Showing results by publisher "QUEST from W. F. Howes Ltd" in Historical

A mysterious stranger arrives in the small Herefordshire market town of Ledbury. He offers a solicitor, Anthony Midwinter, a generous sum to look after a package for him until spring, no questions asked. The stranger warns that it must remain sealed or else the very stability of England will come under threat. The Ledbury Lamplighters see out the year with a public ceremony extinguishing the town's lamps, a local tradition. A prominent local businessman is brutally murdered in full view of the revellers. 

March 1889. Midnight. Six strangers meet for the first time outside the great door of Tewkesbury Abbey. They are searching for the tomb of the medieval crusader knight, Sir Roger de la Pole. What they find inside is unexpected and deeply shocking. They were seeking holy relics. But the body they uncover is barely cold. And Sir Roger’s ancient bones are missing. Detective Inspector Ravenscroft and Constable Tom Crabb are called on to solve the crime. They must decipher the strange coded letters on the outside of the Templar's tomb.

Pershore, 1890. Talbots' Lodging House is renowned for its revolting fare. But no one ever died from dining there—until now. Everyone who tasted the chef's soup is left with a nasty case of food poisoning. BUT THE MAN WHO REFUSED IT IS FOUND DEAD. Detective Inspector Samuel Ravenscroft and Constable Tom Crabb are called in to investigate.

Sir Charles Huxley, a former government minister, kept a dark secret - a secret he should have taken to the grave when he died in 1999. His son, William, now lives an uneventful life in his father’s shadow. One evening, William has an encounter which sets off an escalating series of sinister events, culminating in a damning revelation about his father’s past. That revelation drags William into the darkest of blackmail plots. That is until a man working at his local bar steps forward and offers help.

Deep winter, AD 376: Emperor Valens has withdrawn the field armies from Moesia and Thracia to fight in the Persian War. The impoverished limitanei legions left behind to defend the banks of the River Danubius are now all that stand between the war-hungry Goths and heart of the Eastern Roman Empire.  

Returning from their honeymoon, John and Lydia Savidge have another mystery on their hands. As a favor to an old friend, they agree to help uncover who killed Sir Benedict Stanbury, master of Fallowfield. Could the hapless stable hand accused of the crime really be guilty? Or could it have been the suspicious solicitor or the frightened governess? Someone knows something. Someone is lying. With a surplus of suspects and an absence of alibis, the newlyweds must untangle this web of confusion and catch the killer in just three days.

In 1920s England, private detective Henry Fleming is invited to spend the weekend at Watermead Manor to celebrate the marriage of Gerald and Ida Langley. The handsome millionaire had been instantly smitten with the glamorous Ida and, after a whirlwind romance, they had married in secret. Upon returning to England, however, it soon becomes apparent that not everyone is pleased or excited about the marriage and very soon accusations begin to fly about Ida's motives: Does she really love him, or is she just an opportunistic gold-digger?

While deciphering what few clues they have managed to recover about the Templar’s secrets, Jessop and Mallory make a discovery about their legendary treasure. Rather than gold or jewels, the long-sought prize may be something far more valuable: information. For the Templars were the original inventors of international banking. Lands, titles and the fates of entire noble houses were placed in their keeping. The records of such transactions, though centuries old, may possibly yield the greatest wealth in the world. 

October 1891. A stranger is discovered hanging from a tree in the Malvern Hills. Detective Inspector Ravenscroft and Constable Crabb are called in to investigate. But how can they solve the murder if no one can identify the victim? Whoever killed the man must have really wanted him dead—they strung him up and watched as he suffocated. This may be the most dangerous case Ravenscroft has ever worked. Will the Herefordshire Hangmen ever be brought to justice?

When Muriel Carew attends a lavish society party, the last person she expects to bump into is her ex-fiancee Henry Jekyll, a man she's not seen for many years. When Jekyll turns out to be investigating a series of missing persons in London, Muriel is intrigued. But Jekyll is not working alone, and if Muriel wants to aid in the investigation, she must work with both Henry and his partner, the monstrous and uncouth Mr Hyde.

Anthea Halliwell's once-bright future is cruelly taken from her the moment she is accused of stealing a necklace dripping with rubies and diamonds and attempting to sell it. Her beloved Captain Crispin breaks off their engagement at the first hint of scandal and marries her friend instead. Then to make matters worse, her father gambles away their fortune. Heartbroken and penniless, Anthea is forced to beg handsome Gideon Rodrigo for help. But she never expects him to propose.

1296 AD: the whole of Western Europe trembles on the brink of war. South of the Pyrenees, the Christian and Moorish kingdoms fight and scheme against each for control of Hispania. To the north, the rival kings of England and France feverishly enlist allies as they battle for supremacy on the Continent. Even as the armies clash, spies and double agents fight their own bloody war in the shadows. From the safety of old age, En Pascal of Valencia recalls his own exploits in this brutal and treacherous era. 

A series of kidnappings seemed like straightforward, run-of-the-mill crimes at first, but Inspector Sam Blackstone soon realises they are anything but. This gang is so ruthless that it shocks even the hardened London criminal underworld. And it is plain to Blackstone that this is just a preliminary skirmish - that the gang ultimately intends to play for much larger stakes. But Blackstone's problems are only just beginning.

Blackstone and the Rendezvous with Death is an expertly plotted Victorian mystery that will keep listeners guessing to the last minute. The body of a young man fished out of the Thames is of little interest to Londoners caught up in the excitement of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Yet to Inspector Sam Blackstone, the case is as puzzling as any he has ever come across. Why should a corpse dressed in the rags of a commoner have the face of a gentleman? And if this man does belong to noble stock, why has no one come forward to claim the body?

It has been some years since Jonathan and Mina Harker survived their ordeal in Transylvania. But shadows linger long in this world of blood feud and superstition - and the older their son Quincey gets, the deeper the shadows that lengthen at the heart of the Harkers' marriage. Jonathan has turned back to drink, Mina finds herself isolated inside the confines of her own family. Quincey himself struggles to live up to a family of such high renown.

Atticus Perennis, Roman prefect and hero of the seas, is stranded in Carthage. His Roman masters have all but abandoned him, and at his feet gape the jaws of an angry mercenary army. For while the senators and consuls of Rome bicker and debate, the mercenaries around Utica are running out of patience and strain at the leash, on the verge of war. And then, when a councillor is sent as a message to Atticus and his comrades, all but dead and hideously disfigured, the leash finally breaks.... 

A tragic death in Ipswich leaves clues to the mysterious demise of Edmund Gurney in Brighton. Private Detective Lawrence Harpham investigates leaving his partner Violet to unravel a series of strange disturbances at a Suffolk rectory. Both inquiries lead unexpectedly to Whitechapel and the murder of Frances Coles. Was Frances a Ripper victim and is her murder linked to the autumn of terror? Jack is back – or is he?

Following many years of war with Rome, Carthage is exhausted. Yet the trouble is not yet over. As mercenaries land in Carthage to claim payment for services rendered, they do not receive what they expect. Lacking a shared culture, structure and even language, this band of warriors has taken up residence in Carthage and is becoming increasingly angry.... Meanwhile, veteran Roman sailor and prefect Atticus Perennis is fighting pirates in the seas around Sicily. Perpetually an outsider due to his Greek heritage, Atticus is a fine Roman warrior with several points to prove.  

England, 1617 Susanna Cobbett, teenage daughter of a powerful Worcester landowner, is found dead in a gloomy woodland pond which has an evil reputation as the Witching Pool. The girl is said to have drowned herself, driven to madness by a local widow named Agnes Mason, who is arrested on a charge of witchcraft. If found guilty, she will hang at the next Assizes. But Justice Belstrang, shrewd ex-magistrate and sceptic, does not believe a word of it. And when Agnes's family beg him to help, he finds himself caught up in an ever-darkening mystery.

The City of Dr Moreau presents a sprawling history of the islanders and an alternative vision of our own times. In H. G. Wells' 1896 novel The Island of Dr Moreau, a shipwrecked traveller finds himself alone on an island ruled by a mad doctor and inhabited by creatures who are at once both beast and human. He escapes to civilisation only after the scientist is dead and the beast-men have taken absolute control. Yet this is not the end of the matter.