Crime Fiction
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Trick of the Dark Val McDermid £18.99 'Death is a hollow drum whose beat has measured out my adult life.' So writes Jay Macallan Stewart in her latest volume of memoirs. But nobody has ever asked whether that has been by accident or design. Nobody, that is, until Jay turns her sights on newly-wed and freshly-widowed Magda Newsam. For Magda's mother Corinna is an Oxford don who knows enough of Jay's history to be very afraid indeed. Determined to protect her daughter, Corinna turns to clinical psychologist Charlie Flint. But it's not the best time for Charlie. Her career is in ruins. Pilloried by the press, under investigation by her peers, she's barred from the profiling work she loves. What Corinna's asking may be her last chance at redemption. But as Charlie digs into the past and its trail of bodies she starts to realise the price of truth may be more than she wants to pay. Another piece of brilliant nastyness from the Queen of Crime who has just won the Crime Writers Association Diamond Dagger, awarded for an outstanding collection of work and about time too! |
The Lazarus Vault Tom Harper £6.99 An action packed thriller with a labyrinthine plot which is perfect for those who loved the likes of The Da Vinci Code or The Rule of Four. This time the story centres on a very secretive bank in the very heart of London. Deep in the vaults of this historic city bank there is an ancient and deadly secret…..we can say no more! |
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The Anatomy of Ghosts Andrew Taylor £18.99 1786, Jerusalem College Cambridge. The ghost of Sylvia Whichcote is rumoured to be haunting Jerusalem since disturbed fellow-commoner, Frank Oldershaw, claims to have seen the dead woman prowling the grounds. Desperate to salvage her son's reputation, Lady Anne Oldershaw employs John Holdsworth, author of The Anatomy of Ghosts - a stinging account of why ghosts are mere delusion - to investigate. But his arrival in Cambridge disrupts an uneasy status quo as he glimpses a world of privilege and abuse, where the sinister Holy Ghost Club governs life at Jerusalem more effectively than the Master, Dr Carbury, ever could. And when Holdsworth finds himself haunted - not only by the ghost of his dead wife, Maria, but also Elinor, the very-much-alive Master's wife - his fate is sealed. He must find Sylvia's murderer or the hauntings will continue. And not one of them will leave the claustrophobic confines of Jerusalem unchanged. Great gothic thriller! |
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Heartstone C. J. Sansom £18.99 At last, a new outing for our favourite Reformation lawyer! It was summer, 1545. England is at war. Henry VIII's invasion of France has gone badly wrong, and a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel. As the English fleet gathers at Portsmouth, the country raises the largest militia army it has ever seen. The King has debased the currency to pay for the war, and England is in the grip of soaring inflation and economic crisis. Meanwhile Shardlake is given an intriguing legal case by an old servant of Queen Catherine Parr. Asked to investigate claims of 'monstrous wrongs' committed against a young ward of the court, which have already involved one mysterious death, our hero and his assistant Barak journey to Portsmouth. Once arrived, they find themselves in a city preparing to become a war zone; and Shardlake takes the opportunity to also investigate the mysterious past of Ellen Fettipace, a young woman incarcerated in the Bedlam. The emerging mysteries around the young ward, and the events that destroyed Ellen's family nineteen years before, involve Shardlake in reunions both with an old friend and an old enemy close to the throne. Events will converge on board one of the King's great warships, primed for battle in Portsmouth harbour. |
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A Walk in the Dark Gianrico Carofiglio £7.99 This is the second in a series featuring fearless fighter of Italian corruption Guido Guerrieri! No one in Bari wants to represent Martina in her efforts to bring her ex-boyfriend to trial for assault and battery. He is a successful doctor and the son of a powerful and vindictive local judge. Witnesses are suddenly unwilling to testify and Martina has a history of psychological problems. Guerrieri knows this case is likely to bring his legal career to a premature and messy end. But he cannot resist the appeal of a hopeless cause. Nor deny his attraction to Sister Claudia, the fiercely protective young woman in charge of the shelter where Martina is living. Sister Claudia, who usually wears a black leather jacket and jeans, shares Guerrieri's love for martial arts and his outrage at the hypocrisy and corruption revealed by the trial. |