Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Historical

1950s, rural Ireland. A loner comes across a mysteriously empty car in a field. Knowing he shouldn't approach, but unable to hold back, he soon finds himself embroiled in a troubling missing person's case, as a husband claims his wife may have thrown herself into the sea. Called in from Dublin to investigate is Detective Inspector Strafford, who soon turns to his old ally - the flawed but brilliant pathologist Quirke - a man he is linked to in increasingly complicated ways.

Beatrice, Duchess of Kesgrave, will not do the bidding of Hell and Fury Hawes. It does not matter how difficult it is to find new murder mysteries to investigate, especially ones where the victim was stabbed with a chisel. She absolutely refuses to lift a finger to help him figure out who killed one of his associates.

It’s 1937. Poland is about to catch fire. In the boxing ring, Jakub Szapiro commands respect, revered as a hero by the Jewish community. Outside, he instills fear as he muscles through Warsaw as enforcer for a powerful crime lord. Murder and intimidation have their rewards. He revels in luxury, spends lavishly, and indulges in all the pleasures that barbarity offers. For a man battling to be king of the underworld, life is good. Especially when it’s a frightening time to be alive.

1942, New Zealand. Edith’s been locked away for a long time. She was just five years old when she was sent to Seacliff Lunatic Asylum. Fifteen years later, she has few memories of her life before the asylum, but longs for one beyond it. When she survives a devastating fire that destroys her ward, Edith is questioned by the police and a young doctor, Declan Harris. Intrigued by his beautiful patient, Declan begins to doubt the official reasons for her incarceration. Is she truly mad - or could the impossible stories she told as a child actually be true?

The story picks up from the end of Blue at the Mizzen when Jack Aubrey receives the news, in Chile, of his elevation to flag rank: Rear Admiral of the Blue Squadron, with orders to sail to the South Africa station. This new novel, unfinished and untitled at the time of O’Brian’s death, would have been a chronicle of that mission, and much else besides. As the novel opens, we are able to visit these friends we have followed so very far in a rare state of almost perfect felicity.

With its compelling portrayal of a paranoia-ridden Moscow and blockaded Berlin, The Moscow Defector sees Duchene and Sabine, torn apart by opposing ideologies, risk their lives to try to save one another. Evocative, gripping and full of twists, this taut thriller asks if lovers can reunite against an all-powerful regime.

Joey is the great-grandson of Vincenzo Peruggia, the man who stole the original Mona Lisa in 1911. Along with his girlfriend, Marie, an art connoisseur, he stumbles across his father's secret room, and finds himself staring at what he thinks is a replica of da Vinci's most famous masterpiece. But it is no fake.... The Louvre has kept this secret for over 100 years, waiting for the original to come to light, and now they want it back at any cost. With Marie held hostage and the Louvre curator and his men hot on his trail, Joey is left to run for his life in an unfamiliar city.

When research zoologist Dr Amelia Blackburn ventures north to investigate the ravages of the Chernobyl reactor meltdown, she stumbles on the evidence of another sinister disaster on the Norway-Russia border - one that appears far from innocent. Mother Russia will stop at nothing to prevent this information from being revealed, putting Amelia and her team in grave danger from the moment they leave the site. When the news reaches London, the eyes of British intelligence turn to the one man with the knowledge and skills to bring her back to safety.

1803. The Napoleonic Wars. A Royal Navy warship is ordered to pursue an enemy frigate to the icy waters far south in the Indian Ocean. There, it must capture the enemy ship and retrieve a mysterious sea chest, contents unknown, failure not permitted. For the determined young captain and his eager crew, this already dangerous mission turns into a battle with a mysterious vessel that appears not in the sea, but unbelievably, impossibly, in the sky above. But nothing could prepare the crew for what lay beyond the 50th latitude of south.

In the glamorous world of 1940s New York, Hattie James is a rising star, enchanting audiences at the iconic Copacabana Club. But her glittering life is shattered by a shocking phone call: her father, a respected diplomat, has been arrested for espionage, accused of aiding Nazi Germany. As her world crumbles, Hattie is plunged into a whirlwind of danger and deceit. Following her father's dramatic escape and alleged betrayal, Hattie is coerced by the FBI to aid their hunt. Her mission: infiltrate Rio de Janeiro's high society and uncover the truth about her father's loyalties.

Annabelle and Bayard Van Duyvil live a charmed life in New York: He's the scion of an old Knickerbocker family, she grew up in a Tudor house in England, they had a fairy-tale romance in London, and he's recreated her family home on the banks of the Hudson. Yes, there are rumors that she's having an affair with the architect, but rumors are rumors. But then Bayard is found dead with a knife in his chest on the night of their Twelfth Night Ball; Annabelle goes missing, presumed drowned; and the papers go mad.

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 atmospheric BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation based on C. J. Sansom's best-selling Tudor crime novel featuring hunchback lawyer detective Matthew Shardlake. Autumn, 1541. King Henry VIII has set out on a spectacular Royal Progress to York, aiming to strike fear and awe into his rebellious northern subjects. Shardlake and his assistant, Barak, arrive in the city a day ahead of the 3,000-strong procession.

The emperor: Nero, emperor of Rome and feared by his subjects for his temper and cruelty, is in possession of an ancient document predicting that Rome will burn. The spy: Sebastos Pantera, assassin and spy for the Roman Legions, is ordered to stop the impending cataclysm. He knows that if he doesn't, his life - and that of thousands of others - is in terrible danger. The chariot boy: Math, a young charioteer, subject to the wiles and schemes of the emperor and the spy.

In 1848, Dooley Monahan, son of struggling Iowa pioneers, went off to to pick up a new milk cow. Young Dooley never came home. Now, nearly three decades later, Dooley Monahan has become an accidental legend, managing to plant a bullet in the chest of a dangerous outlaw. All Dooley really wants is to claim his reward at a bank in Phoenix and make his way north to a gold strike he read about in a newspaper.

Paris, 1585: Giordano Bruno has come to Paris, a city on the edge of catastrophe. Alone and near destitute, Bruno turns to old friend and zealous preacher Paul Lefevre. But when the priest is murdered, Bruno is pulled into a dangerous world. If Bruno can't uncover the truth, not only is the future of the de Valois monarchy threatened - but his own life will be the forfeit.

Young women are being discovered dead across the Old Town, all having suffered similarly gruesome ends. In the New Town, medical student Will Raven is about to start his apprenticeship with the brilliant and renowned Dr Simpson. Simpson's patients range from the richest to the poorest of this divided city. His house is like no other, full of visiting luminaries and daring experiments in the new medical frontier of anaesthesia.

Alex Meier, a young Jewish writer, fled the Nazis for America before the war. But the politics of his youth have now put him in the crosshairs of the McCarthy witch hunts. Faced with deportation and the loss of his family, he makes a desperate bargain with the fledgling CIA: He will earn his way back to America by acting as their agent in his native Berlin. But almost from the start, things go fatally wrong.

Rome 174 AD. As the war continues in the north, Marcus Aurelius orders Gaius Maximus and Rufus Atticus to return to Rome. Enemies lurk in the shadows in the capital, spreading propaganda and sowing dissent. The praetorian guards must lure their enemies out - and defeat them. Yet Maximus is returning home for something, or rather someone, else: Aurelia. The soldier will be caught between his duty and his happiness. Rufus Atticus will also be forced to make a choice, between duty and family.

The oldest bonds are the hardest severed. When Fabio’s aunt Lucretia flexes her match-making muscles, he seeks escape from a marriage to shy, bored Adriane. Luckily, his friend Petros needs help investigating a possible rebellion in Vademlutra. All Fabio has to do is pretend to be poor and keep his wits about him. Certain there’s nothing to investigate, Fabio settles down for a week in the tavern until a lost young woman in the woods captivates him. Where is she from and why is she so keen to die?