Showing results by author "M. C." in All Categories

High-flying public relations supremo Agatha Raisin has decided to take early retirement. She's off to make a new life in a picture-perfect Cotswold village. To make friends, she enters the local quiche-making competition - and to make quite sure of first prize she secretly pays a visit to a London deli. Alas, the competition judge succumbs after tasting her perfect quiche, and Agatha is revealed as a cheat and potential poisoner. Definitely not the best start. So Agatha must turn amateur sleuth - she's absolutely got to track down the real killer!

Just when Hamish most needs him - the dentist turns up dead... In Scotland, where thrift and a 'nice set of dentures' are generally admired, dental surgeon Dr Frederick Gilchrist's cheap rates and penchant for pulling teeth have gained him a clientele. However, wiser Highlanders (like Hamish Macbeth) opt to steer clear of this reputed womanizer's all-too-busy hands. Only jaw-throbbing agony drives Hamish to Gilchrist's surgery, but what he finds is the dentist's dead body - putting several angry husbands in the frame for murder...

I’m the salvation for the dirty throne of the city’s underworld, the only person who can secure a future for the Death by Daybreak Motorcycle Club. There are few people in this world whom I can trust—a mafia brat, a soon-to-be nun, and four lascivious demons—but that’ll have to be enough, or we’ll all burn together in glorious flame. Only, there’s no telling what my father will do now that he knows the truth.

The When Swords Fall Silent anthology showcases the imaginations and talents of more than a dozen of the best modern science-fiction and fantasy authors, with each tale centered around one or more characters burdened with a bloody task they will see to completion no matter the cost. Every story takes you for a vicious ride through a world of shadow and death, each as unique in perspective and execution as the contracts carried out within.

Whoa, there. Stop right now. You don’t want to listen to this. Trust me. You really don’t want to listen to this. So back away slowly, hands up, and I won’t have to kill you. They might, though. They might be willing to warm my bed, but I wouldn’t say I trusted them. Just a bunch of psychos, really. My three f--kboys, my three psychos.

Grace has a job she loves, a community she adores, and plenty of friends . . . but her lack of bedroom action has left this event planner too horny to think. When one ill-advised night at the bar leads to her giving an exhibitionistic show to an unknown presence outside her bedroom window, she thinks she's hit a new low. When her voyeur turns out to be a nebbishly charming mothman, Grace needs to decide if she can trust her body—and her heart—with this garnet-eyed stranger before he flies out of her life for good.

Maggie Baird is neither kind nor generous, but she is very, very rich. So when her car catches fire, with her inside it, there are five likely candidates for the role of murderer. All five had been houseguests at her luxurious Highlands home - Maggie’s timid niece and four former lovers, one of whom Maggie had intended to pick for a husband. All five are utterly broke and all had ample opportunity to tamper with Maggie’s car. So finding out, who did it will require all of PC Hamish Macbeth’s extraordinary common sense and insight into human nature.

Hiral is the Everfail, the weakest person on the flying island of Fallen Reach. He trains harder than any warrior. Studies longer than any scholar. But all his people are born with magic powered by the sun, flowing through tattoos on their bodies. Despite having enormous energy within, Hiral is the only one who can’t channel it; his hard work is worth nothing. Until it isn’t. In a moment of danger, Hiral unlocks an achievement with a special instruction: Access a Dungeon to receive a Class-Specific Reward.

All Sergeant Hamish Macbeth ever wants is a quiet life in the tranquil surroundings of Lochdubh, his home village in the Scottish Highlands. Although the area he polices is vast, he's happiest when he's working alone, yet the police authorities insist he has an assistant. In the past, they have supplied a variety of problematic misfits, but they surpass themselves with their latest effort - an American named James Bland.

Psst, I know a secret. The same secret that the Student Council—the super-rich, super handsome elite of Adamson All-Boys Academy—knows, too. Jenica Woodruff, the only girl to ever attend the academy before I showed up, didn't commit suicide: she was murdered. Now, someone is after me, too, but no matter where I go, the killer follows. My new high school isn't safe, and turns out, neither is my old one.

A weekend with friends, fun in the sun, and huge, naked orcs. What could be better? That's what three suburban elves think when they book a trip to an orc nudist resort, well-known for its libidinous residents and hedonistic parties. Ris, Lurielle, and Silva arrive with plans to sample the DTF locals and work on their tans, not catch feelings. When Lurielle meets a syrupy-voiced gentleman who seems interested in more than just a weekend fling, she finds sticking to the plan is easier said than done.

Amazing news is spreading like wildfire across the Scottish countryside: the most famous of all Highland bachelors, police sergeant Hamish Macbeth, is planning to marry at last! Everyone in the village of Lochdubh adores Josie McSween, Hamish's newest constable and blushing bride-to-be. While locals think she is quite a catch, Hamish has a severe case of pre-nuptial jitters... after all, if it wasn't for the recent murder of a beautiful woman in a neighbouring village there wouldn't be a wedding in the first place.

125 Gower Street, 1882: Sidney Grice was once London's premier personal detective. But since his last case led an innocent man to the gallows, business has been light. Listless and depressed, Grice has not even gathered the strength to re-insert his glass eye. Then an eccentric member of a Final Death Society has the temerity to die on his study floor. Finally Sidney and March have an investigation, one that will draw them to an eerie house in Kew, and the mysterious Baroness Foskett....

I’m the queen to a dirty throne of men and mania, a dissenter who's supposed to be a quiet accomplice to the Death by Daybreak Motorcycle Club. The four wicked men I’ve summoned are like the Horsemen of the Apocalypse—albeit dressed in leather and riding chrome stallions—and I’m the last judgement, bringing the end of the world as the club knows it. Only, it’s with my own hands bathed in blood and betrayal.

Finding out your serial killer dad wants you to un-alive your boyfriends … Well, it sucks. Even worse if one of those guys is lying when he says he loves you. The worst when two of them are lying to your face. If all three of them do it … game over. I might be known as Gamer Girl, but I wasn’t prepared for this. Choice and betrayal. Romance and death. Mostly, consequences and hard truths. Coming out of this alive will be a miracle; surviving with my heart intact is impossible. Oh, and my summer vacation? Total disaster. The beginning of junior year? Complete nightmare.

PC Dorothy McIver quickly shows how determined she is to win over the locals, and she certainly seems to bring out the best in Macbeth. Then comes a brutal murder, and the pair find themselves plunged into a tangled web of conspiracy that acquires a sinister strand when the chilling shadow of Glasgow's underworld creeps to the Highlands and the peaceful village of Lochdubh.

Agatha has fallen in love - again. This time it's the local gardener, George Marston, she has her eye on. But competition for his attention abounds. With her shameless determination Agatha will do anything to get her man - including footing the bill for a charity ball in town just for the chance to dance with him. But when George is a no-show Agatha goes looking for him - and finds he has been murdered, having been bitten by a poisonous snake and buried in a compost heap.

When Fergus Macleod, Lochdubh's abusive, drunk dustman is put in charge of the local recycling centre and is dubbed the 'Environment Officer', Hamish Macbeth smells trouble. Sure enough, Fergus, imbued with his new powers, becomes a bullying tyrant and when his body is found stuffed in a recycling bin, no one is sorry - including his long-suffering family.

All witches must serve the cruel and immortal Emperor Yamueto. Upon discovery of her powers, Khana was ripped away from her desert home at fourteen years old and enslaved as a concubine. After years in service, her only friend in the palace is brutally murdered for supplying her forbidden birth-control, and Khana must make her escape. But not before accidentally discovering the secret of Yamueto’s power and immortality – he has been making deals with Death. And now, thanks to a twist of fate, so is she.

Love, like hell, is a four-letter word for Agatha . . . No happily ever after for her! Recently married to neighbour James Lacey, Agatha quickly finds that love is not all it's cracked up to be - soon the newly-weds are living in separate cottages and accusing each other of infidelity. Then, after a fight down the local pub, James vanishes - a bloodstain the only clue to his fate. Naturally, Agatha is Suspect Number One. Determined to clear her name - and find her husband - Agatha begins her investigation and promptly discovers a murdered mistress . . .