A rare shopping trip for the Reverend Mother ends in brutal murder in this absorbing historical mystery.Despite its regal name, the Queen's Old Castle is nothing but a low-grade department store, housed within the decrepit walls of what was once a medieval castle, built at the harbour entrance to Cork city. On her first visit for fifty years, the Reverend Mother is struck by how little has changed – apart, that is, from the strange smell of gas ... But when the store's owner staggers from his office and topples over the railings to his death, Mother Aquinas is once again drawn into a baffling murder investigation where suspects are all too plentiful.An unpopular man, Joseph Fitzwilliam had been disliked and feared by all who worked for him. And when the contents of his will are revealed, suspicion widens to include his own family ...

When Inspector Field shows his friend Charles Dickens the body of a young woman dragged from the River Thames, he cannot have foreseen that the famous author would immediately recognize the victim as Isabella Gordon, a housemaid he had tried to help through his charity. Nor that Dickens and his fellow writer Wilkie Collins would determine to find out who killed her. Who was Isabella blackmailing, and why? Led on by fragments of a journal discovered by Isabella's friend Sesina, the two men track the murdered girl's journeys from Greenwich to Snow Hill, from Smithfield Market to St Bartholomews, and put their wits to work on uncovering her past.

The peaceful atmosphere of the Reverend Mother's annual retreat is shattered by sudden, violent death in this gripping historical mystery. 1920s. Cork, Ireland. The Reverend Mother regrets the bishop's decision to invite the five candidates for the position of Alderman of the City Council to join them for their annual retreat. Constantly accosted by ambitious, would-be politicians hoping to secure the bishop's backing, she's finding the week-long sojourn at the convent of the Sisters of Charity anything but peaceful. What she doesn't expect to encounter however is sudden, violent death. When a body is discovered in the convent's apple orchard cemetery, blown to pieces by a makeshift bomb, it is assumed the IRA are responsible. But does the killer lie closer to home? Was one of the candidates so desperate to win the election they turned to murder? Does someone have a hidden agenda? Once again, the Reverend Mother must call on her renowned investigative skills to...

Wilkie Collins must prove his brother is innocent of murder in the second of the compelling new Gaslight mystery series. November, 1853. Inspector Field has summoned his friends Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins to examine a body found in an attic studio, its throat cut. Around the body lie the lacerated fragments of canvas of a painting titled A Winter of Despair. On closer examination, Wilkie realizes he recognizes the victim, for he had been due to dine with him that very evening. The dead man is Edwin Milton-Hayes, one of Wilkie's brother Charley's artist friends. But what is the significance of the strange series of faceless paintings Milton-Hayes had been worked on when he died? And why is Charley acting so strangely? With his own brother under suspicion of murder, Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens set out to uncover the truth. What secrets lie among the close-knit group of Pre-Raphaelite painters who were the dead man's friends?...

"Once again, Cora Harrison brings sixteenth-century Ireland beautifully to life and her Brehon detective, Mara, is a fantastic protagonist—an absolute one-off and yet refreshingly real." —The Historical Novel Society on A Secret and Unlawful Killing (Editors' Choice)The year is 1509 and autumn has come to the Burren in western Ireland. It's a time of harvest and preparation for the winter to come—the end of summer and, for some, the end of life. When Mara attends the funeral of a local priest of the Burren, the last thing she expects to discover is another corpse on the church steps—a man stung to death by bees. Sorley, the silversmith, was a greedy and distrusted man: there would be no shortage of people who wanted him dead. But who really stood to profit from his murder? As Mara investigates, she must use all her cunning and prowess as a judge to bring the sting of justice to a killer with a hate-filled heart and a murderous mind.

The body lies beneath a statue in Trafalgar Square.Alfie and his gang set out to find the murderer, just as a thick fog turns the London streets into a sinister maze. But soon Alfie is plunged into a still more terrifying world hidden below the city . . .

“Harrison, like Peter Tremayne in his Sister Fidelma series, provides a superior brand of historical mystery” BooklistWhen clan leader Garrett MacNamara's dead body is found on the road after a herd of cows has escaped, what was initially assumed to be a tragic case of him being squashed to a pulp by livestock becomes more sinister when a local claims they saw a chain attached to the mutilated body – which has now disappeared. Mara and her scholars must now investigate: was Slaney, Garrett's wife, threatened by two new arrivals, or is she being blamed for his murder to clear the way for a new leader . . .?

Alfie has decided to learn to read at St Giles Ragged School. But the school is set on fire and idealistic teacher Mr Elmore perishes in the flames. Alfie and his gang are certain that this was no accident and are determined to find the murderer. Together, they must sift clues and shadow suspects through the mean streets of Victorian London which they know so well – until the shocking truth is revealed.

Reverend Mother Aquinas is asked to prove a young man's innocence in the second of this atmospheric new Irish historical mystery series. Ireland. 1924. Reverend Mother Aquinas is buying buttered eggs in the Cork city market at the very moment when the city engineer, James Doyle, is assassinated. Although no one saw the actual killing, a young reporter named Sam O'Mahoney is found standing close to the body, a pistol in his hand, and is arrested and charged. Following a desperate appeal from Sam's mother, convinced of her son's innocence, the Reverend Mother investigates – and, in this turbulent, war-torn city, uncovers several other key suspects. Could there be a Republican connection? Was James Doyle's death linked to his corrupt practices in the rebuilding of the city, burned down more than a year ago by the Black and Tans? Cork is a city divided by wealth and by politics: this murder seems to have links to both.

The enthralling new Burren mystery . . . April 1511, Ireland. Mara, Brehon of the Burren, is celebrating the christening of her son when she notices that three of her law students have disappeared from the party. The next morning, one of them is found dead on a lone mountain pass with suspicious wounds. He was carrying an important legal document that has now disappeared. But why did he choose to deliver it during the night, and what of the two other missing students? Mara must uncover the truth – and it at first seems that the stolen deed holds all the answers . . .ReviewPeter Tremayne fans who can't get enough of his feisty seventh-century Irish sleuth, Sister Fidelma, will find Harrison's 16th-century Irish "judge and lawgiver," Mara, a more than acceptable substitute. At the start of the seventh entry (after May 2011's Scales of Retribution), Mara and her husband, King Turlough Donn O'Brien, are holding a belated christening party for their baby son, Cormac, at their castle in western Ireland. Then three of the guests go missing: flirtatious Fiona MacBetha, a law student of Mara's; another law student, Fachtnan, who's sweet on Fiona; and 26-year-old lawyer Eamon, Fachtnan's rival for Fiona's affections. Later, farmer Muiris O'Hynes finds Eamon's dead body in a flax shed. O'Hynes recently caused a stir by winning a bid for a land lease that historically always went to a large local family, but the deed formalizing his right to work the property has disappeared. As usual, Harrison makes combining a whodunit with the subtleties of Irish law look easy. -- Publishers Weekly Starred Review, October 10, 2011Brehon Mara returns in an all-new adventure steeped in Irish history and fascinating legal arcana. As a judge and investigating magistrate, and as the wife of King Turlough, Mara occupies a unique position in the Burren, an independent kingdom in western Ireland. After three of her law students disappear and one turns up dead, Mara is determined to get to the bottom of a mystery that may have far-reaching consequences for both her husband and his entire realm. Utilizing her keen intellect and her razor-sharp powers of deduction, she exposes a treasonous plot with tangled roots in the court of King Henry VIII of England. Intrigue, deception, and age-old feuds between neighboring kingdoms culminate in a suspensefully clever conclusion. Mara, like Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma, exemplifies the fairly independent status accorded to professional women in medieval Ireland. --Booklist, November 1, 2011 About the AuthorCora Harrison taught primary-school children for twenty-five years before moving to Kilfenora, County Clare, to live on a small farm where there used to be an Iron Age fort. She has published twenty-five children's historical novels. This is her first novel for adults. Please visit her Web site at www.coraharrison.com.

June, 1510: the Burren, west coast of Ireland - Upon going unexpectedly into an early labour, Mara is alerted to the disappearance of Malachy, the local physician. Mystery follows birth, as shortly after the entrance of her son into the world the body of Malachy is discovered. But who stands to profit from this death and who therefore are Mara's lead suspects? For starters there is Malachy's new wife and her two sons, not to mention the very daughter who helped to deliver Mara's child. But soon we discover that the list of people bearing Malachy a grudge is even longer that Mara could have anticipated.

Alfie and his gang are on a dangerous mission.Spying on a Russian secret agent, they must be quick, clever and totally invisible. But when the Russian is found dead, Alfie faces the greatest threat of his life . . .

Mara, Brehon of the Burren, must battle superstitious beliefs and fears as she sets out to solve a brutal murder.When a woman's body is discovered, strangled and bound with rope to the stone torso of Fár Breige, the ancient stone god which stands sentinel above the haunted caves and ancient fortifications of the Atlantic cliffs, the locals believe it was the god who killed her.In life, Clodagh O'Lochlainn had been a disgrace to her clan, tormenting her former priestly lover, jeering at her husband, robbing her relatives: but could she really have been slaughtered by a vengeful god, as the local population believes? Abandoning preparations for the celebration of her fiftieth birthday, Mara, Brehon of the Burren, with the assistance of Fachtnan and her scholars, takes up the task of solving the murder. Ignoring the ancient legends, she concentrates instead on bringing a mortal killer to justice. But it's only when Fachtnan's small daughter is lost in the...