The Exmoor Beast is a creature of myth and mystery. Some think it's a phantom. Others that it's actually a big cat that escaped from a private collection. The bloody carcasses of deer and sheep found on the moor are often quoted as proof of its existence.Now for the first time the Beast has taken human prey, and attacks seem to be intensifying. Ex MI5 agent Hollis is called in to investigate.What he uncovers is more than just moorland myth. It's a clash between a quiet farming community, and big city gangters. Things are becoming increasingly violent, and the bodies they find have been pulverzied with incredible force. Shotguns may be no match for AK47s, but it seems the people of Exmoor have a surprisingly fearsome ally.

This beautiful hardback collector's edition includes a new, never-before-published chapter in the romance of Evangeline and Dermot. The life of an impoverished schoolteacher is not one Evangeline Blake would have chosen for herself. Torn from her home and her beloved sister and sent to work in the gritty factory town of Smeatley, Evangeline must prove herself to her grandfather, a man who values self-reliance above all else, before he will grant her access to her inheritance. Raised to be a lady of refinement, she hasn't any of the skills necessary to manage on her own nor does she have the first idea how to be a teacher. Yet, failure means never being with her sister again. Alone and overwhelmed, she turns to the one person in town who seems to know how she feels—Dermot McCormick, an Irish brick mason who is as far from home and as out of place as she is. Despite the difference in their classes and backgrounds, Evangeline and Dermot's tentative friendship...

Amazon.com ReviewLongtime fans of Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, might think that their favorite sleuth met his fate at the hands of Dr. Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Anyone who believes that, however, obviously hasn't read Laurie R. King's delightful series featuring Holmes and his wife(!), Mary Russell. In The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Holmes succumbs to the Oxford scholar's charms; now, in The Moor, fourth in the series, Holmes and Russell are summoned to Devonshire to solve a tin miner's mysterious death. Lonely Dartmoor provides plenty of opportunities for King to both relate the haunting legends of that part of the world and offer some amusing revisions to one of Holmes's most famous cases, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Though Holmes purists might resent the liberties taken with their hero, readers in search of a strong female protagonist, some fascinating local history, and spooky ambience will enjoy The Moor. From School Library JournalYA-The Hound of the Baskervilles is back-or is it? Certainly Sherlock Holmes thought he had sorted the whole matter out some 30 years earlier, but now his lifelong friend, the curmudgeonly Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, calls Holmes to Dartmoor to sort out new sightings and solve an eerie murder. The detective in turn calls for his new wife, who arrives promptly at Baring-Gould's quasi-Elizabethan house, situated on the edge of the oppressive moor. As in the previous books, King chronicles the adventures of a strong young woman who is a wonderful match and foil for a very Conan Doyle-like Sherlock and creates a wonderful sense of time and place. In this case, it is Dartmoor in 1924. The moor becomes a looming presence and as much of a character as Baring-Gould, the local farmers and peasantry, and the new owners of Baskerville Hall. Familiarity with the original tale is not necessary, but those unacquainted with it before reading this book will surely want to go back to it. King has again successfully brought the famous sleuth into the 20th century and provided him with an assistant much more his match than poor Dr. Watson. The plot is thought-provoking, the solution satisfyingly Holmesian, and the whole adventure gratifying. This is definitely a worthy continuation of a hopefully longer series. It's not only an excellent mystery, but also a fine introduction to Holmes and a more-than-adequate survey of the time.-Susan H. Woodcock, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA

You can never escape the past. Especially on the moors...After the National Crime Agency cracks a major drug gang, junior barrister Julia McGann finds herself defending the violent enforcer Terrence Bonner. This high-profile case is a coup for her, but almost immediately things start to go wrong. Intruders break into her house and then a young girl turns up at her door with a horrifying story to tell. Three months later, DCI Craig Gillard and his team struggle with the shocking murder of a much respected local headmaster, found dead in his own car. The baffling crime fills the newspapers but yields few clues. As Gillard sifts the evidence, a pair of blood-spattered gloves seems important. Why were they used for both the murder, and for the burglary at Julia's house? What secrets is the barrister hiding... and what happened on the Derbyshire Moors two decades ago that could be the key to these shocking events? A story of deceit,...

An addictive literary thriller about a crime as shocking as it is commonplaceWhen Katie Straw's body is pulled from the waters of the local suicide spot, the police are ready to write it off as a standard-issue female suicide. But the residents of the domestic violence shelter where Katie worked disagree. These women have spent weeks or even years waiting for the men they're running from to catch up with them. They know immediately: This was murder.Still, Detective Dan Whitworth and his team expect an open-and-shut case—until they discover evidence that suggests Katie wasn't who she appeared. Weaving together the investigation with Katie's final months as it barrels toward the truth, The Keeper is a riveting mystery and a searing examination of violence against women and the structures that allow it to continue, marking the debut of an incredible new voice in crime fiction.

What Can a London Opera Star and an Escaped Dartmoor Prisoner Have in Common? Opera star Maggie Lee escapes her opulent lifestyle when threatened by a powerful politician who aims to ruin her life. She runs off to the wilds of the moors to live in anonymity. All that changes the day she discovers a half-dead man near her house. Escaped convict Oliver Ward is on the run to prove his innocence, until he gets hurt and is taken in by Maggie. He discovers some jewels in her possession—the very same jewels that got him convicted. Together they hatch a plan to return the jewels, clearing Oliver's name and hopefully maintaining Maggie's anonymity.

In his first novel since The Satanic Verses, Rushdie gives readers a masterpiece of controlled storytelling, informed by astonishing scope and ambition, by turns compassionate, wicked, poignant, and funny. From the paradise of Aurora's legendary salon to his omnipotent father's sky-garden atop a towering glass high-rise, the Moor's story evokes his family's often grotesque but compulsively moving fortunes in a world of possibilities embodied by India in this century. From the Hardcover edition.

Come back to the intriguing world of Lady Julia Grey in the beloved historical mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Deanna Raybourn.Despite his admonitions to stay away, Lady Julia arrives in Yorkshire to find Brisbane as remote and maddeningly attractive as ever. Cloistered together, they share the moldering house with the proud but impoverished remnants of an ancient family—the sort that keeps their bloodline pure and their secrets close. Lady Allenby and her daughters, dependent upon Brisbane and devastated by their fall in society, seem adrift on the moor winds, powerless to change their fortunes. But poison does not discriminate between classes....A mystery unfolds from the rotten heart of Grimsgrave, one Lady Julia may have to solve alone, as Brisbane appears inextricably tangled in its heinous twists and turns. But blood will out, and before spring touches the craggy northern landscape, Lady...

The unnamed narrator, a young musicologist, meets and befriends the famous blind music critic Marius van Vlooten. Their first encounter is on an airplane en route to a master class in Bordeaux, where the narrator introduces Marius to Suzanna, the pretty, first violinist of a string quartet there to perform Janacek's Kreutser Sonata. From this chance meeting a passionate love affair soon develops between Marius and Suzanna. They become engaged and marry." A series of subsequent conversations between Marius and the narrator reveal the truth behind Marius's blindness when he was a young student, he had fallen madly in love with a girl who spurned him. Despairing, he tried to commit suicide, but succeeded only in blinding himself. Now, ten years later, Marius is prey to another terrible dilemma, he loves Suzanna desperately but strongly suspecting she has a lover, becomes insanely jealous. His suspicions and his past draw him and the reader into a dramatic and tense Hitchcock-like...

It begins with a ghost story around a campfire. Teenagers out on a walking trip, trying to act brave in front of each other.But as the walk gets underway and the boys begin to fall out, odd things start to happen.Noises in the night. A severed rabbit's foot outside someone's tent.Soon, the boys begin to disappear.As panic sets in and a storm approaches, the remaining boys must band together to face a darkness not even the local ghost stories could help them predict.

Longtime fans of Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, might think that their favorite sleuth met his fate at the hands of Dr. Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Anyone who believes that, however, obviously hasn't read Laurie R. King's delightful series featuring Holmes and his wife(!), Mary Russell. In The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Holmes succumbs to the Oxford scholar's charms; now, in The Moor, fourth in the series, Holmes and Russell are summoned to Devonshire to solve a tin miner's mysterious death. Lonely Dartmoor provides plenty of opportunities for King to both relate the haunting legends of that part of the world and offer some amusing revisions to one of Holmes's most famous cases, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Though Holmes purists might resent the liberties taken with their hero, readers in search of a strong female protagonist, some fascinating local history, and spooky ambience will enjoy The Moor.

The Cheddar family are celebrating New Year's Eve in a Scottish castle! Surely even Atticus can't find trouble here.But with rumours of hidden treasure, an ancient family curse, and sightings of a mysterious giant cat on the moor, it seems Police Cat Sergeant Claw's detective skills will be needed once again.And danger lurks everywhere on the misty moor. . .

(Book 5 in the Tyack & Frayne Mystery series) The wedding is just the beginning… Gideon and Lee have spent a year in chaotic married bliss, with all the trimmings – a dog, tricky in-laws, and a baby girl they both adore. But even the best of lives can be fragile, and a shocking family loss hits their new world like a demolition ball.

From the widely praised author of Secret Son and Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits--a stunning piece of historical fiction: the imagined memoirs of the New World's first explorer of African descent, a Moroccan slave known as Estebanico.In 1527, Pánfilo de Narváez sailed from Spain with a crew of six hundred men, intending to claim for the Spanish crown what is now the Gulf Coast of the United States. But from the moment the expedition reached Florida, it met with ceaseless bad luck--storms, disease, starvation, hostile natives--and within a year there were only four survivors, including the young explorer Andrés Dorantes and his slave, Estebanico. After six years of enslavement by Native Americans, the four men escaped and wandered through what is now Florida, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The Moor's Account brilliantly captures Estebanico's voice and vision, giving us an alternate narrative for this famed expedition....

Victorian London shows little mercy when divorce leave Anne Kinelly destitute and abandoned by her husband. Her bleak future is avoided when the merciful actions of her solicitor results in a stroke of luck, finding a house forgotten and left in probate by previous generations. The desolate moors of Yorkshire is to be her home as she tries to revive an abandoned house where the wind whispers around the window sills.Before long, Anne discovers that the warnings given her by the people in the area may be more than the superstitious nonsense. As the brutal history of the house and its founder, Richard Hawke, reveals itself, Anne discovers that there may be more entities in the house than just herself and her maid.

When barrister Rex Graves invites a group of friends to Gleneagle Lodge, he doesn't anticipate the arrival of an old flame—much less a dead body or serial killer. Rex's houseguest and colleague Alistair, who recently made an unsuccessful attempt to convict a man for the notorious Moor Murders, now finds himself under the same roof as the killer. Rex must use his skills of intellect, observation, and logic to save Alistair's career and bring the murderer to justice.Praise:"Traditional mystery fans will appreciate the retro Agatha Christie style."—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

When Evangeline is sent to live in a small mill town in Northern England as a schoolteacher in 1871, she finds herself struggling to fit in with an unfamiliar culture. Raised with the high-class Victorian values and ideals of a sophisticated upbringing, she is unprepared for the poverty she finds in the gritty factory town of Smeatley, where the locals speak with a hard-to-understand Yorkshire accent and struggle to thrive with few resources or opportunities.Though she has no training as a teacher, she must prove herself successful before her grandfather will release her substantial inheritance to her and allow her to be reunited with her younger sister, the last remaining member of her family after a fever claimed the lives of her parents and brothers.Evangeline's sudden change in circumstances is complicated when her aunt—a woman who values class distinctions more than her family relationships—forbids her from acknowledging any connection to her or to her...

Struan Cameron has spent the last 270 years trapped between life and death on the battlefield of Culloden Moor. His role as the Storyteller has kept many of the other ghosts from going mad. But now, the powerful Muir witch has offered him the chance to see an end to his time on the moor and he plans to take it. He is given up to two days - back as a man of flesh and blood -- to perform some task for the witch that will earn him a chance for revenge or release. With the touch of her hand, the witch sends him … to Maine.Fiona Masters has lost everyone important to her in a terrible accident that she believes was her fault. Mired in pain and grief, she decides she cannot live another day and plans to take her own life. With all the arrangements made and the gun in hand, she is stopped by a tall, handsome, sexy Scottish warrior who bellows at her in Gaelic! Believing she is caught up in a situation like 'A CHRISTMAS CAROL' and its ghosts of past, present and future, Fee allows this Highlander into her life, knowing there's nothing he can do to change her mind or make her want to live … Or can he?Two strangers who have suffered similar loss and grief find that they do have some comfort to offer, but at the end of two days, will either of them be alive?

In Grimsgrave Hall, enigmatic Nicholas Brisbane has inherited a ruined estate, replete with uncanny tenants and one unwanted houseguest: Lady Julia GreyDespite his admonitions to stay away, Lady Julia arrives in Yorkshire to find Brisbane as remote and maddeningly attractive as ever. Cloistered together, they share the moldering house with the proud but impoverished remnants of an ancient family: the sort that keeps their bloodline pure and their secrets close. Lady Allenby and her daughters, dependent upon Brisbane and devastated by their fall in society, seem adrift on the moor winds, powerless to change their fortunes. But poison does not discriminate between classes....A mystery unfolds from the rotten heart of Grimsgrave, one Lady Julia may have to solve alone, as Brisbane appears inextricably tangled in its heinous twists and turns. But blood will out, and before spring touches the craggy northern landscape, Lady Julia will have...

Robert Murray Gilchrist (1868-1917) is perhaps best known for his interest in topography, and for his stories set in Derbyshire's Peak District. But he was also a master of mystery and horror, as this richly varied collection shows. If you are looking for a conventional horror story, in which the supernatural element is paramount, try The Crimson Weaver, Dame Inowslad, Witch In-Grain, or A Night on the Moor. If you are more taken with the psychology of the participants, often allied to a fascination with the killing of friends or lovers, then Francis Shackerley, The Noble Courtesan, Althea Swathmore, and My Friend will be right up your street. For humour we are offered the Peakland comedy of The Panicle or A Witch in the Peak. And when it comes to love, there are the tragic and poignant tales we might expect (The Return, The Lost Mistress. The Madness of Betty Hooton), but also the engaging and unusual Bubble Magic - a story of romantic betrayal which hints at a happy ending. **

When fifteen-year-old Heather Jane Bell is diagnosed with alopecia and her hair starts falling out in clumps, she wants nothing more than to escape her home in London and disappear off the face of the earth. Heather gets her wish when her concerned parents send her to stay with a great-aunt in West Yorkshire. But shortly after, Heater becomes lost on the moors and is swept through the mist back to the year 1833. There she encounters fifteen-year-old Emily Brontë and is given refuge in the Brontë Parsonage. Unaware of her host family's genius and future fame, Heather struggles to cope with alopecia amongst strangers in a world completely foreign to her. While Heather finds comfort and strength in her growing friendship with Emily and in the embrace of the close-knit Brontë family, her emotions are stretched to the limit when she falls for Emily's brilliant but troubled brother, Branwell. Will Heather return to the comforts and conveniences of the twenty-first century? Or will she choose love and remain in the harsh world of nineteenth-century Haworth?

One dark, misty night at Mossy Bottom Farm, a starving creature creeps silently through the farmyard, waiting to feed. Well, actually, it's just Bitzer the sheepdog with a growling stomach, holding his clipboard as he checks on the flock and chickens. But wait—what's that howl that's making his fur stand on end? Is it Shaun the sheep playing one of his pranks? The Farmer practicing his trombone? Suddenly the moon appears, and there it is: a hulking shadow on the side of the barn that must be the outline of a ... beast! Are they all doomed, or can Bitzer and his crew concoct a plan that's so madcap it just might work?

On the night of January 31, 1953, a mountain of water, literally piled up out of the sea by a freak winter hurricane, swept down onto the Netherlands, demolishing the dikes protecting the country and wiping a quarter of its landmass from the map. It was the worst natural disaster to strike the Netherlands in three hundred years.The morning of the storm, Armanda asks her sister, Lidy, to take her place on a visit to her godchild in the town of Zierikzee. In turn, Armanda will care for Lidy's two-year-old daughter and accompany Lidy's husband to a party. The sisters, both of them young and beautiful, look so alike that no one may even notice. But what Armanda can't know is that her little comedy is a provocation to fate: Lidy is headed for the center of the deadly storm. Margriet de Moor interweaves the stories of these two sisters, deftly alternating between the cataclysm and the long years of its grief-strewn aftermath. While Lidy struggles to survive,...

When mysterious incidents begin occurring on a moor in Yorkshire, an old friend begs Drew for help. At first it seems to be simply bad luck—fires started, livestock scattered—but then the vicar is murdered. As danger closes in, Drew and Madeline must determine what's really going on and find the killer before it's too late.

Stephen Whalby loves to walk the moor. He considers it his, although he and his young wife Lyn are merely tenants in a flat nearby. But the senseless and frightening murder of a young woman invades Stephen's sense of privacy and pollutes his beloved moor with suspicion and dread. And then a second murder captures his imagination in an unpredictable and fascinating way . . .