British Literature

Detective Peter Diamond, chief of the Avon and Somerset Murder Squad, is taking a short holiday in the country. His former colleague Julie Hargreaves has invited Diamond and his partner, Paloma, to visit the idyllic village of Baskerville (no relation to the Sherlock Holmes story, so he's told). It turns out Julie's invitation was not without ulterior motives. The woman who owns the village's largest dairy farm has been convicted of manslaughter following a terrible accident in her grain silo.

The body of a missing boy is dredged from the seabed off the Sussex coast, missing vital organs. Soon after, two more bodies are found . . . A teenager in Brighton will die if she does not receive an urgent transplant. When the health system threatens to let her down her mother takes drastic action and goes to an online broker in black-market organs. The broker can provide what she wants, but it will come at a price. As Roy Grace investigates the recovered bodies, he unearths a gang of child traffickers operating from Eastern Europe.

The Metropole Hotel, Brighton. After a heady New Year's Eve ball, a woman is attacked as she returns to her room. A week later, another woman is assaulted. Both victims' shoes are taken by the offender . . . Roy Grace soon realizes that these new cases bear remarkable similarities to an unsolved series of crimes in the city back in 1997. Dubbed 'Shoe Man', the perpetrator was believed to have attacked five women before murdering his sixth victim and vanishing. Could this be a copycat, or has Shoe Man resurfaced?

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.

William Fawkes, a controversial detective known as The Wolf, has just been reinstated to his post after he was suspended for assaulting a vindicated suspect. Still under psychological evaluation, Fawkes returns to the force eager for a big case. When his former partner and friend, detective Emily Baxter, calls him to a crime scene, he's sure this is it: the body is made of the dismembered parts of six victims, sewn together like a puppet - a corpse that becomes known as "The Ragdoll".

Bella and Kate. Kate and Bella. From childhood they were bosom friends, Bella sensible and cautious, Kate gregarious and just a little dangerous. Yet in spite of their intimacy, their trust is fragile. Men came into their lives and things changed: a black seed was set in the heart of their relationship. Over decades, acts of both cruelty and love ferment until one shocking event tests them more than ever. Neither will escape unscathed.

Glory Akindele returns to London from her seemingly glamorous life in LA to mourn the sudden death of her father, only to find her previously close family has fallen apart in her absence. Her brother, Victor, is in jail and won’t speak to her because she didn’t come home for his trial. Her older sister, Faith, once a busy career woman, appears to have lost her independence and ambition, and is instead channeling her energies into holding together a perfect suburban family.

Maggie Adair’s first year as a teacher at Downey House was a surprising success. After making the leap from an inner-city school in Glasgow, she’s learned to appreciate the mellower pace of the girls’ boarding school by the sea. Now engaged to her longtime boyfriend, sweet and steady Stan, Maggie’s just got to stop thinking about David McDonald, her colleague at the boys’ school down the road. Well, hasn’t she? Can Maggie take a leaf out of the Well Behaved Teacher’s exercise book and stick to her plan for a small but elegant wedding and settled life of matrimony?

The last thing DS Stephanie Johnson and DS Andy Carter expected during their much-needed canal holiday was a murder. When retired folk musician Annie Shipton is found stabbed through the neck at the helm of her barge, the couple can’t help investigating the seemingly impossible crime. Nobody else boarded Annie’s boat—so how was she killed from behind?

It's New Year's Eve in Bombay, 1913, and Madeline Bright, new to the sweltering heat of colonial India, is yearning for all she has left behind in England. Then, at the stroke of midnight, Maddy meets Luke Devereaux, and as the year changes, so do both their lives. Bold and charismatic, Luke opens her eyes to the wonders of Bombay, while Maddy's beauty and vivacity captures his heart. Only her mother disapproves, preferring the devoted Guy Bowen as a match for her daughter.

Once known to all in her village as the rector's daughter, Lucy is now a mother herself - to a wonderful 18-month-old son, Ned. Upon discovering that she is expecting a second child, Lucy and Robert are delighted. In anticipation of the new arrival, Lucy is set on expanding her nursery staff. When Agnes, her current nurse, recommends her cousin, it seems like the perfect solution. But trouble arrives along with the new nursery maid from London. When a farmer finds her lifeless body in a drainage ditch, Lucy and Robert fear foul play.

Detective Harry Grimm can’t catch a break. When his much-needed vacation is interrupted by a call reporting a decomposed corpse, he races home to examine the gruesome remains. Learning the young woman was tortured, he’s stunned when the peaceful countryside site explodes, destroying evidence and causing more death. Uncovering clues from the victim’s car, Grimm struggles to keep up with a cunning killer when he discovers yet another body.

Best friends Lily and Inga do everything together—they even meet their future loves at the same bar. After one serendipitous night, it seems like it’s going to be Lily and Alex and Inga and Matt forever. But life gets more complicated. A job offer moves Inga and Matt from Norwich to London. Lily, who craves stability after a traumatic childhood, is already struggling with the change when Inga confides in her a secret that could tear the group apart for good. At the same time, Lily’s friendship with Matt deepens, and she wonders if she was always meant to be with him instead of Alex.

When Detective Mark Turpin is assigned the task of investigating the death of a local businessman, the case is first thought to be one of accidental drowning. Until a bullet hole is found where the victim fell into the River Thames. Then a number of graves are unearthed at a disused airfield site being redeveloped by the dead man, exposing a horrific secret and plunging Mark into one of the darkest investigations of his career. After two more bodies are discovered amongst the burnt-out ruins of a building on a nearby industrial estate, Mark realises that a serial killer is at large.

Inspector Witherspoon has been assigned another tough case. The latest murder victim has possibly swindled his shareholders out of a huge sum of money. When the businessman is found with a bullet through is chest, all of them are suspects - but no one is telling the truth. It is up to Mrs. Jeffries and the household staff at Upper Edmonton Gardens to crack the case.

In an untouched corner of Craynebrook, the lifeless body of a local farmer is found, his blood mingling with the mud of Blackbird Farm. For Detective Inspector Matthew Stannard, still nursing wounds from a brutal assault, this grisly scene marks the beginning of an investigation unlike any he’s worked on before.

Alison Willetts has survived a stroke, deliberately induced by a skilful manipulation of pressure points on the head and neck. She can see, hear and feel, but she is completely unable to move or communicate. In leaving Alison Willetts alive, the police believe the killer's made his first mistake. Then DI Tom Thorne discovers the horrifying truth: it isn't Alison who is the mistake, it's the three women already dead. Thorne must find a killer whose agenda is disturbingly unique, and Alison, the one person who holds the key to the killer's identity, is unable to say anything....

With the talents on display the most difficult task is choosing only ten. Their virtuosity, their craft and ambition scare belie the difficulties that society places upon most women. Their words cannot be denied, their literary heritage is safe forever.

Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels were some of the most celebrated works of fiction of the past decade. Ecstatic praise came from a wide range of admirers, from literary superstars such as Zadie Smith, Francine Prose, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Michael Chabon to pop-culture icons such as Anthony Bourdain and January Jones. Now St. Aubyn returns with a hilariously smart send-up of a certain major British literary award in this witty audiobook.

A dead man on the beach. A detective with everything to prove. And a secret that won't stay buried. When a man’s body washes up on the North Yorkshire coast with a gunshot wound to the chest, DCI Tom Raven is handed the case. The only clue to the victim’s identity? A ring engraved with two names. Raven hasn’t set foot in Scarborough for over thirty years. Now he’s back – leading a murder investigation and facing ghosts from his past.