Search Results for: Born a Crime

When it comes to immigration, the population explosion, the collapse of the family, the north-south divide, devolution, or the death of the countryside, common wisdom tells us that we are in trouble; however, this is far from the truth. In his brilliant anatomy of contemporary Britain, leading geographer Daniel Dorling dissects the nation and reveals unexpected truths about the way we live today, contrary to what you might read in the news:

The human mosaic: Most children who live above the fourth floor of tower blocks in England are Black or Asian. The higher you go in a building, the darker skinned children tend to be.

Relationships: The more times a person’s heart is broken, the nearer they will tend to move to the sea. If you want to find a good man to marry head for the countryside.

North and South: People in the south move home on average every seven years and job every eight years. This is a year faster than in the north of England, but a year slower than is usual in Scotland.

Optimum population: Emmigrant nation – There are twice as many grandchildren of British-born people living over-seas as there are people living in Britain who have grandparents who were themselves born abroad. The problem now is more about getting pregnant than a population explosion and we need more immigration not less.

Immigration: Muslims are far more likely to marry non-Muslims in Britain than Christians are to marry non-Christians.

The elderly: Most people in Britain never live long enough to experience being burgled. In some areas you would have to live for over five hundred years to have an ‘evens’ chance of being a crime victim.

Town and Country – divided since the enclosures: Step children are most commonly found in the most leafy of idyllic rural villages. Nuclear family homogeneity is now an inner city phenomena. Why are there no cheap homes in the countryside any more?

Transport: The greatest threat to life in Britain of all those aged under 40 is the car. For adults aged over 24 they most likely die as a driver, over 15 as a passenger, and over age 4 as a pedestrian.

Work: There is no need for us to work until we drop – all could retire early.

Reviews for Injustice:

“A geographer maps the injustices of Selfish Capitalism with scholarly detachment.” –Oliver James.

“Dorling provides the brain-cleaning software we need to begin creating a happier society. ” –Richard Wilkinson author of The Spirit Level.

Seventeenth-century Tokyo is the setting for Rowland’s first book in a murder mystery series featuring Sano Ichiro the Senior Police Commander in the district of Edo. Ichiro is a samurai whose academic background puts him at odds with most of his peers.

When beautiful, wealthy Yukiko and low-born artist Noriyoshi are found drowned together in what seems to be a shinju, or ritual double suicide, everyone believes the cause was their forbidden love. Everyone, that is, but Sano Ichiro.

Despite the official verdict and being warned off by his superiors, the shogun’s Most Honourable Investigator of Events, Situations and People suspects this double death was not only a tragedy – it was murder. Risking his family’s good name and his own life, Sano will search for the killer across every level of society, determined to find answers to a mystery no one else seems to want solved . . .

The new novel from the internatinal bestselling author of Roma, is set against the background of Caesar’s stupendous quadruple triumphs in Rome in 46 BC, full of colour and spectacle.

Having obliterated the opposition, Caesar is now dictator for life. In the upcoming celebrations, Vercingetorix the Gaul is scheduled to be executed, as is Arsinoë, the sister of Cleopatra…and Cleopatra herself is in Rome on a state visit, trying to convince Caesar to acknowledge their son as his heir.

Marc Antony and Caesar are at odds; Cicero is making a fool of himself with a new teenage bride; and Caesar’s wife Calpurnia, having fallen under the spell of an Etruscan soothsayer, is convinced of a plot on her husband’s life.

Murder and intrigue again draw Gordianus into the vortex of history.

Praise for Stephen Saylor

‘Saylor is on top form with the latest in his extraordinarily vivid series of crime novels set in ancient Rome.’ Sunday Times

‘Saylor’s gifts include authentic historical and topographical backgrounds and… sombre themes set off the brilliant scenery and clever plotting.’ Times Literary Supplement

‘Saylor’s scholarship is breathtaking and his writing enthrals.’ Ruth Rendell

‘Readers will find his work wonderfully (and gracefully) researched… this is entertainment of the first order.’ Washington Post

‘Saylor has acquired the information of a historian but he enjoys the gifts of a born novelist.’ Boston Globe

BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY, CAROL AND STRANGERS ON A TRAIN

‘The No.1 Greatest Crime Writer’ THE TIMES

‘I love Highsmith so much . . . What a revelation her writing is’ GILLIAN FLYNN

‘No one has created psychological suspense more densely and deliciously satisfying’ VOGUE

‘Ramón had done it. Obviously! He thought about Ramón, his Catholic soul trapped in his passion for Lelia. He’d find Ramón and see that he paid with his life for what he had done.’

In A Game for the Living, threads of sexual jealousy and guilt are shot through with all Patricia Highsmith’s uncanny talent for the unexpected.

Ramón mends furniture. Theodore paints. A devout Catholic, Ramón lives in Mexico City, not far from where he was born into poverty. Theodore, a rich German transplanted to a country where money buys some comfort but no peace, believes in nothing at all.

You’d think the two had nothing in common. Except, of course, that both had slept with Lelia. The two were good friends, so neither minded sharing her affections. They did mind, however, when Lelia was found raped, murdered, and horribly mutilated. The two friends, suspects both, twist in a limbo of tension and doubt, each seeking his own form of solace and truth.

A thrilling, psychologically complex novel, rich with setting, A Game for the Living is Highsmith at her best.

It will take all of Aunt Dimity’s otherworldly powers to restore tranquillity to a sleepy English village…

Savour a masterpiece of old-fashioned fun in Aunt Dimity Digs In, the fourth mystery to feature Nancy Atherton’s supernatural sleuth. Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and Midsomer Murders.

‘Atherton is a superb writer who brings a lot of charm and wit to her story’ – Suspense Magazine

Lori Shepherd and husband Bill Willis are striving to adjust to Cotswold life with their new-born twins. But when a visiting archaeologist’s discovery stirs up local civil war in the village of Finch, Lori must use her expertise in rare books – and invaluable help from her otherworldly Aunt Dimity – to solve the mystery.
As Lori hunts down a missing document that promises to shed light on the situation, the archaeologist unearths an even greater mystery. But it is Aunt Dimity’s magic blue notebook that will provide the key to the buried secrets. For even the darkest acts can be overcome…

What readers are saying about Aunt Dimity Digs In:

‘I recommend [this series] for a rainy day curled up on the couch with a cup of tea‘

‘Simply the best and most beautiful cosy series in the world’

‘[A] quintessential cosy that adds some supernatural elements to soothe the soul while delighting its fans with magic‘

Switching continuously between 1984 and the present day, Born Under Punches follows the intertwined lives of a small group of characters, all linked in various ways to the 1984 miners’ strike: Tony Woodhouse, a professional footballer who can’t escape his shady past; Tommy Jobson, cruising the streets of Newcastle, violently collecting debts, about to be sucked into something far more dangerous; Mick Hutton, a striking miner, increasingly desperate to find ways to support his wife and growing family; Stephen Larkin, an idealistic young journalist, determined to expose the truth about the strike – as he sees it; Stephen’s sister, Louise, in love with Tony Woodhouse, stalked by a shadowy figure from her past. As the lives of these five characters unfold, it becomes clear the strike will have devastating repercussions – not only for those directly involved, but for future generations too.

When a friend’s sixteen-year-old daughter goes missing, investigative reporter Stephen Larkin is enlisted to help find her. Following a trail of warring drug dealers, child prostituion, and born-again Christian gangsters, it soon becomes clear that they are not the only ones looking for the girl, and that others don’t care if she is found dead or alive.

The standalone novel from the critically-acclaimed Peter Lovesey. Rough Cider was nominated for an Edgar Award.

It is World War II and American soldiers stationed in rural England have made friends, especially with the local girls. After a dance to celebrate the pressing of the apples into cider, the resentment of the local men leads to violence and a murder. Later, a baby girl is born.

Years later, Theo, a university lecturer, is approached by an American girl called Alice. She wants to be told about her father, a GI hanged for murder in Somerset during World War II. As a boy, Theo had been a principal witness for the prosecution.

Alice persuades him to revisit the farm where Theo was evacuated, staunchly determined to discover the facts. The horrors of the past take on a frightening immediacy when long-forgotten jealousies come to the surface and another murder is committed.

When Cindy Decker finds a new-born baby in a rubbish bin, she can’t imagine who would commit such a crime. Surely abandoning a baby is the biggest taboo of motherhood? The usual suspects – prostitutes, homeless women and drug abusers – aren’t responsible. In fact, the culprit is a woman who appears almost as vulnerable as her own baby. As the case continues, Cindy realises she’s in deep – her own life in danger – and there’s only one person who can help, her father and boss, Lieutenant Peter Decker. They both know the key to a successful investigation is keeping a cool, professional head, but with a father and daughter detective team, can it ever be anything other than personal?

Death might be commonplace in 1857 in the Royal Free Hospital in London’s Gray’s Inn Road, but murder certainly isn’t. When the body of Prudence Barrymore, a gently bred, dedicated and passionate nurse, is discovered stuffed into a laundry chute no one – high born or low – can be beyond suspicion. But the police seem determined to concentrate their efforts on proving Dr Kristian Beck the culprit – because he is foreign. Concerned and unhappy with this state of affairs, Lady Callandra Daviot of the Board of Governers asks Investigator William Monk to pursue the case.
Monk, frustrated by the lingering traces of amnesia caused by an accident, agrees, and calls upon his old colleagues to aid him. Hester Latterly, an independent young woman who served with Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War, knew the dead woman there; Hester’s profession provides the perfect cover for her to obtain work at the Royal Free. And Oliver Rathbone, a brilliant barrister, who is brought in as counsel for the defence. But under the ever-present shadow of the gallows, and inching towards the appalling solution, the three begin to despair of justice ever prevailing.

Contains the two novellas Border Town Girl and Linda.

Border Town Girl

Once, Lane Sanson had been a Somebody – war correspondent and a bestselling author. Now he was a Nobody, bumming around Mexico. Lost, lonely, hungry for hope, he was a pushover for a border town B-girl – the perfect fall guy for a lethal frame up . . .

Linda

She was born with the morality gene missing. As beautiful, as inviting, as treacherous as the sea around her, Linda is one of the most compelling women ever created by John D. MacDonald.

‘Frances Brody has made it to the top rank of crime writers’ Daily Mail

‘Brody’s writing is like her central character Kate Shackleton: witty, acerbic and very, very perceptive’ Ann Cleeves

A lady with a secret

Kate Shackleton’s sterling reputation for courageous sleuthing attracts the attention of the venerable Lady Coulton. Hidden in her past is a daughter, born out of wedlock and given up to a different family. Now, Lady Coulton is determined to find her and puts Kate on the case.

A mysterious killing in the library’s basement

But as Kate delves deeper into Lady Coulton’s past, she soon finds herself thrust into a scandal much closer to home. When the body of the respected Horatio Potter is found in the Leeds Library basement, the quiet literary community is suddenly turned upside down with suspicions, accusations and – much to Kate’s surprise – the appearance of a particularly intelligent Capuchin monkey!

The most puzzling case in Kate’s sleuthing history yet

Convinced an innocent man has been blamed, Kate sets out to discover the truth. Who would want Dr Potter dead? Does Lady Coulton’s missing daughter hold a vital clue? As the stories start to emerge in the seemingly quiet Leeds Library, Kate is learning fast that in this case, she can’t judge a book by its cover . . .

What readers are saying about the Kate Shackleton mysteries:

‘Kate Shackleton is a splendid heroine’ Ann Granger

‘Delightful’ People’s Friend

‘Frances Brody matches a heroine of free and independent spirit with a vivid evocation of time and place . . . a novel to cherish’ Barry Turner, Daily Mail

‘Brody’s excellent mystery splendidly captures the conflicts and attitudes of the time with well-developed characters’ RT Book Reviews

‘Kate Shackleton joins Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs in a subgroup of young, female amateur detectives who survived and were matured by their wartime experiences’ Literary Review

Louise Widdows has never been happy in her marriage. From a generation where the woman’s role was one of support and supplication, she provided both in exchange for a secure roof over her head. But her facade of gentility disguises two secrets: a child born in adultery and given away at birth, and a small inheritance she has always kept hidden. But then events align in her favour: her husband abruptly leaves her, and the father of her illegitimate son dies, allowing her the possibility of finding him after all these years.

Abandoning the shabby matrimonial home, she moves into a cottage and begins to blossom in her independence. But things are not destined to run smoothly. Two bodies are discovered near her old home, and she discovers that her husband has absconded with a charity’s funds, as well as the contents of their bank account. Suddenly her new life seems very precarious indeed, putting in doubt that she will ever locate her unknown son.

When Isabel’s god-daughter, Emily, turns up after years of no contact and in need of help, she feels duty-bound to take her under her wing. To her surprise, Emily is determined to be independent and takes a job as nanny. Emily’s charge turns out to be the illegitimate child of the naïve daughter of a well-to-do couple and a ne’er-do-well conman who disappeared before the baby was born. And now he is back, intent on exploiting his parental status in return for cash.

Before she knows it, Emily is caught up in his botched attempts at blackmail, trying desperately to protect her charge from harm, while also shielding Isabel from becoming entangled in the drama. But when events beyond her control force her to act instinctively, with horrendous effect, all their lives are put terribly at risk.

Celebrity, identity and sexuality – the three poles of our fame-obsessed society, each one a magnet for secrets and lies.
Despite her youth, Russian-born Yana Ivanova is already a Hollywood legend. She lives in a beautiful house in Beverly Hills with Jimmy, a sitcom star, and Penny, her British PA. Theirs is a strange and uneasy partnership, held together by sex, secrets and the fear of scandal. Then Yana starts receiving threatening letters from an anonymous but very knowledgeable source. Suspicion turns to fear, and fear leads to murder. But who exactly is conning whom?
Stella Duffy has written crime novels and dark romantic comedies. Here she combines the two in a smart, sexy, suspenseful new novel. Poison pen letters, fake identities, misplaced affection, betrayal and murder . . . Still think a menage à trois sounds fun?

Fear, revenge and deadly superstition collide in these two exclusive J. D. Robb short stories.

Haunted in Death

Lieutenant Eve Dallas doesn’t believe in ghosts. But when a very recent corpse shows up in a haunted abandoned nightclub, alongside the bones of the famous missing singer, Bobbie Bray, everyone is spooked – especially the new owner.

Did Bobbie’s ghost finally get her revenge, or is there a more earthly explanation?

Set between Memory in Death and Born in Death.

Eternity in Death

When notorious it-girl Tiara Kent is found dead in her plush Manhattan apartment, the murder looks to everyone like a vampire attack – everyone but the ever-practical Lieutenant Eve Dallas. As the hysteria spreads, Eve must act fast.

Discovering Tiara’s secret lover, a Dark Prince, Eve and her team are led on a chase into the darkest corners of the city and deep into their own fears.

Set between Creation in Death and Strangers in Death.

The third book in the Jasmine Sharp series, from author Christopher Brookmyre.

One crime brought them together . . .

Private investigator Jasmine Sharp should have wanted him dead.

Yet somehow, Jasmine bonded with Glen Fallan, the man who killed her father before she was born. Now he has been arrested for the murder of a local gangster, and Jasmine must finally enter his violent domain to seek answers.

. . . a second will break them apart

Detective Superintendent Catherine McLeod is in fear for her life.

When she discovers a symbol daubed on the head of Fallan’s alleged victim, it unearths secrets that will threaten everything Catherine holds dear.

One murder. Two women. A lifetime of lies revealed.

Eve wasn’t sure what it said about her that she was more comfortable in the morgue than a baby boutique. And she didn’t care. The scent of death was the familiar.

Rushing to the murder scenes of a tortured young woman, Eve is far more at home than when organising best friend Mavis’s baby shower.

And then one of Mavis’s guests – the young, pregnant Tandy – disappears into thin air. Eve steps in, but when the facts begin to blur with the earlier murders, she unearths a chilling trail of deception and cold-blooded greed, leading to a terrifying hunt to find Tandy before time runs out.

‘Fast-paced, superbly crafted’ Library Journal

The cloistered walls of Shrewsbury Abbey have always protected Brother Cadfael from the raging Civil War. But when fighting escalates between Empress Maud and King Stephen, the war takes a deadly step closer to him. Taken prisoner in the battle for Maud’s land is Olivier de Bretagne, Brother Cadfael’s own son- born as a result of a brief encouter thirty years earlier. Now Brother Cadfael resolves to plead for his son’s release at a peace conference scheduled to take place in Coventry; but there is no sign of Olivier there. After much soul searching, Cadfael makes the difficult decision to break his monastic vows, leaving Coventry without permission- because he knows he must do everything in his power to find his son.

The second most infamous member of the shadow organisation called Sentella, Kere, an explosives engineer, is known for striking terror in the hearts of all enemies. The bounty on his head is truly staggering, and no one outside the Sentella knows his real identity.

Zarya Starska grew up hard on the back streets of hell. Labeled a traitor because of her father’s political beliefs, she dreams of a different life and a different world. A world where the harsh hand of the Caronese government doesn’t destroy the lives of its citizens. As a resistance leader, her goal is to topple to government that took her father’s life, along with her mysterious right-hand man, known only as Kere.


But Kere has a dark secret. He’s out for revenge for past crimes against his family, and plans to annihilate all those he feels guilty, along with every resistance member he can find . . . including Zarya.

An exclusive J.D. Robb short story.

Lieutenant Eve Dallas doesn’t believe in ghosts. But everyone else is spooked by the supposedly haunted abandoned nightclub where a very recent corpse has just shown up – alongside the bones of the famous missing singer, Bobbie Bray. As grandson of the original owner, Radcliff C. Hopkins was planning to reopen the nightclub and cash in on its notoriety. But his grandfather is rumoured to be the one who killed Bobbie. Did Bobbie’s ghost finally get her revenge, or is there a more earthly explanation?

Set between Memory in Death and Born in Death.

Will he ever find the life he longs for?

Born to a mother who died in childbirth and an uninterested father, Niall McAndrew grows up a solitary child, without a home to call his own. His only friend is Bridget, a young girl forced prematurely into womanhood.

Niall has brains, spirit and ambition, as well as being blessed with handsome good looks. But his loveless childhood has left its mark. Can he ever find the happiness he yearns for?

A moving and uplifting tale of a young boy with big dreams…

From the bestselling author of Far From My Father’s House and Miss Appleby’s Academy comes a rags-to-riches tale of one man’s determination to succeed. Perfect for fans of Maggie Hope and Diane Allen.

‘My favourite series’ Val McDermid

DCI Nelson has been receiving threatening letters telling him to ‘go to the stone circle and rescue the innocent who is buried there’. He is shaken, not only because children are very much on his mind, with Michelle’s baby due to be born, but because although the letters are anonymous, they are somehow familiar. They read like the letters that first drew him into the case of The Crossing Places, and to Ruth. But the author of those letters is dead. Or are they?

Meanwhile Ruth is working on a dig in the Saltmarsh – another henge, known by the archaeologists as the stone circle – trying not to think about the baby. Then bones are found on the site, and identified as those of Margaret Lacey, a twelve-year-old girl who disappeared thirty years ago.

As the Margaret Lacey case progresses, more and more aspects of it begin to hark back to that first case of The Crossing Places, and to Scarlett Henderson, the girl Nelson couldn’t save. The past is reaching out for Ruth and Nelson, and its grip is deadly.

It’s the year 1260 and the great cathedral – the most ambitious building in all of Christendom – is rising above the streets of Cologne. Far below its soaring spires and flying buttresses, an assassin of unnatural talent surveys his new hunting ground.

More shadow than man, the assassin is quick to take his first life. But there is a witness to his crime: a flame-haired thief known as Jacob the Fox. Justly terrified by the black-clad spectre, Jacob runs for his life, convinced that he’s pursued by the Angel of Death itself.

For all his street-smart cunning, the wily Fox cannot shake off the assassin – a cruel, efficient murderer who favours a pistol-grip crossbow as his weapon of choice. Fate, injury and desperation lead Jacob to seek help from a beautiful clothes dyer, her drunken rascal of a father, and her learned uncle, a man of God who loves a battle of wits almost as much as he loves a bottle of wine.

With the threat of an untimely death at the end of a crossbow bolt never far way, Jacob’s unlikely cabal find themselves faced with a conspiracy born of an unquenchable thirst for revenge, a conspiracy that threatens to tear Cologne apart and stain the city with blood.