norris, informs her that Betty hasn’t been home in days - with the chaos of the bombs, there’s no telling what might have befallen her.

The last thing DS Stephanie Johnson and DS Andy Carter expected during their much-needed canal holiday was a murder. When retired folk musician Annie Shipton is found stabbed through the neck at the helm of her barge, the couple can’t help investigating the seemingly impossible crime. Nobody else boarded Annie’s boat—so how was she killed from behind?

Seventy-five-year-old Sylvia Perkins was found battered to death in her home in 2010. The murder weapon was suspected to be a fire poker and it seems she was quite popular with older gentlemen. Her grandson Robbie inherited everything, but he can't be placed at the scene of the crime. Who killed this harmless old woman and why? And what secrets was she hiding?

Soon after Gwenda moved into her new home, odd things started to happen. Despite her best efforts to modernize the house, she only succeeded in dredging up its past. Worse, she felt an irrational sense of terror every time she climbed the stairs. In fear, Gwenda turned to Miss Marple to exorcise her ghosts. Between them, they were to solve a “perfect” crime committed many years before.

1995: In the wake of the Rwandan genocide, twenty-four-year-old spy Lachlan Kite and his girlfriend, Martha Raine, are sent to Senegal on the trail of a hunted war criminal. The mission threatens to spiral out of control, forcing Kite to make choices which will have devastating consequences not only for his career at top-secret intelligence agency BOX 88, but also for his relationship with Martha.

Unremarkable legal assistant Gary Thorn goes for a pint with his coworker Brendan, unaware his life is about to change. There, Gary meets a beautiful woman, but she leaves before he catches her name. All he has to remember her by is the title of the book she was reading: The Clementine Complex. And when Brendan goes missing, too, Gary needs to track down the girl he now calls Clementine to get some answers. And so begins Gary’s quest, through the estates and pie shops of South London, to find some answers and hopefully, some love and excitement.

With the heat of a kiss, the walls between Alizeh, the long-lost heir to an ancient Jinn kingdom, and Kamran, the crown prince of the Ardunian empire, have crumbled. And so have both of their lives. Alizeh, the heir to the Jinn throne, is destined to free her people from the half-lives they’ve been forced to live under human rule. When Kamran, the heir to the human throne, falls in love with her, he’s forced to question everything he’s been taught about Jinn.

Commander Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard has just published a new book of poems and has taken a brief respite from publicity on the remote Larksoken headland on the Norfolk coast. A psychotic strangler of young women is at large in Norfolk, and getting nearer to Larksoken with every killing. And when Dalgliesh discovers the murdered body of the Acting Administrative Officer on the beach, he finds himself caught up in one of the most baffling murder cases of his career.

Finn and Layla are young, in love, and on vacation. They’re driving along the highway when Finn decides to stop at a service station to use the restroom. He hops out of the car, locks the doors behind him, and goes inside. When he returns Layla is gone - never to be seen again. That is the story Finn told to the police. But it is not the whole story.

The rambling house called Thornyhold is like something out of a fairy tale. Left to Gilly Ramsey by the cousin whose occasional visits brightened her childhood, the cottage, set deep in a wild wood, has come just in time to save her from a bleak future. With its reputation for magic and its resident black cat, Thornyhold offers Gilly more than just a new home. It offers her a chance to start over.

Quatre sœurs enfin réunies en Australie. Mais les péripéties continuent. Dans la veine des sagas de Colleen MucCulloug, Tamara McKinley et Sarah Lark. La bonne fortune des soeurs Blake Réunies dans l'outback australien, les quatre sœurs Blake se réjouissent d'être à nouveau ensemble. Pour Cassandra, qui a retrouvé Reece, l'homme qu'elle aime, la colonie de Swan River apparaît comme un refuge inespéré.

1957: Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper in the southeast suburbs of London. Clever but with limited career opportunities and on the brink of forty, Jean lives a dreary existence that includes caring for her demanding widowed mother, who rarely leaves the house. It’s a small life with little joy and no likelihood of escape.

Annabel, Esther, Tanya, and Chloe are best friends—or were, as children. Despite drifting apart in adulthood, shared secrets have kept them bonded for better or worse, even as their childhood dreams haven’t quite turned out as they’d hoped. Then one day they receive a wholly unexpected—but not entirely unwelcome—invitation from another old friend. Poppy Greer has invited them all to her extravagant bachelorette party: a first-class plane ticket to three days of white sand, cocktails, and relaxation on a luxe private island in the Bahamas.

Set within the mysterious beauty of coastal Norfolk, this fast-paced British detective novel is a dark murder mystery with a little humor and a touch of romance, one that will keep you guessing until the very end when the final shocking twist is revealed. The Dead Call is the sixth novel in the Hidden Norfolk series of thrillers from Amazon number one best-selling crime writer JM Dalgliesh, the author of the Dark Yorkshire books.