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

Finding out you’re in love with three impossible boys isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The stepbrother. The boyfriend’s best friend. The sister’s ex. Life would be complicated enough if we didn’t have to navigate a social circle populated with serial killers. My father has gathered a loyal group of monsters around himself like a shield. There’s the black widow, the arsonist, the mild-mannered poet with a penchant for blood, the crooked cop, and, of course, the Seattle Slayer. Maintaining three new romances is nearly as dangerous a proposition.

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...

A missing person report is not usually something that Hamish Macbeth sees as cause for undue distress. Should a child or a vulnerable person vanish, it's an urgent matter that needs to be treated seriously, but in Macbeth's experience, most other people who go missing tend to turn up again before long. So when Kate Hibbert disappears after having last been seen struggling along the road with a heavy suitcase, he is convinced she has gone travelling and reluctantly goes through the motions of investigating.

Finding out you’re the daughter of a famous serial killer isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. My father—the Seattle Slayer—is charismatic, intelligent, and charming. He’s also trying to teach me to kill people, so…his good qualities don’t seem to matter much. He’s kidnapped my boyfriend, a guy that I used to hate but grew to love. Parrish, I’m coming for you. I’ll do anything—anything—to keep you safe. Starting a new life as the most hated girl in Whitehall Prep was not in my gameplan.

Trouble is afoot in the remote Scottish fishing village of Stoyre, where the inhabitants are acting kind of... fishy. On a routine visit, Hamish Macbeth finds the pub empty, the church unexpectedly full, and the very air permeated with fear. Then an explosion levels a holiday cottage which the locals call 'an act of God'. Hamish has another theory, one that will make the national news. With the help of sharp-eyed journalist Elspeth Grant and Lugs (his dog) he begins to winkle out the truth.

Private Detective Agatha Raisin immerses herself in the glittering lifestyle of the fabulously wealthy when Sir Charles Fraith is accused of murder - and Agatha is named as his accomplice! A high-society wedding, a glitzy masked ball and an introduction to the world of international show-jumping, where the riders are glamorous, the horses are beautiful and intrigue runs deep, leave Agatha with a list of suspects as long as a stallion's tail.

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.

Cotswolds inhabitants are used to bad weather, but the night sky is especially foggy as Rory and Molly Harris, the new vicar and his wife, drive slowly home from a dinner party in their village of Sumpton Harcourt. They struggle to see the road ahead - but then screech to a halt. Right in front of them, aglow in the headlights of their car, a body hangs from a lightning-blasted tree at the edge of town. But it's not suicide; Margaret Darby, an elderly spinster of the parish, has been murdered - and the villagers are bewildered as to who would commit such a crime, and why.

Finding out you’re the daughter of a millionaire true crime novelist isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. When I was two, I was kidnapped. Kidnapped by a loving family, sure, but still kidnapped. Now, my biological mom wants me to live with her on the opposite side of the country. Her…and my new stepdad and his jerk of a son: Parrish.

Share the new girl. That won’t be easy, will it? Especially not while trying to keep our thrones in the Burberry Prep social scene. Marnye is learning to forgive us; the least we can do is protect her. Let’s see who can make her fall in love first. This time, there’s no bet. This time, it’s just our hearts on the line.

The first full-length narrative biography of Led Zeppelin's John Bonham, considered by many to be one of the greatest drummers in rock history, and a genuine wild man of epic (and sadly fatal) proportions.

It’s springtime in the Highlands but storms are brewing for Hamish Macbeth. His life is going to pot. He has - horrors! - been promoted, his new boss is a dunce, and a sinister self-proclaimed gypsy and his girlfriend have parked their rusty eyesore of a van in the middle of the village. Hamish smells trouble and as usual he’s right. The doctor’s drugs have gone missing. Money vanishes.

At home alone for the holidays, Agatha Raisin decides to host a dinner party for the elder residents in her Cotswold village of Winter Parva. Agatha's never been much of a homemaker, but she's dead set on making this the perfect holiday for the 'crumblies', as she affectionately calls them. She's decorated a tree while fending off her cats, Hodge and Boswell, and even made a (lumpy) Christmas pudding in between swigs of rum.

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.

After time away, Agatha Raisin returns to her beloved Cotswold village of Carsely - and to her handsome neighbour, James Lacey. True, James seems less than thrilled to see her, but Agatha is soon distracted by a sensational murder. The victim, found in a field, is young hiker Jessica Tartinck, who spent her life enraging landowners by insisting on her right to roam. Hope springs eternal in Agatha's breast as she lures the reluctant James into her investigation. There are so many leads to follow, for Jessica's fellow walkers - not to mention the landowners - all seem able to commit murder.

The most hated man in the most dour town in Scotland is sleeping with the fishes, or - more accurately - has been dumped into a tank filled with crustaceans. All that remains of the murdered victim are his bones. But once the lobsters have been shipped off to Britain’s best restaurants, the whole affair quickly lands on the plate of Constable Hamish Macbeth. Exiled to the dreary outpost of Cnothan, Macbeth sorely misses his beloved Lochdubh, but before he can head back home he has to contend with a detective chief inspector who wants the murder hushed up.

In the south of Scotland, residents get their chimneys vacuum-cleaned. But in the isolated villages in the very north of Scotland, the villagers rely on the services of the itinerant sweep, Pete Ray, and his old-fashioned brushes. Pete is always able to find work in the Scottish highlands, until one day when Police Constable Hamish Macbeth notices blood dripping onto the floor of a villager's fireplace, and a dead body stuffed inside the chimney.

There’s not a cloud in Hamish Macbeth’s sky - just plenty of warm sunshine but not quite enough of the lovely Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. But as eight hopeful members of the Checkmate Singles Club converge on Tommel Castle Hotel for a week of serious matchmaking, the clouds roll in. The four couples, carefully matched by dating director Maria Worth, immediately dislike one another. And the arrival of Maria’s gross, greedy business partner, Peta, kills the last vestige of romance. And as love goes out the window, murder comes in the door.

Break the new girl. That should be easy, right? Trash like her doesn’t belong at Burberry Prep. No, Marnye Reed is going down, and we plan to make a spectacle out of it. Let’s see who can make her fall in love first. Bet’s on. Any takers? Take on the filthy rich boys. They’re the idols of the school, veritable gods on earth. Old money. New money. A rising star. These guys are nothing like the ones at my old school. I might come from nothing, but I’m determined to be someone, and I won’t let them get in my way.

Gower Street, London, 1882: Sidney Grice, London's most famous personal detective, is expecting a visitor. He drains his fifth pot of morning tea, and glances outside, where a young, plain woman picks her way between the piles of horse-dung towards his front door. Sidney Grice shudders. For heaven's sake - she is wearing brown shoes. The Mangle Street Murders is for those who like their crime original, atmospheric, and very, very funny.