Showing results by publisher "Isis Publishing Ltd" in All Categories

Strangling vines and meat-hungry flora fill this unruly garden of strange stories, selected for their significance as the seeds of the villainous (or perhaps just misunderstood) 'killer plant' in fiction, film and video games. Step within to marvel at Charlotte Perkins Gilman's giant wisteria and H.G. Wells' hungry orchid; hear the calls of the ethereal women of the wood and the frightful drone of the moaning lily; and do tread carefully around E. Nesbit's wandering creepers. Every strain of vegetable threat can be found within this new collection.

"Sorry, boys, my hands are tied. The order comes from Special Force HQ, and I can’t countermand it. So I’m giving you a warning order for an imminent active service operation. You’ve got forty minutes to call your wives and girlfriends and sort your kit." After the tragic loss of one of his patrol on an ill-advised training exercise in the Arctic Circle, Spider Shepherd and his comrades are angry at their incompetent commanding officer.

The last way antiques dealer Lina Townend wants to spend a summer’s afternoon is helping at a church fete. However, the vicar is an old friend so Lina ends up selling bric-a-brac. A harmless event turns into a crisis when someone tries to steal a tatty old snuff box from under her nose. Tatty it might be, but its valuable enough for the would-be thief to attack Griff, her business partner, to frame Lina for a crime she didn’t commit, and to kill and old friend. And maybe other people too.

US exchange student Hieronymus Beck is Professor Jack Griffen's biggest fan. Why else would he inveigle himself into the English Literature course that Jack is running; or devote so much time to chatting with Jack after hours about the anatomy of crime fiction, the roles of heroes and villains, and his favourite true-crime book of all time, In Cold Blood? But everything changes when Jack Griffen picks up a list of five templates for murder that has been written by Beck.

London, 1915. World War I has been raging for over a year, but despite it all Rose Spencer is feeling hopeful about the future. She's in love and planning her wedding to lovely, bicycle-shop owner Charlie. She loves working as a seamstress at the glamorous London's Lyceum Theatre but secretly can't help fantasising about seeing her own designs come to life. And even when she won't believe in her talent, thankfully best friends Joyce and Annie are always around to push her to have faith in her dreams.

A head teacher's work is never done, especially if, like Jane Cowan, you're a victim of your own success. Her responsibilities are compounded by an influx of children, most of whom do not speak English, following their families supplying cheap labour. Jane can't turn a blind eye to the conditions in which many of these families are living, even more so when some children simply disappear. When everything points to the shadowy dealings of people smugglers in the area, she has her work cut out.

Tom Harrison is the Tick Tock Man. He has the most dangerous job in Britain: defusing terrorist bombs. A job that demands nerves of steel and courage to match. But his skill is being tested to the limit by a new IRA bombing campaign. It's different from the others, each device more deadly and cunning than the last, each more difficult for him to neutralise. It's almost as if someone is testing him, trying to find his limits - a long-dead adversary reaching out to him from beyond the grave.

It is 1939. War threatens Europe. Troops are stationed near Tilling and rationing leads to queues in the High Street and a distinct shortage of goods at Twemlow’s. But it must be admitted that the hostilities that occupy the attention of Lucia and Georgie are with Elizabeth Mapp-Flint, rather than with the enemy across the Channel. Faced with Elizabeth’s elevation to the head of Tilling Red Cross (complete with uniform) and Major Benjy’s leadership of the Home Guard, it seems that Lucia’s domination of the little Sussex town is under serious threat.

Judi Westerholme has been through it. Brave and strong-willed, she's just about coping in her new role as foster parent to her orphaned niece, taking a job at the local pub to help make ends meet. Then the pub's landlord and Judi's friend, army veteran Pete 'Macca' Macclesfield, is murdered and her world is suddenly turned upside down. Despite warnings from the city police to keep out of it, Judi can't help but get involved in the search for Macca's killer.

The British government is worried. Rumours have spread about a new monster in the armoury of the Irish terrorist movement: an utterly ruthless team of American special forces mercenaries. The top secret, top priority order goes out: seek and destroy - no matter where. For the four-man Sabre team this will be their toughest ever assignment...probing the inner sanctum of the IRA's terror machine, fighting in the bloody carnage and chaos of Ulster. Never before has so much been at stake.

It’s our world, but decades into the future...an ordinary world, where cars drive themselves, drones glide across the sky, and robots work in burger shops. All conflicts are safely oceans away. People get up, work, and have dinner. Everything is as it should be. Except for 17-year-old John, a tech prodigy from a damaged family, who hides a deeply personal secret. But everything starts to change when he enters a tiny café on a cold Tokyo night. A café run by a disgraced sumo wrestler, where a peculiar dog with a spherical head lives, alongside its owner, enigmatic waitress Neotnia.

Thea Osborne reconnects with her friend Emmy while on a visit to the church in Baunton, near Cirencester with her stepdaughter Stephanie. Emmy, now married to local farmer Nick Weaver, asks Thea to help them find their missing niece, Ginny. Before Thea can get started, she stumbles upon the recently killed body of Alice, a woman they had briefly seen in Cirencester the day before.

A handsome, if slightly shabby, stone house in Upper Oddington is home to Umberto Kingley as well as his three dogs and will be Thea Slocombe's latest house-sitting assignment. Without even a local shop, Thea expects the location to be one of her quietest, until the serene atmosphere is shattered by a fatal hit-and-run. The ensuing high-profile police investigation plunges Thea deep into the victim's complicated family dynamics and the rift that had already torn it apart. And she cannot help wondering if the reverberations of scandal have led to a deliberate and murderous assault.

Babylon, 323 BC: Alexander the Great is dead, leaving behind him the largest empire the world has ever seen. As his final breaths fade in a room of seven bodyguards, Alexander refuses to name a successor. But without a natural heir, who will take the reins? As the news of the king's death ripples across the land, leaving all in disbelief, the ruthless battle for the throne begins. What follows is a tangled web of scheming and plotting, with alliances quickly made and easily broken, each rival with their own agenda.

Carrie's best friend has an accident and can no longer make the round-the-world trip they'd planned together, so Carrie decides to go it alone. Violet is also travelling alone, after splitting up with her boyfriend in Thailand. She is desperate for a ticket on the Trans-Siberian Express, but there is nothing available. When the two women meet in a Beijing Hotel, Carrie makes the impulsive decision to invite Violet to take her best friend's place. Thrown together in a strange country, and the cramped cabin of the train, the women soon form a bond

Virtual reality is the technology of the future, and Mark Fairfax’s brother Richard runs the leading company in the field worldwide. He has also been murdered. Mark is a City trader: sharp, young, ambitious. He is left to pick up the pieces at his brother’s company in Scotland’s 'Silicon Glen'. Struggling to keep the business in the black, and with corporate predators closing in, Mark must learn fast and trust no one. With his brother’s killer on the loose, bankruptcy may prove to be the least of his problems.

Gracie Flynn may be dead. But she's not gone. Three university friends are divided by a tragic death. Eighteen years later, chance reunites them. Robyn is still haunted by memories of her best friend Gracie, and Cohen's heart has never healed. Only Sam seems to have moved on and found success and happiness. But death rocks their lives again when Sam's body is found in mysterious circumstances. And the ghost of Gracie Flynn has a story to tell about the night that changed their lives forever.

Did anyone know Dr Gabriel Beaufort better than Ruby Rose Gillespie? They were friends at high school. They are secret lovers now. And because he is also the lung-transplant surgeon who saved her life, Ruby will forever be in his debt. But then the body of Dr Beaufort is found in the wetlands next to the hospital, on the same day as cystic fibrosis sufferer Ruby is readmitted with a sudden fever.

Hugh Everton was intent on nothing more than quietly drinking in the second-rate hotel he found himself in on England's south coast—and then in walked his old flame Lucy and her new husband and ex-Judge, Gregory Bath. Entreated by Lucy to join her party for an evening back at the Bath residence, Hugh is powerless to resist, but when the night ends with the judge's inexplicable murder he is pitched back into a world of chaos and crime—a world he had tried to escape for good.

The body of a young woman is found in Chinatown. She's been beaten, tortured - and tattooed with the image of a sun. Called to the scene, Sergeant Jackie Rose asks herself whether this was a drug murder, or something else. But before her investigation can get under way, she is ordered to hand the case over to the Australian Federal Police.