Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Crime Fiction

London, 1196. At the command of Richard the Lionheart, Sir John de Wolfe has left his beloved West Country for the Palace of Westminster, where he has been appointed Coroner of the Verge. But with the king overseas, embroiled in a costly war against King Philip of France, Sir John is dismayed to discover that the English court is a hotbed of greed, corruption and petty in-fighting.

May 1941. One of the senior choristers of St Paul's Cathedral choir, Dr Edwin Roberts, is found beaten to death in the crypt of the Cathedral. Coburg and Lampson are called in to investigate, and when they get there, Coburg is pleasantly surprised to be greeted there by Arthur Waterson, now sporting a dog collar, someone he was at Eton with many years before. Waterson believes that there may be a connection between the very precious books that are houses in the Crypt and Dr Roberts' work at Bletchley Park.

The death of a child and what seems to be a murderous puppet make a perfect case for Bryant and May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit. As John May and his team interrogate the suspects, Arthur Bryant heads into the secret world of illusions and stagecraft. As a second impossible death occurs, the detectives uncover forgotten museums and London eccentrics. The stage is set for a race against time with a surprising twist...

On a winter night outside a nightclub in London, four strangers meet for the first time at 4:00 a.m. A few weeks later a body is found inside a willow tree on Hampstead Heath. The Peculiar Crimes Unit is called in to investigate. When another victim seemingly commits suicide, it becomes clear that in the London night is a killer who knows what people fear most. As they explore a night city where all the normal rules are upended, Bryant and May are drawn deeper into a case that involves murder, arson, kidnap, blackmail, bats and the psychological effects of loneliness on Londoners.

When a teenage boy steps out of the shadows of Gallowstree Lane and asks a passer-by for help, it’s already too late. His life is bleeding out on the London street. The murder threatens to derail Operation Perseus, a covert police investigation into the Eardsley Bluds, an organised criminal network. Detective Kieran Shaw can’t and won’t allow that to happen. But 15-year-old Ryan has other ideas. He’s witnessed the death of his best friend, and now he wants someone to pay....

London, 1867. As Inspector Ben Ross of Scotland Yard walks homeward one Saturday night, the fog that swirls around him is like a living beast. After it has lifted a woman lies murdered in Green Park. Allegra Benedict was the beautiful Italian wife of an art dealer. As Ben begins his investigation, his wife Lizzie looks into Allegra's private life and uncovers more than one reason why someone might want her dead...

The members of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit are on the case again when a dog walker is found dead. The method of the death is odd...the killer had no way in - or out - and the dog is nowhere to be seen. But the 'hows' and 'whys' of the murder are not the only mysteries, and it seems very likely that the killer is preparing to strike again.

DI Shona Oliver’s past and present collide when James McGowan, her ex-classmate–now a famous actor–comes to the area to make a Robert Burns biopic. Shona is tasked with keeping him safe during filming on an isolated island in the Solway Firth, and her job is made much harder when a dead man wearing James’s coat is found on the beach in suspicious circumstances. It seems someone wanted James out of the picture.

The Peculiar Crimes Unit has solved many extraordinary cases over the years, but some were hushed up and hidden away. Until now. Arthur Bryant remembers these lost cases as if they were yesterday. Here, then, is the truth about the Covent Garden opera diva and the 17th reindeer, the body that falls from the Tate Gallery, the ordinary London street corner where strange accidents keep occurring, the consul’s son discovered buried in the unit’s basement, the corpse pulled from a swamp of Chinese dinners....

November, 1957: Six teenage girls walk in the churning Derbyshire mists. Their voices carrying across the fields, they follow the old train tracks into the dark tunnel of the Cutting. Only five appear on the other side. October, 2014: a dying mother, feverishly fixated on a friend from her childhood, makes a plea: 'Find Valerie.' Mina's elderly mother had never discussed her childhood with her daughter before. So who was Valerie? Where does her obsession spring from? DC Connie Childs is partnered up with new arrival to Bampton, Peter Dahl.

The Thames is London's most important yet neglected artery. When a young woman is found chained to a post in the tide, no one can understand how she came to be drowned there. That's only part of the problem. Bryant's deteriorating condition prevents him from handling the case. To make matters worse, May makes a fatal error of judgment that knocks him out of action.

In an adventure that's as twisting as the river, will there be anything left of the Peculiar Crimes Unit when it's over?

Brian, Nik and Darby—three friends practiced in ennui, binge-drinking, hooking up with strangers and fighting supernatural crime (when Brian's not committing it as a werewolf once a month)—have been sent by Abe Van Helsing (yes, one of those Van Helsings) to try to track down a colleague who has gone missing in London. As they putz around the city, following any leads that might help them find their British counterpart, they uncover a clairvoyancy smuggling ring, located right in the heart of the financial district. Who's kidnapping all the fortune tellers in Soho, and why?

February 1355: Oxford explodes in one of the most serious riots of its history. Fearing for their lives, the scholars flee, and some choose the University at Cambridge as their temporary refuge. But they don't remain safe for long. Within hours of their arrival, the first of their number dies, followed quickly by a second. When Matthew Bartholomew begins to investigate the deaths, he uncovers evidence that the Oxford riot was not a case of random violence, but part of a carefully orchestrated plot.

It sends a shiver down Detective Superintendent Alan Markby's spine when he hears that a rambler has stumbled across human bones in Stovey Woods in the heart of the Cotswolds. Twenty-two years earlier, as a fresh-faced young inspector, he had a rare failure, in the hunt for a brutal serial rapist preying on local women. After the third rape, the attacker went to ground, never to be heard of again.

Lizzie Martin, lady's companion, has been sent from London to the New Forest to comfort a young woman whose baby has tragically died. A sad enough task, but things take an even darker turn when a rat-catcher is found murdered, and the young woman is discovered beside the body, crying and covered in blood. Not knowing where else to turn, Lizzie calls upon her friend Inspector Ben Ross to solve the horrific crime.

Failed Shakespearean actor and would-be private detective William Power returns to Melbourne in this wry sequel that re-creates the tension and fear of wartime Australia. Bloodied and broken but somehow unbowed, he arrives in a town struggling under war-rationing and full of cocky American soldiers and lands squarely in the bosom of his childhood home in Carlton, now dominated by his sister-in-law, the odious Darlene.

Matt Hunter lost his faith a long time ago. Formerly a minister, now a professor of sociology, he’s writing a book that debunks the Christian faith while assisting the police with religiously motivated crimes. On holiday with his family in Oxfordshire, Matt finds himself on edge in a seemingly idyllic village, but when a local girl goes missing, he's caught up in an investigation that brings memories to the surface he would prefer to stay buried deep…He must draw on his theological knowledge to catch the killer.

In the heart of the Cotswolds, a body is found, that of a teenage girl, probably local - somebody's daughter who went out one evening and didn't come back. It's not long before she is identified: 15-year-old Lynne Wills, a habitual, underage drinker at The Silver Bells pub who, on the night of her death, was seen leaving with an unknown man.

Out walking with his family in the local park, Jon Spicer’s life is shattered forever. The dog - aggressive and huge - appears from nowhere. At first, Jon assumes the attack was random. Soon, other events force him to think again. With his family under threat, Jon can do only one thing: fight back. The pursuit leads him to a remote Irish village where his family are originally from...

Crowner John is summoned to investigate the murder of a tin miner. The victim worked for Devon's most powerful and successful mine owner, Walter Knapman. There seems, to be only one motive - to sabotage Walter's business. But the tinners have their own laws, and they are none too pleased at Crowner John's interference. How on earth can Crowner John sort all this out when his own life is in turmoil?