It's a crisp early October weekend, and business is slowing down as fall descends at the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium and adjacent Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room. Wealthy philanthropist and prominent Sherlockian David Masterson has rented Suffolk Gardens House, where he plans to entertain his friends in a traditional English country-house weekend. As the chosen caterers, Jayne Watson and Gemma Doyle get to work preparing lavish meals and setting up Sherlockian books and props for entertainment. Meanwhile, police detective Ryan Ashburton has taken time away from his duties to assist in the kitchen. It quickly becomes apparent that David's guests don't like each other-or their host. Plus, some of them aren't even acquainted with the adventures of the Great Detective. Before Gemma can ponder their relationships, a poisoned dart sails through the window of the library, presenting Gemma Doyle with a three-book problem...
As gripping as it is gruesome, How to Solve a Murder is a fascinating insight into the career of a pathologist told by experts in the field. Includes a foreword from Dr Richard Shepherd, bestselling author of Unnatural Causes.
FRACTURED SKULLS. GAS MASKS. BRAIN BUCKETS. VATS OF ACID. PICKLED BODY PARTS.
Not the usual tools of trade, but for Chief Forensic Medical Scientist Derek and Forensic Secretary Pauline they were just part of a normal day in the office inside the world-famous Department of Forensic Medicine at Guy’s Hospital in London.
Derek has played a pivotal role in investigating some of the UK’s most high-profile mass disasters and murder cases. Derek’s innovative work on murder cases, in particular, has seen him credited as a pioneer of forensic medical science, after developing ground-breaking techniques that make it easier to secure a conviction and also identify a serial killer.
Warmly recalled and brilliantly told, these intriguing revelations will open your eyes to the dark world inhabited by those who investigate death and murder (typically most horrid), and unveil the secrets of how each case is solved.
I am not a Consulting Detective, Gemma Doyle reluctantly tells ten-year-old Lauren Tierney, when the little girl comes to the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium to beg Gemma to find her missing cat, Snowball. Gemma might not be able to follow the clues to find the cat, but her dog Violet follows her nose to locate the missing kitten in a neighbor's garden shed. Gemma and Violet proudly return Snowball to her grateful owner, and Gemma basks in praise for a job well done. But a few days later, Lauren is back with ten dollars in hand, wanting to once again hire a consulting detective, and this time for a far bigger job: her mother has been accused of murdering her garden-club rival.Sheila Tierney's garden, which everyone said was the one to beat for the West London Garden Club trophy, had been vandalized the night before the club's early summer tour. Sheila confronted her former friend and gardening partner Anna Wentworth in a towering rage, and the women nearly came to blows. Later that night, after having won the trophy for best garden, Anna is found murdered, and Sheila Tierney is the police's prime suspect.Despite herself and despite the disapproval of her police-detective boyfriend Ryan Ashburton, the game is once again afoot, and Gemma finds herself and Jayne Wilson using their powers of deduction to ponder yet another curious incident.
The 6th of January is Sherlock Holmes's birthday, and lucky for Gemma Doyle, January is also the slowest time of the year at both the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium and Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room. It's a good time for Gemma and her friends to travel to England for a Holmes Convention. For Gemma, the trip provides an opportunity to visit her parents. Jayne Wilson is excited about seeing all the sites London has to offer, and Ryan Ashburton just wants to spend some time with Gemma. But the trip is immediately derailed when Gemma's father Henry recognizes his brother-in-law Randolph Denhaugh, who disappeared more than thirty years ago on the night he stole a valuable painting from his own parents. Henry, a retired detective with Scotland Yard, has been keeping tabs on the man's career as a forger of Old Masters and he warns Randy to stay away from his family. Randy is at the conference selling his own art, a series of sketches inspired by the Holmes Canon. The ever-observant Gemma notes that he isn't exactly popular with some of the other conference attendees, but when Randy is found dead after the banquet with a dazed and confused Henry Doyle standing over him, the police leap to assume his guilt. It's up to Gemma, with the help of her friends, to plunge into the "lowest and vilest alleys" of London to save her father from prison.
A fantastical tour de force about endless life, cheating death and staying true to what matters most from "one of the UK's most versatile writers." GRAZIA
Delphine Venner is an old woman now, but she remembers everything. She remembers what it is to be a child of war, fighting for her life, and what the terrifying creatures from another world took from her all those years ago. And in that other world, beast-filled and brutal, someone waits for her. Hagar, a centuries-old assassin, daily paying a terrible price for her unending youth, is planning one final death: that of her abhorrent master, the Grand-Duc. The death that will cost her everything. The death which requires Delphine. Into this violence and chaos Delphine is brought, to fight once again and remember who she really is. But in the battle to destroy an ageless evil, will both worlds be saved?
'Riotously entertaining . . . delightfully twisted.' SUNDAY EXPRESS
After the West London Museum suffers extensive fire damage, the shop owners on Baker Street come together to hold an afternoon auction tea to raise funds to rebuild it. Cape Cod's cognoscenti file into Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room...but the auction never happens. Before the gavel can fall, museum-board chair Kathy Lamb is found dead in the back room. Wrapped tightly around her neck is a long rope of decorative knotted tea cups. Gemma's boyfriend in blue, Ryan Ashburton, arrives on the scene with Detective Louise Estrada. But the suspect list is long, and the case is far from elementary. Does Kathy's killing have anything to do with a mysterious death seven years ago? Gemma has no intention of getting involved in the investigation, but when fellow shopkeeper Maureen finds herself the prime suspect, she begs Gemma for help. Ryan knows Gemma's methods, and he isn't happy when she gets entangled in another mystery. But with so many suspects and so few clues, her deductive prowess may prove invaluable.
Legendary stage and movie star Sir Nigel Bellingham arrives on Cape Cod to star in a stage production of The Hound of the Baskervilles put on by the West London Theater Festival. When Sir Nigel, some of the cast, and the director visit the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop at 222 Baker Street, Gemma Doyle realizes that Sir Nigel is not at all suited to the role. He's long past his prime and an old drunk to boot. The cast is not happy, but the show must go on. Before the play opens, Jayne's mother arranges a fundraising afternoon tea to be catered by Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room. The tea is a huge success, but, when it's time to leave, Sir Nigel has gone missing-only to be found at the bottom of the rocky cliff, dead. When the police focus their attention on Jayne's mother despite numerous other suspects, the game is once again afoot, and it's up to Gemma and Jayne to clear Jayne's mother's name.
Lady Audley is universally adored: beautiful, kind and charming, she enamors all whom she meets. It is not until the strange disappearance of widower George Talboys that her behavior takes an odd turn. George's friend Robert Audley, Lady Audley's nephew-in-law, is on the case; upper-class layabout-turned-detective, he is determined to get to the bottom of things. Mystery, mayhem, madness and despair: Lady Audley's Secret is the gripping and suspenseful novel that has been branded 'the most sensationally successful of all the sensation novels'.
London’s Detective Chief Inspector Anna Travis must decide where her loyalties lie, duty to the job or personal ambition, in this masterful tale of suspense from the award-winning, international bestselling author of the Prime Suspect series—one of today’s finest crime writers, alongside such talents as Sophie Hannah, Ruth Rendell, Kate Atkinson, and Ian Rankin.
Six months ago, London nightclub owner Josh Reynolds was found dead. Ruled a suicide, the police investigation was closed. Then a young man, awaiting trial for armed robbery, tells his guards that Reynolds was murdered and that he has information to share.
DCI Anna Travis is scheduled to leave for training at Quantico, as part of an exchange between the Met and the FBI. But before she can leave, she’s got to review the case, thanks to her boss, DCS James Langton. Joining her team is senior FBI agent and crime scene expert Jessie Dewar.
The American’s brash manner quickly ruffles feathers throughout the Met, and what should have been a simple matter of tying up loose ends becomes a political powder keg when the competence of the original investigation team is challenged. Suddenly, Anna is faced with a dangerous choice. Will she close ranks to protect her people or push to find the truth, no matter what the consequences?
“Lynda La Plante practically invented the thriller.”—Karin Slaughter
Award-winning and internationally bestselling author Lynda La Plante returns with the eighth installment in her acclaimed series featuring London’s Detective Chief Inspector Anna Travis.
Late at night on a notorious high-rise estate in the London Borough of Hackney, a white van is being driven erratically. The driver is pulled over by the police and questioned.
A woman on the street after a long night of drinking never makes it home.
A suspect, an arrest, a confession—a case closed?
Five years earlier, a thirteen-year-old girl disappeared in broad daylight on a busy London street. Detective Chief Superintendent James Langton headed the investigation, but the case was never closed. It has haunted him ever since. Now there’s a confession to this murder, and to yet another. Is it too good to be true? Detective Chief Inspector Anna Travis is pulled into the fray by her mentor and friend and isn’t so sure that they have their man.
Then the suspect changes his story.
Inspired by the gothic classic Wuthering Heights, this stunning new fantasy from the author of the Books of Pellinor is a fiercely romantic tale of betrayal and vengeance.
In a savage land sustained by wizardry and ruled by vendetta, Lina is the enchanting but willful daughter of a village lord. She and her childhood companion, Damek, have grown up privileged and spoiled, and they’re devoted to each other to the point of obsession. But Lina’s violet eyes betray her for a witch, and witches are not tolerated in her brutally patriarchal society. Her rank protects her from persecution, but it cannot protect her from tragedy and heartbreak. An innocent visitor stands witness to the devastation that ensues as destructive longing unleashes Lina’s wrath—and with it her forbidden power. Whether drawn by the romantic, the magical, or the gothic, listeners will be irresistibly compelled by the passion of this tragic tale.
“Croggon returns with an homage to Wuthering Heights, trading the English moors of the original for the remote northern wilds of Elbasa, a land of powerful wizards and strict rules concerning vendetta…In language and pitch, the pastiche is spot on.”—Publishers Weekly
In the seventh book of the internationally bestselling series by crime queen Lynda La Plante (Prime Suspect), newly promoted DCI Anna Travis takes charge of an investigation for the first time. But is it purely a missing person's case--or a full blown murder inquiry? An ominous pool of blood and no victim lead Anna on a desperate hunt for a man who has disappeared without a trace. As Anna becomes obsessed with seemingly irrelevant details, her superintendent fears that she is losing control. With no body there is no case, and Anna is under increasing pressure to make an arrest.
