Showing results by author "Peter Lovesey" in All Categories

Brighton, 1882: Albert Moscrop spends his holiday peering at beachgoers through a telescope, piecing together disarmingly trivial observations into a compelling drama for his own amusement. A keen student of human nature, Moscrop concentrates his interest on one particular family - the Protheros, especially the beautiful Zena Prothero, whose husband appears to take her for granted. Moscrop gradually moves into the circle of the Prothero family, only to become involved in a sensational murder.

Trish Noble, a nurse and devotee of her local church, walks into a Bath police station and confesses to killing her husband. She found him drunk again, saw red and hit him in the side of the head with a teapot. Detective Peter Diamond struggles to see the woman as a cold, callous killer, but when the post-mortem reveals stab wounds to Glenn Noble’s back as the cause of death, it becomes clear there’s more to this case than meets the eye. 

Albert and Karen don’t have much. They live in a bedsit in Reading, and Karen spends her evenings mending clothes. So when a chance to win £10,000 from a video clip submitted to a TV programme arises, the couple can’t resist. They borrow a caravan, park it precariously close to a clifftop in Wales - what could possible go wrong? 

Six months after the funeral of Danny Fox, his friend of more than 30 years, the narrator of this story takes a holiday in Florida, and is shocked to bump into Danny’s widow, who has seemingly remarried already. Uneasy with the cause of his friend’s death, he must follow the widow to get to the bottom of it. 

It’s 1946, and tensions are running high in the Morris household. It’s no secret that Frank is handy with his fists, but what will finally tip him over the edge as they all sit round the table for Christmas dinner? 

When Gloria’s mother seemingly has a new fancy-man, she decides to humiliate them both by planting evidence of the affair in his car for his wife to find. But has she got the wrong end of the stick? 

A story from the collection Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose. The narrator of this short story is unimpressed when all he is bequeathed by his uncle George upon his death, a notorious diamond robber, is his noisy, blue and yellow macaw parrot called Roger. But when Roger is stolen, it becomes clear the parrot is more valuable than the narrator thinks.

A story from the collection Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose. It’s Halloween, and thunder cracks overhead in the village of Odstock. Dr Tom Staniforth is giving a lecture on the legend of Tom Scamp, who was wrongly hung for a crime he didn’t commit, and the gypsy curse that has haunted the village ever since. But when a member of the audience presents the rusted key which hasn’t opened the cursed church in over 200 years, will all of Tom’s scientific and verifiable evidence rendering the curse a myth be cast into doubt?

A story from the collection Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose. Albert and Rose have been married for 47 years. To everyone else they’re the perfect couple, but Albert has reached breaking point. He’s tired of the same routine every night, the same conversation and running around after his wife. But how to escape when his wife adores him? The only way is murder.

A story from the collection Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose. It’s Christmas week, and there’s been a grisly discovery in Santa’s grotto: the head of the toy department has been murdered, a crossbow arrow through his chest. But when the store manager arrives, the body has vanished. It’s up to shop assistant Pauline, Santa and his elf to get to the bottom of the mystery.

A story from the collection Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose. When widower George Blackitt falls in love with Edith Plumley, there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her - including murder.... Edith keeps pedigree mice, and with just one more win, she’ll be a lifetime member of the National Fancy Mice Society. But suddenly there’s new competition in the village, in the form of George’s neighbours.

A story from the collection Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose. Does your wife give you grief? Mr Cronk’s does. But how far would you go for a peaceful life? Mr Cronk has heard about the 'Fixer' - he can make people disappear, for a price.

A story from the collection Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose. Whilst John and Olga Hitchman are at the Theatre Royal enjoying their usual box, they become the victims of a professional thief who has his eye on their Fabergé egg as an Easter gift for his partner. Known only as 'Macavity', the name given to him by the press, this thief thinks he’s untouchable. But that was before he had detective Peter Diamond on his tail.

A story from the collection Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose. Bertie, Prince of Wales, must combine his detective skills with those of a firefighter when he tends to a fire in Villiers Street. With no apparent cause, Bertie soon finds himself on the tail of an arsonist.

A story from the collection Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose. Some might think that Bertie, Prince of Wales’ first case was the suspicious death of jockey Fred Archer in 1886, but here the self-important amateur sleuth recalls how his talent for deduction started much earlier in his youth, when he solved a mystery surrounding an Oxford boat race.

A story from the collection Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose. Professor Patrick Storm and Bishop Ben Tattersall receive a call out of the blue from their Cambridge university chum Cape Brown. He is honouring the pact they made 40 years previously - to reunite and climb Mount Snowdon - and he won’t take no for an answer. However, it becomes clear that there is an ulterior motive behind Cape’s reunion and events soon take a dark turn.

Surprises are guaranteed, as elephants appear in a London side street; a gang of geriatrics goes on a hearing aid heist and an underworld boss searches for a harp. Join the author in a brush with Adolf Hitler and take a walk on Beachy Head, the UK's favourite suicide spot.

In 1890 twelve guests gather at Desborough Hall for a week’s shooting party hosted by the beautiful Lady Amelia Hammond. Months of planning have left nothing to chance, for the main guests are the Prince and Princess of Wales.But events take a sinister turn when the vivacious Queenie Chimes collapses face down in the chef’s lovingly created bombe-glacée. More deaths follow and clues planted on the bodies point shockingly to a final tally of seven, one for each day of the week. Bertie is impelled to investigate.

Listen to mystery stories by today's top writers and the masters who inspired them. The idea for this collection came to Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Lawrence Block when he was asked, "What is your favorite mystery story?" Block compiled this unique collection by posing the same question to some of today's favorite writers of the genre, including Stephen King, Tony Hillerman, and John Lutz.

It is 1886 and the greatest of all jockeys, Fred Archer, has put his gun to his head and shot himself. An inquest is arranged with indecent haste. His mind was unhinged by typhoid, say the jury, despite conflicting evidence. The Prince is suspicious. He admired Archer. He knows the Turf better than anyone on that jury and he has personal experience of typhoid. When he learns that Archer’s last words were, ‘Are they coming?’ he decides on action.