Showing results by publisher "Isis Publishing Ltd" in Literature & Fiction

Librarian Prunella Pearce has left heartbreak behind to start a new life in the village of Winterbottom, where there's little social life to be had aside from the meetings of The Winterbottom Women's Institute at the parish hall. But a bit of excitement ensues when the group is about to elect a new president—and the nominees for the position begin dropping like flies. One is found face down in a lemon drizzle cake stabbed with a crochet hook. Another dies spectacularly in the revolving doors of a Harrogate hotel.

North East India, 1923. On the Night Mail to Jamalpur, a man is shot dead in a first class compartment. Detective Inspector Jim Stringer was sleeping in the next compartment along. Was he the intended target?Jim should have known that his secondment to the East Indian Railway would not be the working holiday he had hoped for. Aside from the Jamalpur shooting, someone is placing venomous snakes in the first class compartments of the railway.

From the shattered empire, five kingdoms are emerging. Seleukos, triumphant in the capture of Babylon, now faces the challenge of holding onto his hard-won prize. One-eyed Antigonos and his son are newly reconciled and both hungry for revenge. But Antigonos has foes of his own. Driven by vengeance, widowed Artonis sides with Ptolemy, planning to thwart the one-eyed brute. The key to their success is Herakles, the sixteen-year-old illegitimate son of Alexander. To see him crowned, they will not only need an army but also to eliminate Kassandros, a powerful rival.

Life on the Fifteen Streets was a continual struggle for survival. John O'Brien grew up in abject poverty, confined to the hardships of the Fifteen Streets. Labouring on the city's docks and trying to keep his loved ones safe from the drunken wrath of his father and brother, this is the only way of life he knows. Then John O'Brien meets his sister's teacher.

Charlie Gavin was abducted as a baby. He didn't know who he was or where he came from. His mission was to find himself. And when he did, he decided to spend his life finding other lost souls by opening the Be Kindly Missing Persons Bureau. Martha Walters, his assistant, has had her 15 minutes of almost fame and failed. Now, dealing with her guilt and pain, she lives with her mum and dotes on her young daughter. Charlie appears to be a dreamer, but hey, his office is near her house, she can lie in of a morning and take her kid to school and the work isn't too heartbreaking. Or is it?

Somewhere along Route 74, Jack Nightingale takes a wrong turn, ending up at a nightmarish convention for serial killers. When things start getting out of hand, Nightingale has to step in to stop more blood being shed.

November 1940. Darkness descends, and another anxious night begins for those tasked with guarding the industrial heartland of London from enemy attack. As a policeman patrols the Royal Albert Dock, something catches his eye - a man is sprawled awkwardly across a nearby barge, a dagger lodged in his back. Detective Inspector John Jago of West Ham CID discovers the victim was a dock worker by day and a Home Guard volunteer by night - and there are things even his wife doesn't know about his past.

A killer is murdering Goths with relish - skinning and butchering them. The cops aren’t getting anywhere so Jack Nightingale’s nemesis, Superintendent Chalmers, asks him for help. Nightingale discovers that the murdered Goths had one thing in common: a tattoo connected to the secretive, Satanic, child-sacrificing cult called the Order Of Nine Angles. As Nightingale closes in on the killers, the tables are turned and he finds himself in the firing line, along with his friends and family. The Order will stop at nothing to protect their secrets and Nightingale realises that there is nothing he can do to protect himself.

Barbara - a child of the Blitz - has more secrets than she cares to admit. She has protected her children from the harsh realities of life and told them little of the poverty of her childhood, nor of the darker side of her marriage to one of Britain's most famous photographers. With such an incomplete picture, her youngest, Sophie, has struggled to understand who her parents really are, and in turn, Barbara sometimes worries, to build her own identity.

When Kate Mitchell was offered the job of part-time secretary at Tor-Fret, a lonely old house on the Northumberland fells, she had no idea that the household was composed only of men. Her employer, Maurice Rossiter, an embittered victim of polio, was subject to alternate fits of temper and depression. Even so, Kate found it difficult to understand his peculiar hatred of his elder brother Logan, on whose charity Maurice was obliged to depend. But when she accidentally stumbled upon Maurice with Logan's fiancée, she became aware of some of the secrets of Tor-Fret.

Serpent's Point in South Devon is the focus of local legends. The large house on the headland is shrouded in an ancient tale of evil, and when a woman is found strangled on the coastal path nearby, DI Wesley Peterson is called in to investigate. The woman had been house-sitting at Serpent's Point, and Wesley is surprised to discover that she was conducting an investigation of her own into unsolved missing persons cases. Could these enquires have led to her murder?

The much-feared and hated Eudo - the Lord Bishop of Winchester's clerk - is bludgeoned to death in Pershore Abbey and laid before the altar in the attitude of a penitent. Everyone who had contact with him had reason to dislike him, but who had reason to kill him? The Sheriff of Worcestershire's thief taker, wily Serjeant Catchpoll, and his new and unwanted superior, Undersheriff Hugh Bradecote, have to find the answer. And as the walls of the abbey close in on the suspects, the killer strikes again....

From the twice CWA Dagger shortlisted author of The Twelve Strange Days of Christmas come 12 never-before-published stories to transport you to the macabre world of inexplicable phenomena. With returning characters from the Essex Witch Museum series and a weirdly wonderful tale for each day of Christmas, these spooky stories are the perfect companion for long, dark winter nights.

1914, Australia: As war is declared, the idyllic world of Blue Water Station is torn apart when Oliver, the eldest grandson and heir, shares his desire to enlist in the army. His enthusiasm ignites his brother, cousins and friends to do the same but upsets his sister, Tilly. After a tragic family incident, she is left to run the cattle station and take care of the older folk. A chance meeting with a sophisticated lieutenant opens up a friendship through letters, but it’s a rogue stockman who attracts her attention - with dire consequences....

John Pearce faces a court martial, but will a cowardly chief witness stand up to questioning? With the matter unresolved, HMS Hazard is put under the command of Horatio Nelson. In London, the government denies prize money for the cargo of silver Pearce took off the Santa Leocadia, claiming it as property of the Crown. Pearce’s prize agent seeks to fight this, only to be outmanoeuvred by devious Henry Dundas. From Elba, Pearce is sent on a mission to collect fleeing members of the Corsican government.

The Wentworth Asylum, once used to house thousands of people, now lies abandoned. People insist it is inhabited by an ex-inmate who now chops down those who enter with her ax. After two teenagers turn up dead in the asylum, a television crew head to the asylum in the hopes of catching footage of the haunting. And to ensure their safety, Jack Nightingale is sent with them. But is it merely an ax-wielding murderer which awaits them?

Why does a wealthy Scottish financier set up a drugs deal with the IRA? Jeopardise his career, endanger his family and lover by tangling with the East End underworld and a ruthless mercenary? The motive is simple: revenge for a cold-blooded act of murder. His adversary is a dangerous gangland boss whose connections stretch from the Highlands to London and beyond. More than a match for a newcomer, especially when his plans contain a fatal flaw, which will be discovered only when it is much too late…

This collection features unabridged recordings of the first three novels in E.F. Benson’s beloved Mapp and Lucia series. Narrated by Geraldine McEwan and Prunella Scales, this collection brings to life E.F. Benson’s comic tales of marriage, mishaps and mayhem.

June 1144. When the naked corpse of an unknown man is discovered and the Prince of Powys’ messenger fails to reach Earl Robert of Gloucester, Bradecote, Catchpoll and Walkelin head to Wales to confirm his identity, and piece together evidence that the dead man deserved a noose rather than a dagger. Retracing his steps leads them to a manor with a sarcastic lord, a neglected wife, a bitter mother and a fevered brother, all amidst folk who do not want the truth uncovered. The lord sheriff’s men have to unravel a knot where the law and justice seem to be in opposition.

Hugh d’Avranches, Earl of Chester, is enraged when his hawk is killed by an arrow in the Forest of Delamere. When two poachers are caught, he orders their execution, yet neither of them fired the arrow. As Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret come to Cheshire to settle a series of disputes between Church and State, they are guests of the earl. But when they explore the castle and discover that the Prince of Gwynedd is being held there as a hostage, a number of questions arise.