Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Crime Fiction

The Small Shop Keeper With No Name is back. Hired to find the vandals responsible for spraying graffiti on an insurance magnate's advertising hoarding, he soon finds himself battling to solve murders which echo in the corridors of power.

It's 1924 and investigative reporter Poppy Denby is heading up to Northumberland to celebrate her father's 60th birthday. She stops off in Newcastle en route to visit her Aunt Dot, who has temporarily relocated from London to renovate a house she's inherited. One of Aunt Dot's guests is the world renowned artist Agnes Robson, who is staging an exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery. Reluctantly, Poppy is roped in to help when the artist's press liaison man falls ill....

Semi-retired god of rock guitar and local poseur Erik Make Loud has got himself a new girlfriend. Helene Hilditch - formerly known as Howlin' Hellbitch - of all-girl punk outfit Blue Tits is a mean guitarist, and someone is trying to kill her. With a rare pressing of their first album to find, the Vinyl Detecive and Nevada are soon called into to help, but this time the question is, who isn't a suspect?

A rogue grizzly bear has gone on a rampage—killing, among others, the fiancee of Joe's daughter. At the same time, Dallas Cates, who Joe helped lock up years ago, is released from prison with a list of six names tattooed on his skin. He wants revenge on the people who sent him away: the people he blames for the deaths of his entire family and the loss of his reputation and property.

When Flavia de Luce is banished to Miss Bodycote's Female Academy in Canada, she’s soon on familiar ground when, on her first night, a mummified body is dislodged from a chimney, and she is presented with a gruesome puzzle to solve. Girls have been disappearing with alarming regularity, leading Flavia to wonder not only how and why but what exactly is the academy's true purpose? Flavia must enter a shadowy world where truth and lies seem interchangeable and no one can be trusted.

It seemed that everyone in the bleak little village of Thornwich had been honored with the most obscene poison pen letters imaginable. And they showed no signs of letting up. So off goes Chief Inspector Dover of Scotland Yard, his unfortunate young colleague MacGregor in tow, to track down the source. Not-so-comfortably ensconced in the miserable lodgings of the Jolly Sailor, Dover's easy confidence is quickly shaken when he suddenly has to deal with two suicides – one attempted, the other all-too-successful – black-market babies, and various bowel disorders.

When Alison Maxwell, a well-known Glaswegian journalist with an irresistible sexual attraction to both sexes, is found murdered the police look no further than the owner of the scarf used to strangle her. Lindsay Gordon, however, has other ideas. Maxwell was a serial seductress who kept a secret record of her encounters – including one with Lindsay herself. Recalling the threats that followed the end of the relationship, Lindsay knows all too well the feelings of rage, fear and passion that Alison Maxwell could invoke.

Lizzie Martin, lady's companion, has been sent from London to the New Forest to comfort a young woman whose baby has tragically died. A sad enough task, but things take an even darker turn when a rat-catcher is found murdered, and the young woman is discovered beside the body, crying and covered in blood. Not knowing where else to turn, Lizzie calls upon her friend Inspector Ben Ross to solve the horrific crime.

The severed head of Micky Crounan, local baker, is grinning gruesomely up from the bottom tier of his own cake. Katie Maguire of the Irish Garda is baffled--until another local businessman goes missing in horrific circumstances. Soon Katie is on the trail of a debt-collecting gang calling themselves the Kings of Erin. But these are very dangerous men. And they will stop at nothing to throw Katie off the trail...

Stella Darnell’s father died a year ago, but she has not moved on. He was Chief Superintendent at Hammersmith police station, and cleaning his house, Stella discovers a folder of photographs in his darkroom. The oldest photograph is dated 1966; to the very day the Moors Murderers were sent to prison for life. As Stella inches closer to the truth, the events of that day begin to haunt her too...

Dave Robicheaux is trying to put a life of violence and crime behind him, leaving homicide to run a boat-rental business in Louisiana's bayou country. One day while fishing in the Gulf with his wife Annie, he witnesses an event that will change his life forever. A two-engine plane suddenly crashes into the sea and Robicheaux dives down to the wreckage to find four bodies and one survivor; a little girl miraculously trapped in a pocket of air. When the authorities insist only three bodies were recovered from the plane, Robicheaux decides to investigate the mystery of the missing man.

Outside the Hope & Glory pub, a man has been left to die. A victim of extraordinary violence, he will never walk or speak again. He remains in hospital, nameless, until criminal defence lawyer Sarah Kellerman walks onto his ward. Sarah barely recognises the man she once worked with. He was honourable and kind - what was he involved in? Who wanted him dead?

In 1938, English spy Harry Taverner and Jewish photographer Anna Cantrell spend the night dancing at Berlin's most elegant hotel. Anna is married to another man, the Nazi shadow is rising over Europe and neither expects to ever meet again. But once peace is declared, they reunite in the ruins of Berlin, where Anna is searching for her missing children. With the blockade tightening and the Soviets set on conquest, Harry and Anna walk a treacherous line between love and duty, integrity and survival, loyalty and betrayal.

It's 2004. In Bampton, Derbyshire, Lena Fisher is arrested for suffocating her husband, Andrew. Spring 2016: A year after Lena's release from prison, Andrew is found murdered in a disused mortuary. Who was the man Lena killed 12 years ago, and why did she lie about his identity? When Lena disappears, her sister, Kat, follows a trail of clues delivered by a teenage boy.

Twelve-year-old Flavia de Luce is back at Buckshaw at last, but her homecoming is overshadowed by news of her father's illness. Forbidden from visiting him in hospital, Flavia busies herself in the village, but she soon makes a macabre discovery: the corpse of a reclusive woodcarver in an empty house, except for a curiously uncurious cat. Curiosity may not kill this cat, but Flavia is energized at the prospect of a new investigation. However, what awaits Flavia will shake her to the core.

Sean Tennant and Molly Winter are living quietly, and cautiously, in Houston when a troubled, obsessive stranger shatters the safety they have carefully constructed for themselves. Sean, a former soldier, becomes a hero when he stops a man with a gun at the mall. His newfound notoriety exposes him to the wrath of two men he thought were safely in his past. Sean and Molly will need to draw on all their strength, and devotion to each other, to manage to elude their enemies.

A young girl has mysteriously disappeared in Rome. On the case are Clemente and Marcus, two members of the ancient Penitenzeri: a unique team, linked to the Vatican, and trained in the detection of true evil. Sandra, a brilliant forensics expert with a tragic past, is also working on the case. When their paths cross, they uncover a terrible secret world, hidden in the dark recesses of Rome....

In rural India, Geeta is believed to have killed her vanished husband—but she hasn't wasted too much time trying to correct the record, because as a single woman her new reputation has been the one thing keeping her safe all these years. Still, she's paid a price. She's an outcast in her town, estranged from her childhood best friend, Saloni, and from the rest of the women in her microloan group. But that all changes when another member of the group approaches Geeta with a problem of her own. and absurdity of life.

Flavia is enjoying the summer, spending her days punting along the river with her reluctant family. Languishing in boredom, she drags a slack hand in the water - and catches her fingers in the open mouth of a drowned corpse. Flavia needs to put her super-sleuthing skills to the test to investigate the murder of three gossips in the local church and to keep her sisters out of danger.

The daughter of a US Senator is monitoring her social media presence when she finds a picture of herself on a strange blog. And there are other pictures...of the children of other influential Washington politicians, walking or standing outside their schools, each identified by name. Surrounding the photos are texts of vicious political rants from a motley variety of extremist groups. It's obviously alarming - there's an unstated but deadly threat here - but when the FBI is called in, there isn't much the feds can do.