Sophie Rivers' hopes for a peaceful sabbatical are squashed when she becomes the victim of a terrifying stalker at a literary festival.Sophie Rivers is on a year's sabbatical from her teaching job at William Murdock College, and is enjoying spending time with her fiancé Mike Lowden and volunteering at the Big Brum Bookfest – an exciting new literary festival. But someone is determined to sabotage the event. Phone calls and letters threaten the festival's most prestigious authors and the director mysteriously falls ill. Then, suddenly put in charge of the project, Sophie becomes the victim of a terrifying stalker.It's not long before Sophie is calling her old friend Superintendent Chris Groom to find out as much as she can about the case. But when the stalker turns murderer, it's clear she's in way over her head.

First in a brand-new Victorian mystery series featuring steward Matthew Rowsley and housekeeper Mrs Faulkner as an engaging detective duo. Newly appointed as land agent to the youthful Lord Croft, Matthew Rowsley finds plenty to keep him busy as he attends to his lordship's neglected country estate. But he's distracted from his tasks by the disappearance of a young housemaid. Has Maggie really eloped with a young man, as her mother attests – or is the truth rather more sinister? What's been going on behind the scenes at the grand country estate ... and where has his lordship disappeared to? Teaming up with housekeeper Mrs Faulkner to get to the bottom of the matter, Matthew uncovers a number of disturbing secrets, scandals and simmering tensions within the household. Something rotten is going on at Thorncroft – and it's up to Matthew and Mrs Faulkner to unearth the truth.

Stranded at a house party - when a murderer strikes!May 1861, Victorian England. When Matthew and Harriet Rowsley are invited to a house party at Clunston Park by Matthew's cousin, Colonel Barrington Rowsley and his wife Lady Hortensia, Harriet is nervous - surely the aristocratic guests will snub her? After all, they are but mere servants in their eyes! Her fears are realised on their first evening when the only person who deigns to speak to her is the spiteful Grafin Weiserr and confirmed when she commits a major faux-pas at the cricket match the following day.But there's no escape! The cricket match is abandoned due to a storm, and flooding leaves the house guests stranded. Things worsen when Grafin Weiserr is found murdered and the finger is quickly pointed at Clara, an eleven-year-old maid as the culprit. Convinced that she cannot be guilty, Harriet and Matthew agree to investigate.The aristocratic fa�ade begins to crumble under their...

The arrival of an unexpected guest means trouble ahead for the residents of Thorncroft House in this deftly-plotted Victorian mystery. On a freezing winter's night, with the household in mourning following the death of the dowager Lady Croft, the residents of Thorncroft House are roused from their beds by the arrival of an unexpected visitor. Although Lady Stanton seems reluctant to explain the reasons for her visit, housekeeper Harriet Rowsley would never turn a stranger from the door; she offers Lady Stanton and her servants all the hospitality at her disposal, however secretive and arrogant the new guest might be. But tensions arise over the following days, with both visitors and servants trapped indoors by the snow, and Lady Stanton proving a difficult and demanding guest. The situation worsens on the discovery of the body of a young housemaid lying crumpled at the foot of the stairs. A tragic accident ... or something more sinister? Who exactly is...

Tobias Campion, rector of Moreton St Jude, is delighted to welcome the widowed Lady Chase as his parishioner. Charming and generous-spirited, she nonetheless harbours a secret sorrow: her son is missing, presumed dead, and her loathsome nephew Sir Marcus is desperate to declare himself heir to the estate. Much as Tobias dislikes Marcus, his feelings for another member of the family are rather different - the lovely Lady Dorothea enchants him from the very start, not least because of her kindly ways with the enigmatic governess Anne.Then Anne disappears on the very day that the body of a stranger is found in a local river. Surely she has not had a hand in his death? When it transpires that the man might have been bringing news of Lady Chase's missing son, Tobias is forced to quit the village to uncover the truth. Unfortunately, many of those he encounters in his travels are equally determined to keep the past well hidden...

'Resting' actress Vena Burford is far from idle: she's found work as an interior decorator refurbishing a stately home recently occupied by Hollywood bad boy Toby Frensham, now taking a lead role with the RSC in nearby Stratford-upon-Avon. Not everyone loves Toby as much as she does, however - and maybe someone hates him. Vena also works part-time for her estate agent brother, showing potential buyers around upmarket Warwickshire country houses. She's done this so often she smells a rat when couples who don't fit the usual client profile begin to visit the properties. Vena is initially curious, then indignant, and finally alarmed. Why should these curiously unnerving characters, who patently have no intention of buying, demand to explore every nook and cranny of the houses?It would have been better not to ask questions. When someone starts to tail Vena's car, leaving some silent but deeply threatening messages, it's clear that a very modern crime is being played out...

It's morning service in a quiet village church. Josie Welford, wealthy widow of one of the country s most wanted criminals and now licensee of the White Hart gastro-pub, is daydreaming during Father Tim Martin s sermon. Suddenly the peace is shattered when a filthy Chinese youth flings himself into the church and demands sanctuary.Should the Church accede to the request for protection that no longer has legal standing? Or should it hand Tang over to the authorities? Josie supports Tim s decision to protect Tang, but not all the congregation agree, taking their grievances to the Church hierarchy. But Josie's friend and long-term lodger, the Food Standards Agency inspector Nick Thomas, fears for the boy's life. Tang is almost certainly an illegal immigrant whose gang-masters would rather have dead than able to betray them. It's not long before the media are involved, the subsequent publicity bringing fatal results, not just to the priest and the refugee, but to St Jude's itself.

Spring 1810. Young parson Tobias Campion is settling in at his new parish in Moreton St Jude. Although he loves the quiet village lfe, Tobias has a troubling sense that all is not quite as it seems.The suspicious death of a poacher, the untimely demise of a local aristocrat and a mysterious attack on Tobias himself confirms his previous misgivings; malign influence is at work in the supposedly sleepy hamlet. And then someone close to his heart disappears.

One cold, wet evening in an otherwise unusually dry April, a man falls from the fifth floor window of a hotel in Hythe. Did he jump or was he pushed?Detective Chief Superintendent Fran Harman is already struggling to juggle her work and private life: she is having difficulties finding a company willing to restore her and her boyfriend's new home and has to put Mark up in her own cottage whilst the work is completed. And now, why did this man jump from a hotel balcony when he had a perfectly good balcony at home?A glitch with the water system and her boyfriend's troublesome daughter add more problems to Fran's lot. Can she find the time to discover what it is that appears not quite right about Alec Minton's death?

When a colleague becomes seriously ill, Chief Superintendent Fran Harman has to delay her impending retirement to oversee an investigation into a recent spate of 'happy-slappings' and minor assaults in the area.The wave of incidents has ignited a media furore and Fran soon finds herself having to spend as much time trying to control the press as trying to catch the criminals. However, the local reporter who initially broke the story may have personal reasons for taking such an avid interest in the case. As the crimes escalate in severity, Fran must call on all her resources in order to resolve the nightmare that has developed around her.

Personal tragedy cut short Kate Power's accelerated-promotion career in the Met. She's lucky, though – Birmingham CID give her a job, and chance to make a new start in the house her great-aunt has given her. Soon Kate discovers that she's trying to fix up the house from hell, with garden to match. Domestic equals professional pressure: though most of her new colleagues are helpful and supportive, some just think she's fresh female meat to harass.Some seem to think Kate's not pulling her weight in their current case of abduction and abuse of young boys. Then personal life starts overlapping with the investigation. Should Kate follow the conventional line of enquiry, or strike out on her own?

Lina has been in care all her life, but when she comes across a page from a rare 16th century book that she remembers from early childhood, she snaps up the chance to buy it. If she can locate the rest of the book, maybe she can find her father. But in the ensuing weeks a series of burglaries and attacks occur. What has Lina uncovered?

Sophie Rivers, inner-city college lecturer and amateur singer, has a satisfying life in Birmingham: a job she enjoys, a close circle of friends. Then, suddenly, things go badly wrong. One of her students is murdered on college premises; worse still, her best friend George meets a tragic end on the site of the newly built Music Centre.Everyone believes his death was an accident – everyone except Sophie. Determined to find his killer, she starts asking questions. And soon she knows they must be the right questions, because now someone is trying to murder her...

Detective Sergeant Kate Power has gained promotion but there's no job to be promoted into - so she is sent off to Devon to act in an undercover job. Unfortunately, she's undercover in more ways than one. Kate has no idea what kind of crime she's meant to be discovering or what the background is to this investigation into a timeshare holiday company. And acting blind can be dangerous - in more ways than one.  

Lecturer Sophie Rivers' writing course on the outskirts of Birmingham is far from an exotic holiday. Still, creative inspiration might strike. But then, knowing Sophie's luck, so might a murderer...She can hardly believe it when, soon after the course begins, a fellow student is found dead in her room. Sophie hadn't liked glamorous nymphomaniac Nyree much, but she hadn't deserved to die. And when a course tutor goes missing, it's clear that one of Sophie's fellow students might be interested in death as a reality rather than a literary concept.

A Lina Townend mystery - The last way antiques dealer Lina Townend wants to spend a summer's afternoon is helping at a church fête. However, Robin, the vicar, is an old friend, so Lina ends up selling bric-a-brac. But a harmless event turns into a crisis when someone tries to steal a tatty old snuff box. Tatty it might be, but it's valuable enough for the would-be thief to attack Griff, her dear mentor, to frame Lina for a crime, and to kill an old friend. And maybe other people, too . .

Josie Welford desperately hopes for a fresh start. Widow to one of Britain's most wanted criminals, she begins a new venture as the licensee of the local pub in Kings Duncombe, and soon becomes a thriving member of the community. That is until Inspector Nick Thomas, the man who put her husband in jail, appears on the scene. Now an inspector for the Food Standards Agency, he advises Josie to change from her local suppliers. How could Josie ever have foreseen the terrible consequences of this simple decision? Very soon she finds herself an outcast once more, ostracised by her erstwhile friendly neighbours. Even her employees are being warned off. Her hopes of a new life in tatters, she hears that the local vet has disappeared. Could the two things be connected? And why does everybody act as though they have a secret to hide? Bringing a reluctant Nick on to the case, Josie prepares to investigate.

When a child goes missing at the local tennis club on the day when several skeletons are unearthed on an Ashford building site, Fran Harman finds her caseload heavier than ever at a time when the force is cripplingly short-staffed and she has a less than supportive new Chief Constable to contend with.Enjoying a game of tennis with his fellow Golden Oldies when the girl disappeared, Fran's partner Mark can't help blaming himself for not keeping a closer eye on her. Sucked into the kind of desperate police search he thought he'd left behind on retirement, Mark enlists the help of the Oldies to find young Livvie before it's too late. Meanwhile, a further shocking discovery in the skeleton case suggests that a serial killer may be lurking rather closer than Fran would wish.

Just when Detective Sergeant Kate Power thought her life was improving, things start to get complicated. What seemed like a straightforward series of arson attacks results in the death of a vagrant - and the case is removed from Kate's hands. And a quiet tennis lesson is interrupted by the discovery of a woman's body in the tennis centre's shower.Just when she was bonding with her squad in Birmingham's CID, Kate finds herself transferred to a new elite team - much, however, against the will of the DI in charge. It's not long before she's suspended. And Kate finds herself fighting more than the obvious criminals.

A fork of lightning and a crash of thunder herald the completion of a heinous crime. In woodland belonging to the eccentric Lord Wychbold, a body has been crucified on a tree. On Easter Day, the Reverend Tobias Campion returns from morning service at St Luke's and discovers the corpse, already beginning to putrefy. A crown of thorns frames his face, bludgeoned beyond recognition, and a loincloth preserves what is left of his modesty.The victim will not rise again; though the well-concealed secrets of the village will have to, if the perpetrators are to be found. After a post-mortem examination fails to identify the victim, Tobias and his old friend, Dr Hansard, pledge to uncover the truth. Forced to question the gentry as well as the local parishioners, the pair hear whispers of Satanism, of unsavoury pasts and sinister obsessions. Before long, an attempt is made to silence their enquiries into the murder; Tobias, injured but no less determined, realises he must be close...

Why would anyone want him dead?Rock musician Andy Rivers has hordes of adoring fans and campaigns for one good cause after another. So why would anyone want him dead? It begins harmlessly enough: mild vandalism, funeral flowers left on the bonnet of his car, but suddenly it becomes clear that Andy's persecutor is deadly serious.

The latest intriguing mystery featuring feisty antiques dealer Lina Townend.It's a busy weekend for Lina: she wins a dance competition, annoys a valuable client and has to play gooseberry when Griff, her business partner, meets an old flame. Killing time, she drives across Dartmoor, only to find two men robbing a medieval church. Outraged, she manages to stop them – only to discover that it's not just in Devon that they are working.Safely back in Kent, she makes some new friends. One, a frail and confused pensioner, may have been the victim of a heartless crime. Another is a bright young woman eager to hear all about Lina's life. But suddenly Lina realises that she may have made new enemies too – or maybe just stirred up some very dangerous old ones.

Troubles never arrive singly for antiques dealer Lina Townend and her business partner Griff Tripp...The local antiques fair Lina Townend and Griff Tripp set up stall at may be a disaster, but when a local director swoops in and begs Griff to star in her latest production, Lina hopes it will take Griff's mind off a problem he won't share. Lina's own good luck is non-existent—her relationship is going nowhere and her business is faltering. But there's worse to come: 'pranks' played on the Curtain Call cast turn nasty. Could the play's name be a terrible omen?

Caffy's a tough but vulnerable young woman, feisty as they come. She works for Paula's Pots, an all-women team of decorators. When one day she sees through a window what all people in their profession dread - a dead body - the lives of the Pots are changed forever.

Detective Chief Superintendent Fran Harman's professional and private lives collide when a skeleton is unearthed in her garden Fran is preparing for her forthcoming wedding to Assistant Chief Constable Mark Turner, but renovations at the rectory they plan to move into are disrupted by the discovery of a skeleton buried in the vegetable patch. As investigations into its identity progress, it's also clear that Mark's two grown-up children are less than ecstatic at the prospect of their father's forthcoming nuptials. In fact, at least one of them seems to be behaving very strangely indeed...

A Lina Townend mystery - Lina Townend is making a name for herself as an antiques dealer, in partnership with her old friend, Griff Tripp. When she is accused of stealing an item she is selling for her father, the disreputable Lord Elham, her plight attracts the attention of Piers, a handsome fellow dealer. But is Piers all he seems? And what about the kindly policeman investigating the case? There's only one person she can really trust – Griff. But when violence threatens him, Lina has a difficult decision to make . . .

Still finding her feet in Birmingham. DS Kate Power is back in the Fraud SquadStill finding her feet in Birmingham, DS Kate Power is back in the Fraud Squad, under-staffed, under-funded and under the leadership of a hostile boss, jealous of Kate's relationship with DI Graham Harvey. But if Graham's marriage keeps him from Kate, Kate's new case makes her neglect him: a complex case involving a forged will soon includes murder and an investigation into what may have been an unnatural death a generation ago.

A Lina Townend mystery - Antiques dealer Lina Townend – bright, sharp, and pretty – is making a name for herself as a restorer, with a national reputation for honesty. So when she spots a dead body in a field, she calls the police – only for it to promptly vanish. And it seems that her luck has entirely deserted her when she's accused of stealing two Anglo-Saxon rings, and no one seems to believe she's innocent. So when her love life looks up, Lina's delighted – and unprepared when things take a frightening turn for the worse . . .

Retired police detective Fran Harman discovers that someone doesn't like her digging up the past when she re-opens a 20-year-old cold case. Newly-retired, ex-Chief Superintendent Fran Harman and her partner Mark have volunteered to assist West Mercia police in reinvestigating an unsolved crime. Twenty years ago, a car was found abandoned on an isolated road running through the Wyre Forest, its hazard lights still flashing, the passenger door open. In the back, were two child seats. One was empty; in the other lay a desperately ill baby. Neither the baby's mother nor the elder child were ever seen again.Where had Natalie Foreman been and where was she heading? As they question those who knew the missing woman, Fran and Mark uncover worrying discrepancies and mistaken assumptions underlying the original police investigation. In their new role as civilians in a police world, they find themselves encountering hostility and resentment from some of those...

Flying home after a brief visit to Florence, Detective Sergeant Kate Power of Birmingham CID has a pleasant conversation with the businessman next to her. Two days later he's found hanging from a canal bridge – with Kate's business card in his pocket the only means of identification.It looks like a clear-cut suicide – but Kate isn't so sure. And, as her subsequent investigations prove, the cause of death and its consequences are more serious than she could ever have imagined. Still battling against prejudice and intimidation at work and fighting to prove herself, Kate is determined to uncover the shocking truth.

When a middle-aged woman enters Lina Townend's antiques shop wanting to sell a white Beswick china horse which she claims is a cherished heirloom, Lina's instincts tell her to avoid the sale. Suddenly, wherever she goes, Lina sees the supposedly rare white horses. Something strange is afoot, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. Soon, with her business partner Griff laid up in hospital and her relationship with her boyfriend Morris floundering, Lina doesn't know where to turn.

The third crime novel featuring Sophie RiversSophie seems to have fallen on her feet when she gets a new job - at George Muntz College, which is just yards from her Birmingham home and has lavish facilities and equipment. But she is soon to learn that all is not as comfortable as it seems.

Just months away from retirement, Chief Superintendent Frances Harman verges on overload as she takes on evermore responsibilities. Her list of priorities doesn't seem to have a top, middle or bottom anymore; everything seems to be top priority. First there is the puzzling case of 'Elise' – the unidentified woman found unconscious at a roadside, who's condition of persistent vegetative state means that if the hospital turns off her life support her attacker will be guilty of murder – then there's Fran's irritable parents who must be cared for, a child abduction case that must be quickly resolved, the disappearance of her only witness and the growing affection that she and long-term colleague, Mark Turner, seem to share for one another...In a satisfyingly complex story of deadly crime, kidnapping, disappearance, and identify theft, can this warhorse of a detective beat the odds, the stress and the danger that may just be too much for one woman to handle?

Introducing unconventional rector's wife and amateur sleuth Jodie Welsh in the first of a brand-new mystery seriesHighflying city career woman Jodie Welsh was prepared for a dramatic change in lifestyle when she met and married the Reverend Theo Welsh, settling down to an entirely new kind of life as the wife of a country vicar in the picturesque village of Lesser Hogben. But if she thought life as a city deal-maker was tough, nothing could have prepared her for the emotional rollercoaster of local church and village politics. As a newcomer, Jodie encounters hostility and disapproval from several of the villagers, particularly in her efforts to engage and assist Lesser Hogben's disaffected youth.When a local lad Jodie employed to help in her garden disappears, along with Jodie's expensive camera, everyone around her is inclined to assume the worst. Only Jodie and the missing boy's friend Mazza are convinced of his innocence. But Burble's disappearance...

Judith Cutler's new crime novel takes newly-promoted Inspector Kate Power into dangerous waters in Birmingham CID's latest investigation. Kate Power is newly promoted - and in charge of her own station. So in addition to getting used to the pressures of responsibility and gaining the respect of a new team, she has to get to know a new neighbourhood, with new problems and new crimes. When an important member of the local Chinese business community comes to her with some inside information, Kate is plunged into a case involving illegal immigration and prostitution. Her investigation is hampered by a missing officer - Kate's new colleagues dismiss him as a malingerer, but Kate has reason to believe something more sinister may have happened to him.  

While Jane waits for renovations to be completed on her new permanent home, she remains in temporary accommodation under the watchful eye of her landlord Brian Dawes, chair of the governors at Wrayford School. Her work life is dominated by preparations for the all-important school play, but behind the scenes the threat of major cuts to the school's budget puts a strain on morale. Alongside these concerns are her landlord's deteriorating health and the odd behaviour of her neighbours – both mysteries she could do without. As events unravel and with her students' welfare at the forefront of her mind, can Jane unravel the curiosities in which she finds herself tangled?