British Literature

The CID's Andrew Dalziel prefers simple killers. Not a crackpot who fancies himself Hamlet and taunts authorities with lofty quotes from the Bard. Dubbed the Yorkshire Choker, he's already taken three lives in four weeks and promises more tragedy to come. To help nab the serial strangler, Peter Pascoe has enlisted the help of linguistics professors, psychologists, and psychics-all of it nonsense to the grounded Dalziel.

It's Alys Pugh's birthday and her mates are organizing a little surprise for her. When she doesn't show up, they realize something's wrong. Later, her body is found in the cold waters of Llyn y Fan. On searching Alys' house, detectives discover an array of seaside objects and suspect they are some sort of message left by the killer. With everyone seemingly harboring a secret, tempers fray and suspicion grows. And when similar trinkets are found in another of their houses, those underlying tensions bubble to the surface. Then someone else in the group is killed.

Mary Connon froze out her husband, Sam, long ago. She likes the attention of other men—like the fellow members of Sam's rugby club. Naturally, when she's found dead in her sitting room with a hole in her head, Sam is a suspect. If only he hadn't suffered a dizzying scrum injury that's left everything a blur. He isn't sure that he didn't kill her. But Det. Inspector Andrew Dalziel and his partner, Peter Pascoe, are looking outside the unhappy home. Because it seems everyone within spitting distance of the suburban femme fatale wanted Mary dead.

When a detested viscount is found murdered by the banks of the Thames and Charlie Hastings becomes the prime suspect, Barnaby and Penelope Adair join forces with Stokes to discover the real story behind the unexpected killing. Charlie Hastings is astonished to find himself accused of murdering Viscount Sedbury. Admittedly, Charlie had two heated altercations with Sedbury in the hours preceding the man’s death, but as Charlie is quick to point out to Stokes—and to Barnaby and Penelope—there are a multitude of others in the ton who will be delighted to learn of Sedbury’s demise.

Summer and her mum soon find their hands full with the arrival of her future stepsister, Frankie – a blue-haired teen firecracker who's nothing like the sweet little girl they remember. Meanwhile, local vet Ben is struggling – buried under a mountain of responsibility with trying to keep his crumbling family home Monk’s Folly standing, while supporting his reclusive mother and errant younger brother.

When East-End gangster and 'frenemy' to the Last Chance Saloon, Johnny Lucas, is accused of murdering a London gangland rival in his boxing club, he claims his brother was the killer. The only problem though is that his brother, Jackie, is actually Johnny's multiple personality. Pulled in to prove the case, DI Declan Walsh and his team soon realize that Johnny might be as innocent as he claims, as a new player is in town, claiming to be Johnny's brother Jackie in the flesh, a man who shouldn't exist yet can prove he does, is starting to carve out his own empire.

Thomas Pitt, mainstay of Her Majesty’s Special Branch, is summoned to Connaught Square mansion, where the body of a junior diplomat lies huddled in a wheelbarrow. Nearby stands the tenant of the house, the beautiful, notorious Egyptian woman Ayesha Zakhari, who falls under the shadow of suspicion. Pitt’s orders are to protect—at all costs—the good name of the third person in the garden: senior cabinet minister Saville Ryerson. The distinguished public servant, whispered to be Ayesha’s lover, insists that she is as innocent as Pitt himself.

Harriet Andover had no intention of dying young like her silly siblings had. She intended to outlive them and outdo them as she always had. But Harriet discovers that the best intentions can lead to murder when she is strangled inside her mansion with a house full of holiday guests. As much as Inspector Witherspoon enjoys his job delivering justice, the last thing he wanted was a complicated murder case just a week before Christmas. He soon discovers that Harriet's own husband and grown stepchildren are not overcome with grief and neither are most of her friends.

Christopher Gilhaney isn't a popular man, and he proves why once again when he insults every guest at Abigail Chase's Guy Fawkes Night dinner party. When Gilhaney is shot dead under the cover of the night's fireworks, his murder is deemed a robbery gone wrong. But when the case hasn't been solved six weeks later, Inspector Witherspoon is called upon to find the killer - and quickly!

Eager to move on from a master’s thesis that left her questioning her passion for history, Josie dives headlong into her new job and life in a small town. Faced with the prospect of remaining long-term, she must decide if she will fight to carve a place for herself in Wells’s idiosyncratic community. What follows is the story of a young woman trying to find connection and purpose in the twenty-first century while living in a village seemingly frozen in the past.

The shocking murder of Sir Henry Claybourne leaves Regency London shaken and horror-struck. But for genteel spinster Miss Emmeline St. Germaine, the crime slices far too close to home. Just hours before the knight's death she held a dagger to him, threatening him to stay silent as she rescued a scullery maid he had procured for his pleasure. Did the man - or woman - who murdered the knight know of her visit? Her secret identity at risk, her reputation and life in jeopardy, Emmeline must solve the crime or face scandalous exposure and ruination for a crime she did not commit.

When a hand is found in Gallows Wood, PC Lucy Halliday and her specialist search dog Moss must find the rest of the body. What they uncover is a killer's dumping ground. Like every case since her husband's mysterious disappearance, Lucy wonders if this one will bring her closer to the truth. Nico was a journalist with a reputation for getting buried in his work; Lucy is certain that this time he delved too deep.

Early one morning, DS Robin Butler is summoned to a crime scene. Not as a policeman, but as best friend to renowned meteorologist, Dr Finn Mason. The morning after studying an enormous storm, Finn has locked himself in a van. Bloodied, confused, and with no memory of how he came to be there. And alongside him - a dead body.

Introduction by Anna Quindlen Commentary by Margaret Oliphant, George Saintsbury, Mark Twain, A. C. Bradley, Walter A. Raleigh, and Virginia Woolf Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man...

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