British Literature

When a hand is found in Gallows Wood, PC Lucy Halliday and her specialist search dog Moss must find the rest of the body. What they uncover is a killer's dumping ground. Like every case since her husband's mysterious disappearance, Lucy wonders if this one will bring her closer to the truth. Nico was a journalist with a reputation for getting buried in his work; Lucy is certain that this time he delved too deep.

Charming film writer and director Geraint Denbigh is found lifeless in the garden of his Welsh home. It looks like he fell from a window, but eagle-eyed Detective Chief Inspector Matt Lambert soon finds irregularities in the crime scene. Before long he determines it was murder. Recently retired, the victim was writing about his eventful life and many of his former colleagues and associates could have had reason to stop him before he spilled the beans on their transgressions.

It's an invitation Steph can't refuse when she's handpicked to compete at the prestigious National Trust property Coleton Fishacre. With the country's top garden designers as rivals and a stunning historic estate for inspiration, it feels like a dream come true. But things quickly turn thorny when the youngest competitor falls mysteriously ill and Steph suspects foul play. Her fears are confirmed when a scream echoes through the gardens, leading her to the horrific sight of a dead body at the foot of the cliff.

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.

Seventy-five-year-old Sylvia Perkins was found battered to death in her home in 2010. The murder weapon was suspected to be a fire poker and it seems she was quite popular with older gentlemen. Her grandson Robbie inherited everything, but he can't be placed at the scene of the crime. Who killed this harmless old woman and why? And what secrets was she hiding?

An unidentified cadaver is found in a freezer in an unoccupied luxury house. No-one seems to know or care who it is or who placed it there. When DS Alexandra Cupidi is handed the case, she can have no idea it will lead her to a series of murderous cover-ups and buried secrets. Namely the discovery of the skeleton of public-school boy, Trevor Wood, beneath a housing development.

In the winter of 1811, the war seems lost. All Spain has fallen to the French, except for Cadiz which is now the Spanish capital and is under siege. Wellington and his British army are in Portugal, waiting for spring to spark the war to life again. Richard Sharpe and his company are part of a small expeditionary force sent to break a bridge across the River Guadiana.

Since her move to the country, Melissa Craig has become firmly established in village life. So, when one of the older residents fails to show up for a drinks party, Melissa goes to check on her. What she finds chills her to the bone: Her dear neighbor has been murdered, and the killer has painted a hideous smile onto her face. Melissa soon realizes that the death in her village bears the same trademark as a series of recent murders in the Cotswolds.

Once known to all in her village as the rector's daughter, Lucy is now a mother herself - to a wonderful 18-month-old son, Ned. Upon discovering that she is expecting a second child, Lucy and Robert are delighted. In anticipation of the new arrival, Lucy is set on expanding her nursery staff. When Agnes, her current nurse, recommends her cousin, it seems like the perfect solution. But trouble arrives along with the new nursery maid from London. When a farmer finds her lifeless body in a drainage ditch, Lucy and Robert fear foul play.

1075 and Dowager Queen Edith has died. Her niece Gunnhild longs to leave Wilton Abbey, but is her suitor, Breton knight Count Alain of Richmond, interested in her inheritance as the daughter of King Harold and Edith Swan-Neck, or does he love her for herself? Is her own love for Count Alain an enduring love, or has she made a terrible mistake? The Swan Daughter is woven around a true 11th-century tale of elopement, love and courage.

Stella loves her life in London, being far from the foul-mouthed, flame-haired grandmother who raised her. Then, she gets the dreaded call in the middle of the night, and finds herself living with Gina in the crazy coastal town of Mapton on Sea.

Simon Gray is determined to give up smoking. Really. At last. Can he kick the habit of 60 years? Will he, sometime soon, be able to leave his house without nervously feeling for his two packets of 20 and his two lighters, and add no more singes to his cardigan? As this wonderful, wayward record of Gray's life progresses, these questions are overtaken by much larger ones. What is that lady on the plane to Athens doing with her nose? What was sex like before 1963? Will his name be in lights on Broadway? Why did he leave the bedside of his dying mother?

Welcome to England, 1809. London is a violent, intolerant city, exhausted by years of war, beset by soaring prices and political tensions. By day, John Church preaches on the radical possibilities of love to a multicultural, working-class congregation in Southwark. But by night, he crosses the river to the secret and glamorous world of a gay molly house on Vere Street, where ordinary men reinvent themselves as funny, flirtatious drag queens and rent boys cavort with labourers and princes alike. There, Church becomes the first minister to offer marriages between men, at enormous risk.

Beth Haldane is getting ready for a quiet Christmas with her son and their beloved grumpy cat when fellow single mother Nina begs her for help. Something fishy is going on with Mr. Potter, the solicitor she works for.... Business is slow, with the accounts empty. So why does his wife have such an impressive collection of designer dresses? Unable to resist a puzzle, Beth agrees to cover Nina’s job as a receptionist to get a closer look. But just as she finds a mysterious key hidden away in the office, Mrs. Potter arrives in floods of tears with terrible news for her husband.

On a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice's canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man's presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city's far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim.

On the bed, the naked bodies of a man and a woman. "Bullet in the head's not the way to go," Larry Hill, Isaac Cook's detective inspector, said. "Do you recognize him?" Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook said. "James Holden, from what I can see." "Rent by the hour?" "Not according to her handbag. There's a business card. She worked for the man." "You know this will be all over the media within the hour," Isaac said. "James Holden, a proponent of the sanctity of the marital bed, man and wife. It's bound to be."

When a promising local artist disappears, the victim's brother begs Detective Tara Thorpe to take the case. It seems there's no evidence of foul play...he simply disappeared without a trace. Tara agrees to do some digging...never mind that her unorthodox approach to policing has got a few of her colleagues' backs up. Amongst them is her former supervisor Detective Patrick Wilkins...he's had enough of Tara calling the shots and will do anything to knock her down. She must be careful.

How would spending a few extra days in each other’s company affect the relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy? While her sister Jane is ill at Netherfield, Elizabeth overhears the proud Mr Darcy express his admiration of her and her fine eyes. Not sure what to think of his praise after all of their previous disagreements (and more flattered than she wants to admit) Elizabeth responds by teasing him, forcing Darcy to reconsider his opinion of a woman who has truly bewitched him.

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.

Josef Vadassy, a Hungarian refugee and language teacher living in France, is enjoying his first break for years in a small hotel on the Riviera. But when he takes his holiday photographs to be developed at a local chemists, he suddenly finds himself mistaken for a Gestapo agent, and a charge of espionage is levelled at him. To prove himself innocent to the French police, he must discover which one of his fellow guests at his pension is the real spy. As he desperately tries to uncover the true culprit's identity, Vadassy must risk his job, his safety and everything he holds dear.