Bird Mystery

Recently divorced and reluctantly retired, Julia Bird has fled London to enjoy idyllic rural life in the Cotswolds. Determined to have the perfect English garden, her first job is to tear down the old shed, where she unearths much more than she’d bargained for: a body, apparently buried for decades. But who could it be, and who killed them? The police draw a blank, and even the gossip-fest that is the local book club can’t remember anyone going missing in the village.

Spring has come to Berrywick, and Julia Bird is determined to enjoy the fine weather. But not all life is in flower when she stumbles across the body of building expert Basil Crow next to a bright yellow digger. And Julia believes this is no accident.

In 1998, the American Jorgenson family had been on a year-long road trip in Australia. One humid, storming night, the mother - Elsa Jorgenson - vanished in an isolated stretch of Australian everglades. Elsa was never seen again. That night, twelve-year-old Lily Jorgenson was left alone and terrified in the family camper—even her teenage sister Iris is missing. When Iris comes racing back through the rain, she refuses to tell where she’s been. Lily is certain her sister is hiding a dark secret.

Charming, devilishly handsome, and talented, Vincent teases the crowd with a reading from his forthcoming novel. Set in a village bearing strange similarities to Berrywick, with characters the audience start to recognize, Vincent hints of dark secrets to be revealed, to gasps of outrage from the room. The meeting ends in uproar, and, just hours later, Vincent’s dead body is discovered behind the bookshelves....

'You walk and the harvest moon casts the clearest of shadows. You are nervous. With a moon like that, it is not a night for escaping. It is a night made better for hunting runaway girls.' Himalayas: Unknown Year 'Ten thousand strands of trouble', says Bird's father, watching as Bird's sister braids her hair. On the eve of her 14th year, that trouble finds Bird. Fleeing her home to escape an arranged marriage, she attempts to vanish into a crowd of pilgrims – not knowing that violence is circling, and that it already has its eyes on her.

At the end of Berrywick’s amateur theatre’s latest production, a shot rings out amongst the rapturous applause. But when Julia Bird peeks through the curtain, she sees lead actor Graham is lying still on the stage, his co-actor Oscar looking down at his prop gun in shock. She knows that Graham has been murdered, but with nearly everyone in the village helping with the play, anyone could have tampered with the props. And why was a beloved family man the target?

Rose Gardner is trying to build a new normal. One that leaves the Fenton County crime world - including James "Skeeter" Malcolm, the current king - behind. Her best friend and roommate is a big part of that effort, but Neely Kate is busy building her own life anew. She disappeared for a few days, scaring the spit out of Rose - which is why Rose finds it impossible to deny her when she suggests they look for a missing parrot. Only this time Neely Kate isn't interested in the reward money - she's set them up to work with a cranky private investigator.

The annual village celebration at Berrywick House is underway, complete with overdecorated cake stalls, fiercely contested flower competitions, and even a maze for the disappointed losers to hide in. Julia Bird, now a well-known–even notorious–member of the community, with her trusty Labrador, Jake, has thrown herself headlong into the festivities. But her reputation for adding drama to any event stands up yet again when she discovers a dead body in the maze....

When Julia Bird’s ex-husband Peter and his lovely partner Christopher decide to get married in Berrywick, Julia is delighted–after all, who doesn't love a country wedding? Little does Julia know that normally calm and collected Christopher will turn into a full-on Groomzilla–and that by the end of the night, someone will end up dead. The morning after the big day, the jolly nuptial mood turns grim when Julia discovers the lifeless body of the caterer, Desmond. Someone locked him in the cold truck and the poor man froze to death.

The South American Boreal: one of the last truly unexplored jungles on our planet. In its dark heart is an ancient crater basin, sealed in by a living cage, making it a time capsule for an ancient, deadly ecosystem. Matt Kearns, Carla Nero and a team of scientist explorers have found their way in. In the crater's sunken interior are creatures from a primordial nightmare. Dangers lurk in every treetop, under every rock or loom monstrously over them. It is a place where mankind is out of time.

For Janet MacPhail, photographing retrievers in training is the perfect way to spend an evening. But a photo session at Twisted Lake takes a peculiar turn as Drake, her friend Tom's Labrador, fetches a blood-soaked bag holding an exotic feather and a torn $100 bill. When one of her photography students turns up dead at the lake, Janet investigates a secretive retreat center with help from Australian Shepherd Jay and her quirky neighbor Goldie.

When Merle's husband dies suddenly the will is quite a shock. And so is an intriguing surprise - Harry left her a family home in a tiny French village. She had no idea he owned the house where he was born. Merle sets out to claim her inheritance, adolescent son in tow, and thus begins a sojourn reminiscent of A Year in Provence, or perhaps Under The Tuscan Sun.

Matt Kearns and the remnants of the scientific team return to a ravaged America. Modern medicine has failed to halt the spread of the flesh-consuming parasite, and humans have been forced to hide, even from one another. The infected roam the cities and suburbs of a ruined nation. But the devastating effects on human physiology are only the beginning. Something has been let loose, something that the team were not prepared for - human nature itself.

Read by Anna Popplewell, known for her role in The Chronicles of Narnia. Richard & Judy Book Club Pick Sunday Times Bestseller Set during London's blitz and filled with warmth, wit and heartbreak, Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce is a wartime story about the power of friendship, the kindness of...

Homicide detective Frost Easton doesn't like coincidences. When a series of bizarre deaths rock San Francisco - as seemingly random women suffer violent psychotic breaks - Frost looks for a connection that leads him to psychiatrist Francesca Stein. Frankie's controversial therapy helps people erase their most terrifying memories...and all the victims were her patients.

Narrated by Jessica Matten, star of the AMC series DARK WINDS, based on the Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito novels “Anne Hillerman is a star.”—J. A. Jance, New York Times bestselling author From New York Times bestselling author Anne Hillerman, a thrilling and moving chapter in the Leaphorn...

Brought to you by Penguin. The new novel from the author of Sunday Times bestseller and Richard and Judy Pick The Glass House Some secrets need to be set free . . . Lauren, Kat and Flora are half-sisters who share a famous artist father - and a terrible secret. Over the years they've grown into...

It starts with a stranger walking into a campsite, seemingly out of nowhere. It ends with that same stranger at the Denver airport. Along the way, he has acquired a prize that will be his salvation. But the road to Easy Street can take unexpected turns. And the only certainty about a sure thing is that nothing is certain at all.

Eve and Liza, Mother and Daughter, live a quiet life in their remote home; a rustic gatehouse of a country mansion. At first glance their lives appear quite ordinary, except that Liza has almost no knowledge of the outside world, has never played with a child her own age and has witnessed her mother commit murder, on multiple occasions.

Running from a bad relationship, journalist Jo Sharpe heads home to Arthurville, the drought-stricken town she turned her back on years earlier. While some things have changed - her relationship with her ailing, crotchety father, her new job at the community newspaper - Jo finds that her return has rekindled the grief and uncertainty she experienced during her childhood following the inexplicable disappearance of her mother and baby sister.