The Variety Palace Music Hall is in trouble, due in no small part to a gruesome spate of murders that unfolded around it a few months previously. Between writing, managing the music hall and trying to dissuade her boss from installing a water tank in the...
Brighton, 1965. When theatrical impresario Bert Billington is found dead in his retirement home, no one suspects foul play. But when the post-mortem reveals that he was poisoned, suspicion falls on his wife, eccentric ex-music hall star Verity Malone. ...
Amid the rubble of post-war Tokyo, inside the grand Tsubaki house, a once-noble family is in mourning. The old viscount Tsubaki - a brooding, troubled composer - has been found dead. When the family gather for a divination to conjure the spirit of their...
New York, 1915. RMS Lusitania, one of the world's most luxurious ocean liners, departs for war-torn Europe. Among those on board is Patrick Gallagher, a civil servant in Her Majesty's government tasked with escorting a British diplomat back to England. When a...
"1961: On a sweltering summer's day, while her family picnics by the stream on their Suffolk farm, 16-year-old Laurel hides out in her childhood tree house, dreaming of the bright future she can't wait to seize. But before the idyllic afternoon is over, Laurel...
1957. A young woman is found dead in a mews house a mile from Buckingham Palace, wearing only silk underwear and a diamond tiara. An older man is discovered nearby, garrotted and pierced through the eye with a long, sharp implement. According to the police, a...
Munich in the 1930s is a magnet for rich, aristocratic young Brits. They come to learn German, but also to go wild, free at last from the suffocating constraints of strait-laced England. They ski in the Alps, swim in the lakes, drink in the beer cellars and...
"Berkeley, California 1944: A former presidential candidate is assassinated in one of the rooms at the opulent Claremont Hotel. A rich industrialist, Walter Wilkinson could have been targeted by any number of adversaries. But Detective Al Sullivan's...
Brighton, 1963. Edgar Stephens has been promoted to Superintendent and is married to his former sergeant, Emma Holmes. Edgar's wartime partner in arms, magician Max Mephisto, is a movie star in Hollywood while his daughter Ruby has her own TV show. The funeral...
"Sydney, 1930. In a well-heeled corner of Paddington, just a short distance from the razor gangs of Darlinghurst and Kings Cross, sits Maison des Fleurs, an upscale brothel run by the indomitable Madame. The star of Maison des Fleurs is Violet Kelly -...
Prague, 1588. The Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II, wants to expand the boundaries of human knowledge, and his court is a haven for scientists, astrologers and alchemists. His abiding passion is the feverish search for the philosopher's stone and thus...
"1947. Miss Elinor White, known locally as 'the White lady', is living a quiet life in a grace-and-favour cottage in the Kent countryside. Unbeknownst to her neighbours, she is the veteran of two world wars, a trained killer and an ex-spy. This private and...
"Hampshire, 1943. Kim Maxwell has been languishing in the 'cooler' in what she sees as punishment for getting caught - and tortured - by the Nazis, before being freed by Resistance fighters and smuggled back into England. Now she is sent for by the head of...
"A high society amateur detective uses her wits and invisibility as an 'old maid' to protect other women. Lady Augusta Colebrook, 'Gus', is determinedly unmarried, bored by society life and tired of being dismissed at the age of 42. She and her twin sister,...
"Violet Hamilton is a woman who knows her own mind - which, in 1896, can make things a little complicated. At 28, Violet's father is beginning to worry she will never find a husband. But every suitor he presents, Violet finds a new and inventive means of...
"May mercy be upon the man who finds himself the enemy of a vengeful medium. 1873. At an abandoned chateau on the outskirts of Paris, a dark seance is about to take place, led by acclaimed spiritualist Vaudeline D'Allaire. Known worldwide for her talent in...
In the end, it did not matter what I said at my trial. No one believed me. Edinburgh, October 1679. Lady Christian Nimmo is arrested and charged with the murder of her lover, James Forrester. News of her imprisonment and subsequent trial is splashed across the...
"A breathtaking mystery of love, lies and a cold case come back to life, told with Morton's trademark intricacy and beauty. Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day, beside a creek in the grounds of a grand and mysterious house, a...
"Lady Violet has decided that life in noisy, crowded, busy London is simply not her cup of tea. Her search for a rural property to purchase must be set aside when she learns that Hugh St. Sevier has been accused of murder. Worse, the handsome physician is...
A husband. A wife. A lover. Each has a secret they'd kill to protect. Six years after the end of the Great War, the country is still in mourning. Thousands of husbands, fathers, sons and sweethearts were lost forever, and the sea of women they left behind must...
Summer 1924. On the eve of a glittering society party by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses are sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, and they will never speak to each other again. Winter 1999. Grace...
"Restless and uncertain of her future in the wake of World War I, former battlefield nurse Bess Crawford agrees to travel to Yorkshire to help a friend of her cousin Melinda through surgery. But circumstances change suddenly when news of a terrible accident...
"December, 1948. Officer Kitty Wheeler is a member of the Women Police, responsible for 'upholding the moral virtue' of Adelaide's at times unruly and amorous citizens. Patrolling Somerton beach one night, Kitty and her partner spot a man leaning against the...
Every writer has a ghost. Every ghost has a story. England, 1940. Literature student Ruth Gladstone evacuates Cambridge University for Martynsborough, a tiny English village with a shadowy history. For Ruth, retreating to a forgotten corner of the country is...
1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters and girls sell dances for a shilling...
1933. Cornelia Stover is headstrong and business-minded - not the kind of woman the men of Boldville, New Mexico, expect her to be. Then she stumbles upon a secret hidden out in the hills ... 1970. Decades later, Joanna Riley, a former cop, packs up her car in...
June 1944, Romsey, England. Josephine 'Jo' Fox is at an impasse since the unwelcome return of her wayward husband Richard. So, when he disappears again, she is neither concerned nor surprised - until a burning car is discovered with a body inside. And there...
"1868, Morpeth. Theodora Breckenridge, still in mourning after the loss of her parents and brother at sea, is more interested in working quietly on her art at the family's country estate than she is finding a husband in Sydney society. Theodora seeks to...
"1938 Paris. The last sigh of summer before the war. Australian journalist, Charlotte (Charlie) James is ready to start her role as correspondent for The Times. Charlie is chasing her first big scoop, needing to prove to her boss that she can do this job as...
"Winter 1954, and in a dilapidated apartment in Brooklyn, Sam Cooper realises that she has nothing left. Her mother is dead, she has no prospects, and she cannot afford the rent. But as she goes through her mother's things, Sam finds a stack of hidden letters...
"When Rowland Sinclair is invited to take his yellow Mercedes onto the Maroubra Speedway, renamed the Killer Track for the lives it has claimed, he agrees without caution or reserve. But then people start to die. The body of a journalist covering the race is...
"It is New Year's Eve, 1952 in Los Angeles. Private Investigator, Aloysius Archer, is dining with his friend and rising Hollywood star, Liberty Callahan, when they're approached by Eleanor Lamb, a famous screenwriter, who would like to hire him as she suspects...
The Hunter Valley 1847 The last thing Mellie Vale remembers before the fever takes her is running through the bush as a monster chases her - but no one believes her story. In a bid to curb Mellie's overactive imagination, her benefactors send her to visit a...
The war may be over, but for Molly life is still in turmoil. Uprooted from London after the death of her mother, Molly, her father and younger brother Jimmy are starting again in a quiet village in the countryside of Colchester. As summer sets in, the heat is...
"In this newest installment of the acclaimed New York Times bestselling series, Scotland Yard's Ian Rutledge is faced with his most perplexing case yet: a murder with no body, and a killer who can only be a ghost. Spring, 1921. Scotland Yard sends Inspector...
"Cheshire. May Day, 1753. Tabitha De Vallory's perfect life is shaken when a girl is slaughtered beneath the Mondrem Oak on her family's forest estate. Nearby, enigmatic Baptist Gunn is convinced that a second messiah will be born, amid blood and strife, close...
Winter 1920. Though the war has been over for two years, many are still struggling to pick up their lives again when so much has been lost. In Ireland too, other terrible troubles are taking hold. Then Tom Harkin, a former officer, arrives in the dead of night...
"When once-famous theatrical impresario Bert Billingham is found dead, no one suspects foul play. But when the post mortem reveals that he was poisoned, suspicion falls on his wife, eccentric ex-Music Hall star Verity Malone. Frustrated by the police response...
"July 1940. As the Battle of Britain begins, the women of the Air Transport Auxiliary carry out the dangerous task of ferrying warplanes to RAF airbases. But for the ATA detachment sent to the base at Scotney, it's not only in the skies that they're a...
"In the winter of 1937, the village of Okamura is abuzz with excitement over the forthcoming wedding of a daughter of the grand Ichiyanagi family. But amid the gossip over the approaching festivities, there is also a worrying rumour - it seems a sinister...
"In the West End, a renowned Italian escape artist dies spectacularly on stage during a performance -- immolated in a gleaming copper cauldron of his wife's design. In Cambridge, the runaway daughter of a famous don is found drowned, her long blonde hair...
"Leningrad, 1951. The shadow of war lingers. Revol Rossel - once a virtuoso violinist with a glittering future - is now a humble state militia cop, forced to investigate desperate crimes in this desperate era. But when five frozen corpses are found neatly...
"As May Day dawns in the peaceful village of Middle Fenton, a young woman is found brutally strangled, her body tied up with ribbons in the middle of the green. A week later, her boyfriend is found hanged in a local barn, and the police assume guilt over...
A lucky roll of the dice. It is nearly 1950 and Aloysius Archer is on his way to Bay Town, California, to take up a post with renowned gumshoe Willie Dash. Making an overnight stop in Reno, he gets lucky at the casino, meets a talented actor named Liberty...
"Overstrand 1895. Lawrence Harpham and Violet Smith are witnesses to suicide while on holiday. Beneath the body, lies a bible belonging to a murdered man. Clues lead to the violent death of a bookseller and a chilling confession from the past. From Norfolk to...
"December 1938, and storm clouds hover once again over Europe. Josephine Tey and Archie Penrose gather with friends for a Cornish Christmas, but two strange and brutal deaths on St Michael's Mount - and the unexpected arrival of a world famous film star, in...
"The headlines scream warnings about the 'Butcher of Berner Street!' and the journalist behind them - Leo Stanhope - is secretly thrilled to see the effect his words are having. Leo's previous work has largely been concentrated on more mundane issues but when...
Glasgow, 1932. When the son-in-law of one of the city's wealthiest shipbuilders is found floating in the River Clyde with his throat cut, it falls to Inspector Jimmy Dreghorn to lead the murder case - despite sharing a troubled history with the victim's widow,...
The Long, Long Afternoon is an intoxicating vision of the ways in which women everywhere are diminished, silenced and ultimately underestimated. The sunniest places hold the darkest secrets. Yesterday, I kissed my husband for the last time ... It's the summer...
London, 1594. The Queen's physician has been executed for treason, and conspiracy theories flood the streets. When Nicholas Shelby, unorthodox physician and unwilling associate of spymaster Robert Cecil, is accused of being part of the plot, he and his new...
"The secret dead: During the summer of 1566, a girl’s body is found within the walls of a Neapolitan monastery. Novice monk Giordano Bruno has a habit of asking difficult questions, but this time his investigations may lose him his place in the Dominican Order...
"Following the devastation of the Great War, England's noble class takes comfort in honoring tradition. To celebrate their grandparents' wedding anniversary, Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her siblings travel to Staffordshire to commission a china service bearing the...
"London 1667. In the Court of Charles II, it's a dangerous time to be alive - a wrong move could lead to disgrace, exile or death. The discovery of a murder at Clarendon House, the palatial home of one of the highest courtiers in the land, could have...
"A peaceful Welsh village is thrown into turmoil when a terrified boy stumbles on a body in a nearby river. The man appears to have fallen from the canal aqueduct spanning the valley. But there is no identification on the body other than a military tattoo and...
"11.1 Jago and Son by Nigel Fairs With missing persons, dead bodies and a Satanist cult to deal with, both Litefoot and Jago need help. Professor Litefoot finds himself working with Jean Bazemore, an old archaeologist friend. Jago, however, finds he is...
"Though war rages across mainland Europe, the little village of Pipley in Hertfordshire bustles along much as it always has. Adrift since her best friend, George, joined the RAF, 22-year-old Olive Bright fills her days by helping at her father's veterinary...
"Peacetime has brought little respite for Verity Kent. Intrigue still abounds, even within her own family. As a favor to her father, Verity agrees to visit his sister in Wiltshire. Her once prosperous aunt has fallen on difficult times and is considering...
"1899. Risings, George Hazleton's family estate in Hampshire, is a perfect choice for the wedding of Lily, sister of Frances, the widowed Countess of Harleigh. But the bucolic setting harbors a menace. Above and below stairs, mysterious accidents befall guests...
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