British Literature

When a hit-and-run accident leaves eight-year-old Lee Sanders in critical condition, DI Freya Bloom and DS Ben Savage arrive on the scene in rural Lincolnshire. But the investigation they thought would be simple, soon develops into something far more sinister. The driver of the car is found in a nearby ditch, and she didn't die of natural causes. Poppy Gray, a nineteen-year-old girl with a bright future ahead of her, had only one known friend, a troubled boy who rarely speaks. Leading a simple life, Poppy had been filled with the joys of spring. But she knew something.

As two former enemies morph into something more, the Dragon Knights find out about Ivy's location and offer a reward for her death or capture. Will Stonefire be forced to give her up to protect their clan? Or, will Zain and Ivy be able to find a path where they can defeat the Knights and be together?

When a detested viscount is found murdered by the banks of the Thames and Charlie Hastings becomes the prime suspect, Barnaby and Penelope Adair join forces with Stokes to discover the real story behind the unexpected killing. Charlie Hastings is astonished to find himself accused of murdering Viscount Sedbury. Admittedly, Charlie had two heated altercations with Sedbury in the hours preceding the man’s death, but as Charlie is quick to point out to Stokes—and to Barnaby and Penelope—there are a multitude of others in the ton who will be delighted to learn of Sedbury’s demise.

When new victims of the still-at-large serial killer known as the Red Reaper start to appear in London, DCI Declan Walsh and his team are placed back on the case—but everything isn't what it seems. For a start, the deaths are different, and the calling card is new. It could be a copycat, apart from one thing... They know what Declan did to the real Red Reaper a year earlier. Something only Declan and the closest members of his team keep secret. Is this the real Reaper, back to gain revenge on Declan and his family—or is this a protégé, staking his own claim to the serial killer name?

With the exception of the terrible retreat from Afghanistan, none of England's many little wars have been so fatal in proportion to the number of those engaged as our first expedition to Burma. The Burman policy of carrying off every boat on the river, laying waste the whole country, and driving away the inhabitants and the herds, maintained our army as prisoners in Rangoon through the first wet season; and caused the loss of half the white officers and men first sent there.

When Inspector Witherspoon becomes the main suspect in a murder case, Scotland Yard refuses to let him investigate. But no one said anything about Mrs. Jeffries and her polished detection skills, proving that behind every great man there's a woman - and that a crime solver's work is never done.

Inspector Witherspoon always triumphs...but how does he do it? Even the inspector himself doesn't know - because his secret weapon is as ladylike as she is clever. She's Mrs. Jeffries: the determined, delightful detective who is also Inspector Witherspoon's housekeeper.

If there’s one thing detective Bath Peter Diamond has no patience for, it’s a dumb git trying to get involved in one of his investigations - for example, a Philip Marlowe-wannabe private investigator like the self-styled Johnny Getz. But fate has saddled Diamond with this trial. A Bath antiques dealer, “Seppy” Hubbard, has disappeared without a trace, and his daughter has hired Getz to find him. When a body is discovered in Seppy’s locked-up store, the missing persons case becomes a murder investigation, and now Diamond has to collaborate with the insufferable private eye.

When Gabriel Lee escapes an unhappy marriage and moves to Porlington to start over, he finds himself part of the Porlington Philharmonia - an orchestra made up of the usual characters you would find in such a thing. Until one of them is found dead following a concert. Suddenly, everybody is a suspect, but nobody seems likely. A thriller full of intrigue and humour, this tale gives an insight into just what a barmy world musicians live in, especially when things go fatally wrong.

A delicious Christmas feast of short stories from the Sunday Times number one best-selling author of A French Affair and The Perfect Match. Add some extra sparkle to your Christmas by joining Katie Fforde for a perfect romantic Christmas feast of short stories. Collected together for the first time and including one brand-new story. Make your Christmas wishes come true....

It's Christmas 1937 and an eclectic list of guests and staff have gathered for the grand re-opening of Maybridge castle, a newly renovated yet still crumbling hotel deep in the Cumbrian countryside. An innocent game of murder-in-the-dark will turn into a real game of life and death. And by the time the first sherries have been drunk, one of these people will be dead - and one of them the killer. Someone has changed the rules, but who?

Salisbury, 1226. A mysterious poacher claims to be a long-lost heir - to a man found crushed by his own cart wheel. Ela Longespée is determined to find the truth, even though the king has coldly appointed another sheriff in her place. Ela takes pity on the man - an injured knight who once saved her husband’s life - and convinces the sheriff to release him from jail while she investigates. Will it turn out to be a deadly mistake?

Sparkly and charming Natalie Fincher has it all—a handsome new husband, a fixer-upper cottage of her dreams, and the opportunity to tour with the musical she’s spent years writing. But when her husband suddenly dies, all her hopes and dreams instantly disappear. Two and a half years later, Natalie is still lost. She works, sleeps (well, as much as the sexually frustrated village foxes will allow), and sees friends just often enough to allay their worries, but her life is empty. And she can only bring herself to play music at a London train station’s public piano.

For five long years, Detective Barnes has been hunting the killer of the person he cared about the most. Now, the one man who could have revealed the truth is dead. His charred and blackened body is all that remains in his burnt-out flat. A week later, a desperate, emaciated young woman hammers on the door of a late-night convenience store. She speaks no English—but it’s clear that she’s terrified—and running for her life. It's only Barnes who connects the two events. He and his new boss, Superintendent Samson Kane, team up to uncover the truth.

England 1921. Lady Elizabeth Gaskins is throwing a big party to celebrate her birthday. But when an odious guest gets killed and steals her thunder, her father, the Earl of Buxley, becomes a suspect. After all, he came to blows with the dead man in front of several witnesses. Determined to find out who murdered his childhood friend, Lord Buxley summons a detective from Scotland Yard. Not to be outdone, Lady Bess and her spunky cohorts, the oldest Dowager Countess and great aunts, embark on a hunt for the killer.

Elinor Noel—Nory for short—is quite content running her secondhand bookshop in London. Forever torn between her working-class upbringing and her classmates’ extravagant lifestyles at the posh private school she attended on scholarship, Nory has finally figured out how to keep both at equal distance. So when two of her oldest friends invite their whole gang to spend the time leading up to their wedding together at the castle near their old school, Nory must prepare herself for an emotionally complicated few days.

Roy Grace, creation of the CWA Diamond Dagger award-winning author Peter James, faces his most complex case yet in Dead If You Don't. Shortly after Kipp Brown and his teenage son, Mungo, arrive at the Amex stadium for their team's biggest-ever football game, Mungo disappears. A short while later Kipp receives a text with a ransom demand and a warning not to go to the police if he and his wife want to see their son alive again.

Tea maven Theodosia Browning and her tea sommelier Drayton Conneley are guests at a bird hunt styled in the precise manner of an English shooting party. Which means elevenses (sloe gin fizzes), gun loaders, the drawing of pegs, fine-looking bird dogs, and shooting costumes of tweed, herringbone, and suede. But as gunshots explode like a riff of Black Cat firecrackers, another shot sounds too close for comfort to Theodosia and Drayton. Intrigued but worried, Theodosia wanders into the neighbor's lavender field where she discovers their host, Reginald Doyle, bleeding to death.

Two young girls plot a murder by witchcraft. Soon afterwards, a government clerk dies painfully in mysterious circumstances. His colleague James Marwood is asked to investigate—but the task brings unexpected dangers. Meanwhile, architect Cat Hakesby is working for a merchant who lives on Slaughter Street, where the air smells of blood and a captive Barbary lion prowls the stables. Then a prestigious new commission arrives. Cat must design a Poultry House for the woman that the king loves most in all the world.

Newly returned from investigating a murder in Monkslip-super-Mare, former M15 agent Max Tudor wants nothing more than to settle back into his predictable routine as vicar of St. Edwold's Church in the village of Nether Monkslip. But the flow of his sermon on Bathsheba is interrupted when Lady Duxter is found dead after having made a suicide pact with her lover. Lady Duxter's husband rallies quickly from the double tragedy - too quickly, it is murmured in the village. Having already planned a writer's retreat at his manor house, he insists the show must go on.