Showing results by publisher "Isis Publishing Ltd" in Historical

February 1918. Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion and Detective Sergeant Joe Keedy are pulled from their beds to attend a sinister siege involving three burglars where one policeman has already been shot dead. Attempts at talking the men in the house into surrender are met with stony silence so the police proceed to batter down the door and Keedy bravely leads the way. A gunshot is heard. Keedy is hit. As Keedy is rushed to hospital, Marmion is on the trail of the men who fled the scene and startling revelations emerge.

In the ghetto, the last 50,000 Jews await their fate, but, unlike those who preceded them to the death camps, these Jews are prepared to fight. Jan Kalisz, Kripo investigator and Resistance double-agent, has promised to supply them with weapons. But how will he fulfil his vow? The murder of a German officer appears to provide an opportunity.

September 1940. The height of the Blitz. When the Savoy advertises its series of underground shelters, a crowd of people from East London arrive at the hotel and demand entry. There they find a shelter worthy of the Savoy's clientele, but the next morning, after the air raid and when the Stepney protestors have left, it is discovered that one of the hotel's guests is dead, stabbed through the heart.

17th May 1899. Queen Victoria lays the foundation stone on the site of a new museum being built in South Kensington, which she names as The Victoria and Albert Museum. Shortly after, Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton are called to the site because the dead body of a man, Andrew Page, has been found in one of the trenches. The more Wilson and Fenton dig, the more they discover other potential motives for Page's murder, some with potentially explosive implications for the royals and the government.

2002, Quebec. A former schoolteacher is accused of brutally stabbing her husband—a famous university professor—to death. Detective Maxine Grant, who has recently lost her own husband and is parenting a teenager and a new baby single-handedly, takes on the investigation. Under enormous personal pressure, Maxine makes a series of macabre discoveries that link directly to historical cases involving black magic and murder, secret societies and spiritism...and women at breaking point, who will stop at nothing to protect the ones they love.

An odd group gathers for an English country house weekend party: a sickly host, a disgraced socialite, an amateur detective and her nephew, a murderous couple, an ex-army captain, and a former militant suffragist countess. The table is set for eight. By Sunday, only half the cutlery will be required, and Saturday's tablecloth will be used as a shroud. Cut off by a storm, their host is found dead in circumstances mirroring the death of Lady Alice's husband. There is no way out, while a killer walks amongst them.

December, 1940. Christmas is coming, but the season of goodwill is overshadowed by the death and destruction of the Blitz. In London's Covent Garden, where the glamour of theatreland rubs shoulders with the bustle of the capital's biggest fruit and vegetable market, the war has closed the theatres and ruined the market trade. When a daylight air raid hits the Prince Albert Theatre in Drury Lane, rescuers find a man dying in the wreckage. But it wasn't the bomb that's ending his life - he's been stabbed, and with his dying breath he whispers what sounds like a fragmented confession.

February 1922. Hollywood is young but already mired in scandal. When a leading movie director is murdered, Irish American investigator Tom Collins is called in by studio boss Mack Sennett, whose troubled star, Mabel Normand, is rumoured to be involved. But Normand has gone missing. And, as Collins discovers, there's a growing list of suspects. His quest leads him through the brutal heart of Prohibition-era Los Angeles, from speakeasies and dope dens to the studios and salons of Hollywood's fabulously wealthy movie elite, and to a secret so explosive it must be kept silent at any cost....

London, 1921. The Great War has recently ended and tensions in England are high. Now, prominent Cabinet minister Lord Amersham has been shot dead outside his Regent's Park home. The signs point to a professional hit. Charged with solving one of the most sensitive and high-profile cases Scotland Yard has ever faced, DCI Paul Stark is under pressure to get the job done quickly.

Due to financial hardships at Tawcester Towers, the Dowager Duchess has decreed that the only way the family fortunes can be restored is to marry Blotto off...to an American! Reluctantly, Blotto, together with Twinks and his trusty chauffeur Corky Froggett set sail.

1898. When Juan's father is killed while working as a photographer in Cuba, the young man is left with nothing but his last photos amid the chaos as the war between Spain and America escalates. But the images reveal a sinister truth to his father's last moments, and Juan soon realises his death was no accident. The young man travels to Scotland to grieve with his surviving family and soon immerses himself in the study of photography and pioneers a self-timer. When this technology inadvertently solves a crime, it is not long before the device draws the attention of law enforcement.

London, 1921. Lord Johnny Fairfax has been found dead in his study, along with a second victim, a mysterious American who arrived unannounced the previous evening. For DCI Paul Stark, the case is personal: he's in a relationship with Lord Fairfax's former wife, Lady Amelia. The dead man had no shortage of enemies. Winston Churchill, his former colleague at the War Office, is convinced the murder is revenge for the disaster at Gallipoli. Lady Amelia herself is accused of the crime.

March 1557. Jack Blackjack is back in London and enjoying a sedentary life. After his treacherous voyage back to his beloved city the previous year, he desires nothing more than women, wine, beer and more women. But his new parish of St Helen's has different ideas for him. A week after first laying eyes on the tempting Miss Rachel Nailor, she turns up dead on the church vestry floor...and someone is trying to frame him for her murder! Rachel was a woman with many secrets. But was she murdered in a fit of lustful rage, or was it part of a wider political play?

London, 1899. Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton, the museum detectives, are called upon to investigate a bizarre murder at the White Tower, the heart of the Tower of London. The dead body of a Yeoman is found inside a suit of armour belonging to Henry VIII, having been run through with a sword. When details of this suspicious outrage are reported to the Prince of Wales, he fears this may be an expression of Republican unrest and calls upon Wilson and Fenton to investigate further.

Adelaide, 1931: Telephone switchboard operator Frances’ life is difficult as sole provider for her mother and adopted uncle. But it’s thrown into turmoil when she overhears a suspicious conversation on the phone, planning a murder. If a life is at risk, she should tell the police; but that would mean breaking her confidentiality clause and would cost her the job. And Frances soon begins to doubt the evidence of her own ears - it was a very bad line, after all. She decides to put it behind her and meets slightly dangerous nightclub owner Jack.

Mary Dutton is accused of killing her husband by poison. The police see it as an open-and-shut case, and even those protesting for her believe she committed the act but is innocent of wrongdoing after suffering years of domestic abuse. Since his recent success in the high-profile Dryden case catapulted him to the front pages of the national press, Arthur Skelton is now one of the most recognisable barristers. Despite the odds, he agrees to represent Mary Dutton.

1931. Frances Palmer is overjoyed when her brother, Rob, returns to Adelaide as a racecourse veterinarian. But all is not well on the turf, and when a man is murdered, there's only one suspect - Rob. Frances and her boyfriend, charming night-club owner Jack Sullivan, along with ex-vaudevillian Uncle Sal and their friends, have only one chance to unmask the real murderer by infiltrating the racecourse. The odds are against them...luckily, putting on a dazzling show where everything depends on sleight of hand is what they do best. But nothing is a dead cert against a cold-blooded killer.

A woman’s dismembered corpse is discovered in a quarry, and police quickly link the victim back to their chief suspect: her husband, Doctor Ibraham Aziz. His wife had been planning to leave him, so his guilt isn’t in doubt as far as local law enforcement is concerned. Barrister Arthur Skelton is asked to represent the accused, and though all believe the case to be hopeless, Skelton suspects there may be more to the victim’s death.

1957. A catastrophe occurs at the pharmaceutical lab in Coventry where 16-year-old Wilf is working for the summer. A catastrophe that needs to be covered up at all costs. 2017. Phiney is shocked by the death of her grandfather, Wilf, who has jumped from a railway bridge at a Coventry station. Journalist Mat Torrington is the only witness. Left in utter disbelief, with a swarm of unanswered questions, Phiney, Mat and Wilf's wife, Dora, begin their own enquiries into Wilf's death.

It is November 5th, Guy Fawkes Night, 1930. Bonfires are blazing, rockets burst. In a country lane, revellers discover a car that has been set on fire. At first they assume that this is the work of vandals taking the Guy Fawkes spirit a little too far, then they notice, sitting at the wheel, a body, charred beyond recognition. The initial assumption is that the owner of the car, Mr William Hodge, a successful travelling vacuum cleaner salesman has taken his own life by flooding the car with petrol and lighting a match.