"England, 1685. Decades after the end of the civil war, the country is once again divided when Charles II's illegitimate son, the Protestant Duke of Monmouth, arrives in Dorset to incite rebellion against his Catholic uncle.
Armed only with pitchforks, Monmouth's army is quickly defeated by King James II's superior forces and charged with high treason. Those found guilty will be hanged, drawn and quartered.
As Dorset braces for carnage, the redoubtable Lady Jayne Harrier and a small group of trusted allies - including her courageous son and the independent-minded daughter of a local lawyer - contrive ways to save men from the gallows.
Compelling and powerful, The Players is a story of guile, deceit and compassion during the dark days of The Bloody Assizes. Secrets are kept and surprising friendships formed in a dangerous gamble to thwart a brutal king's thirst for vengeance..."
"A compelling look into damaged minds, The Chameleon's Shadow is a psychological thriller from crime queen Minette Walters.
When Lieutenant Charles Acland is flown home from Iraq with serious head injuries, he faces not only permanent disfigurement but also an apparent change to his previously outgoing personality.
Crippled by migraines, and suspicious of his psychiatrist, he begins to display sporadic bouts of aggression, particularly against women, especially his ex-fiancee who seems unable to accept that the relationship is over.
After his injuries prevent his return to the army, he cuts all ties with his former life and moves to London. Alone and unmonitored, he sinks into a private world of guilt and paranoid distrust . . . until a customer annoys him in a Bermondsey pub and he attracts the attention of local police investigating three murders which appear to have been motivated by extreme rage . . .
Under suspicion, Acland is forced to confront the real issues behind his isolation. How much control does he have over the dark side of his personality? Do his migraines contribute to his rages? Has he always been the duplicitous chameleon that his ex-fiancee claims?
And why – if he hates women – does he look to a woman for help?"
"Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year, The Scold's Bridle is the mystery thriller from crime queen Minette Walters.
I wonder if I should keep these diaries under lock and key. Jenny Spede has disturbed them again . . . What does she make, I wonder, of an old woman, deformed by arthritis, stripping naked for a young man? The pills worry me more. Ten is such a round number to be missing . . .
Mathilda Gillespie's body was found nearly two days after she had taken an overdose and slashed her wrists with a Stanley knife. But what shocked Dr Sarah Blakeney the most was the scold's bridle obscuring the dead woman’s face, a metal contraption grotesquely adorned with a garland of nettles and Michaelmas daisies. What happened at Cedar House in the tortured hours before Mathilda's death?
The police assume that the coroner will return a verdict of suicide. Only Dr Blakeney, it seems, doubts the verdict. Until it is discovered that Mathilda’s diaries have disappeared . . ."
"A chilling tale of prejudice, ambition and cunning, The Tinder Box is a novella from crime queen Minette Walters.
In the small Hampshire village of Sowerbridge, Irish labourer Patrick O’Riordan has been arrested for the brutal murder of elderly Lavinia Fanshaw and her live-in nurse, Dorothy Jenkins. As shock turns to fury, the village residents form a united front against Patrick’s parents and cousin, who report incidents of vicious threats and violence.
But friend and neighbour Siobhan Lavenham remains convinced that Patrick has fallen victim to a prejudiced investigation and, putting her own position within the bigoted community in serious jeopardy, stands firmly by his family in defence of the O’Riordan name.
Days before the trial, terrible secrets about the O’Riordans’ past are revealed to Siobhan, and the family’s only supporter is forced to question her loyalties. Could Patrick be capable of murder after all? Could his parents’ tales of attacks be devious fabrications? And if so, what other lies lurk beneath the surface of their world?
As the truth rapidly unfurls, it seems that Sowerbridge residents need to be very afraid. For beneath a cunning façade, someone’s chilling ambition is about to ignite . . ."
"Acid Row. The name the beleaguered inhabitants give to their 'sink' estate.
A no-man's land of single mothers and fatherless children – where angry, alienated youth controls the streets. Into this battleground comes Sophie Morrison, a young doctor visiting a patient in Acid Row. Little does she know that she is entering the home of a known paedophile . . . and with reports circulating that a tormented child called Amy has disappeared, the vigilantes are out in force. Soon Sophie is trapped at the centre of a terrifying siege, with a man she has come to despise. Whipped to a frenzy by unsubstantiated rumour, the mob unleashes its hatred.
Against authority . . . the law . . . and the 'pervert'. 'Protecting Amy' becomes the catch-all defence for the terrible events that follow. And if murder is part of it, then so be it.
But is Amy really missing?
Filled with suspense and shattering revelations, Acid Row is a taut psychological thriller from crime queen Minette Walters."
"Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award, The Dark Room is the psychological thriller from crime queen Minette Walters.
Something else had happened . . . Something so terrible that she was too frightened to search her memory for it . . . The newspapers reported the case with relish.
Jane “Jinx” Kingsley, fashion photographer and heiress, tries to kill herself after being unceremoniously jilted by her fiancé, who has since disappeared – together with Jinx's best friend Meg Harris . . . But when Jinx wakes from her coma, she can remember nothing about her alleged suicide attempt.
With the help of Dr Alan Protheroe of the Nightingale Clinic, she slowly begins to piece together the fragments of the last few weeks. Then the memories begin to surface . . . memories of utter desperation and absolute terror…"
"Exposing the horrifying consequences when communities ignore the people who need them the most, The Shape of Snakes is the psychological mystery from crime queen Minette Walters.
November 1978. Britain is on strike. The dead lie unburied, rubbish piles in the streets – and somewhere in West London a black woman dies in a rain-soaked gutter.
Her passing would have gone unmourned but for the young woman who finds her and who believes - apparently against reason – that Annie was murdered. But whatever the truth about Annie – whether she was as mad as her neighbours claimed, whether she lived in squalor as the police said – something passed between her and Mrs Ranelagh in the moment of death which binds this one woman to her cause for the next twenty years.
But why is Mrs Ranelagh so convinced it was murder when by her own account Annie died without speaking? And why would any woman spend twenty painstaking years uncovering the truth – unless her reasons are personal . . . ?"
"Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Fiction, Fox Evil is the bestselling thriller from crime queen Minette Walters.
When elderly Ailsa Lockyer-Fox is found dead in her garden, dressed only in night clothes and with blood stains on the ground near her body, the finger of suspicion points at her wealthy, landowning husband, Colonel James Lockyer-Fox. A coroner's inquest gives a verdict of 'natural causes' but the gossip surrounding him refuses to go away.
Why? Because he's guilty? Or because resentful women in the isolated Dorset village where he lives rule the roost? Shenstead is a place of too few people and too many secrets. Why have James and Ailsa cut their children out of their wills? What happened in the past to create such animosity within the family? And why is James so desperate to find his illegitimate grandchild?"
"Set in the bleak environments of London’s homeless community, The Echo is the mystery thriller from crime queen Minette Walters.
It was the smell that Mrs Powell noticed first. Slightly sweet. Slightly unpleasant . . . It shocked her badly to find a dead man in the corner, his head slumped on his knees.
Who was Billy Blake, other than a homeless alcoholic who wandered the streets?
Why was he found dead from starvation in one of the richest areas of one of the richest capitals in the world?
And why did he die alone in the garage of wealthy architect Amanda Powell – a woman whose wealth can only be explained if her husband is dead . . .?"
"Twelve hours after a woman’s broken body is washed up on a deserted shore, her traumatized three-year-old daughter is discovered twenty miles away wandering the streets of Poole.
But why was Kate killed and her daughter, a witness, allowed to live? And why weren’t they together? More curiously, why had Kate willingly boarded a boat when she had a terror of drowning at sea?
Police suspicion centres on both a young actor, whose sailing boat is moored just yards from where the toddler is found, and the murdered woman’s husband. Was he really in Liverpool the night she died? And why does their daughter scream in terror every time he tries to pick her up?
A classic mystery from international bestseller, Minette Walters."
"Dorset, 1642.
When bloody civil war breaks out between the King and Parliament, families and communities across England are riven by different allegiances.
A rare few choose neutrality.
One such is Jayne Swift, a Dorset physician from a Royalist family, who offers her services to both sides in the conflict. Through her dedication to treating the sick and wounded, regardless of belief, Jayne becomes a witness to the brutality of war and the devastation it wreaks.
Yet her recurring companion at every event is a man she should despise because he embraces civil war as the means to an end. She knows him as William Harrier, but is ignorant about every other aspect of his life. His past is a mystery and his future uncertain.
The Swift and the Harrier is a sweeping tale of adventure and loss, sacrifice and love, with a unique and unforgettable heroine at its heart. Both gripping and fascinating. The civil war in Dorset is evoked brilliantly, the characters are real and intriguing and the love story tender. -- Elizabeth Buchan
I loved every moment of this brilliantly evocative saga of struggle, love and danger set against the horrors of civil war -- S W Perry, bestselling author of The Jackdaw Mysteries
A staggeringly talented writer ? Guardian on The Last Hours
Wonderful and sweeping, with a fabulous sense of place and history ? Kate Mosse on The Last Hours
Enthralling... I was caught from the first page ? Julian Fellowes on The Last Hours
A Vividly-wrought and powerful story ? Elizabeth Fremantle on The Last Hours"
"Have you ever wanted to bury a secret so deeply that no one will find out about it?
With private security firms supplying bodyguards in every theatre of war, who will notice the emergence of a sexual psychopath from the ranks of the mercenaries?
Reuters correspondent Connie Burns is no stranger to the world’s troublespots, including the vicious civil unrest in Sierra Leone and the war in Iraq. But as she begins to suspect that a foreigner is using the chaos of war to act out sadistic fantasies against women, her efforts to bring him to justice leave her devastated. Degraded and terrified, she goes into hiding in England and strikes up a friendship with Jess Derbyshire, a loner whose reclusive nature may well be masking secrets of her own. Connie draws from the other woman’s strength and makes the hazardous decision to attempt a third unmasking of a serial killer . . .Knowing he will come looking for her . . .
Buried secrets and gritty bravery, The Devil's Feather is the psychological thriller from crime queen Minette Walters."
