British Literature

Alison Willetts has survived a stroke, deliberately induced by a skilful manipulation of pressure points on the head and neck. She can see, hear and feel, but she is completely unable to move or communicate. In leaving Alison Willetts alive, the police believe the killer's made his first mistake. Then DI Tom Thorne discovers the horrifying truth: it isn't Alison who is the mistake, it's the three women already dead. Thorne must find a killer whose agenda is disturbingly unique, and Alison, the one person who holds the key to the killer's identity, is unable to say anything....

For years, the Duchess of Fournier has buried a shameful secret connected to her remarkable, if bizarre, ability. While Audrey's gift has helped her solve cases alongside the captivating Bow Street officer Hugh Marsden, she longs to forget her previous committal to an insane asylum. But now, a blackmailer with a taste for violence is threatening former patients of Shadewell Sanatorium, and it appears the ghosts of Audrey's past have finally found her.

Sooty, sulfurous, and malign: no woman should be out on a night like this. A spate of violent deaths—the details too foul to print—has horrified the capital and the smog-bound streets are deserted. But Rachel Savernake—the enigmatic daughter of a notorious hanging judge—is no ordinary woman. To Scotland Yard's embarrassment, she solved the Chorus Girl Murder, and now she's on the trail of another killer.

With the Cold War drawing to a close in the East, Bernard Samson is still haunted by the events that have turned his life upside down over the last ten years. But when he takes a train from Moscow to Berlin, he stumbles across a clue that may lead him to the truth at last—even though, in finding the answers, he could lose everything. Bringing the Faith, Hope, and Charity trilogy and Bernard Samson's story to a stunning conclusion, this final volume brilliantly shows the human cost of the spying game.

An English bobbie returning from night patrol finds a corpse in evening dress locked in the stocks on the village green. He identifies the body immediately. Andrew Vereker was not a well-loved man, and narrowing down the suspects is not going to be an easy job. The Vereker family are corrupt and eccentric - and hardly cooperative. It's another case for the resourceful Superintendent Hannasyde, who sets off on the trail of a killer so cunning that even his consummate powers of detection are tested to their limits.

1809. After his heroic actions during the retreat to Corunna, Captain Sir Thomas Kydd is the toast of London society. Here he falls in with the legendary frigate captain Lord Thomas Cochrane. So begins a relationship, professional and personal, that will be unlike any that Kydd has known: a relationship that will lead him, almost simultaneously, to first glory, then ruin.

A series of baffling murders among a group of imprisoned agents threatens the outcome of World War II in this chilling mystery from the New York Times best-selling author of Mr. Churchill’s Secretary. World War II is raging, and former spy Maggie Hope knows too much. She knows what the British government is willing to do to keep its secrets. She knows the real location of the planned invasion of France. She knows who’s lying. She knows who the double-crossers are. She knows exactly who is sending agents to their deaths.

Jonathan Roper is a key player in the elite Special Investigations Unit. His autism, and a relentless drive, have given him an extraordinary range of skills which make him a formidable detective. His reputation has grown to the point where he has been invited to join the digital fight against terror - but that's not working out as it means losing contact with his boss, Chief Inspector Brian Hooley. The pair formed a powerful bond while bringing down a gang of ruthless mercenaries running riot in London, and now events are throwing them back together.

DS George Cross has always wondered why his mother left him when he was a child. Now she is back in his life, he suddenly has answers. But this unexpected reunion is not anything he's used to dealing with. When a disturbing case lands on his desk, he is almost thankful for the return to normality. The body of a monk is found savagely beaten to death in a woodland near Bristol. Nothing is known about Brother Dominic's past, which makes investigating difficult. How can Cross unpick a crime when they don't know anything about the victim? And why would someone want to harm a monk?

A man’s body washes up on a beach on the North Yorkshire coast with a single gunshot wound to the chest. The only clue to the victim’s identity is a ring engraved with two names. DCI Tom Raven is back in his hometown of Scarborough for the first time in over 30 years. When offered the chance to lead the murder investigation, he takes it. Raven quickly discovers that the prime suspect is his once-teenage friend, now a wealthy but shady businessman. He finds an ally in Detective Sergeant Becca Shawcross, but not everyone in the team is on his side.

The Bahamas, 1941. Newly widowed Leonora “Lulu” Randolph arrives in Nassau to investigate the governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. After all, American readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the duke and duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. What more intriguing backdrop for their romance than a wartime Caribbean paradise, a colonial playground for kingpins of ill-gotten empires? Or so Lulu imagines.

Fitzwilliam Darcy is a powerful mage and master of illusions. His abilities make him the perfect man for a dangerous mission to end the devastating war with Napoleon—a mission that would leave him little chance of returning alive. When he meets the enchanting Elizabeth Bennet, whose magical talents are as deep as they are inexplicable, he knows he needs her help. There's only one way to get that—marriage. Immediately.

Between her work in Cornwall’s oldest library and catching up with old friends over tea and chocolate biscuits, Jemima Jago is spending the season the only way she knows how: sunbathing, swimming, and sailing. But her postcard-perfect summer is turned upside down when the body of well-to-do businessman Hermie Castleberry is found on the sweeping white sands at the foot of Candlewick Castle.

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.

Thomas Pitt, mainstay of Her Majesty’s Special Branch, is summoned to Connaught Square mansion, where the body of a junior diplomat lies huddled in a wheelbarrow. Nearby stands the tenant of the house, the beautiful, notorious Egyptian woman Ayesha Zakhari, who falls under the shadow of suspicion. Pitt’s orders are to protect—at all costs—the good name of the third person in the garden: senior cabinet minister Saville Ryerson. The distinguished public servant, whispered to be Ayesha’s lover, insists that she is as innocent as Pitt himself.

With London's streets deserted, a young flower girl is murdered. But why was she out so late on the foggiest night of the year? Inspector Witherspoon of Scotland Yard has nowhere to even begin looking for a suspect. However, Mrs. Jeffries, his housekeeper, is even more accomplished at detection than she is at household management. A policeman's widow herself, her quick wits allow her to nudge the inspector in the right direction to solve the mystery.

For a fellow like Captain Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy, who despises the French worse than the Devil hates Holy Water, it's hellish-hard to gain a reputation for saving them, not once but twice, when the French refugees from Haiti surrender to England rather than the vengeful ex-slave armies in November of 1803! After that, it could be "all claret and cruising" in the Caribbean, but for a home-bound sugar convoy, one so frustrating as to make even the happy-go-lucky Alan Lewrie tear his hair out, kick furniture, and curse like...well, like a sailor!

It’s Christmastime in London, and Sherlock Holmes takes on two cases. The angelic three-year-old child of a wealthy couple is the target of a vicious kidnapper, and a country aristocrat worries that his handsome, favourite son has mysteriously vanished from his London pied à terre. Holmes and Watson, aided by the colourful Heffie O’Malley, slip slide in the ice to ensure a merry Christmas is had by nearly everybody.

Former allies in the IRA, Sean Dillon and Martin Brosnan have chosen different paths. Now Dillon is a terrorist for hire, a master of disguise employed by Saddam Hussein. Brosnan is the one man who knows Dillon’s strengths and weaknesses…and brilliant mastery of espionage. Once friends, now enemies, they are playing the deadliest game of their careers. A game that culminates in a frightening - and true - event: Iraq’s attempted mortar attack on the British war cabinet at 10 Downing Street in February 1991.

Three men search for some version of home; their lives move inexorably toward a reckoning that will draw them all together. For Farouk, family is all. He has protected his wife and daughter as best he can from the war and hatred that has torn Syria apart. If they stay, they will lose their freedom. Lampy is distracted; he has too much going on in his small town life in Ireland. He has the city girl for a bit of fun, but she's not Chloe. The game was always the lifeblood coursing through John's veins: manipulating people for his enjoyment. But it was never enough.