Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Historical

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.

Dr Thomas Bond, Police Surgeon, is still recovering from when Jack the Ripper haunted the streets of London - and a more malign enemy hid in his shadow. Bond and the others who worked on the gruesome case are still stalked by its legacies, both psychological and tangible. Now the bodies of children are being pulled from the Thames, and Bond is about to become inextricably linked with an uncanny, undying enemy.

In 1978 East Germany, nothing is at it seems. The state's power is absolute, history is rewritten and the 'truth' is whatever the Stasi say it is. So when a woman's murder is officially labelled 'accidental death', Major Karin Müller of the People's Police is faced with a dilemma. To solve the crime, she must disregard the official version of events. But defying the Stasi means putting her own life - and the lives of her young family - in danger.

Italy, 1351. English knight Gerard Fox and the resourceful Willa have come through a death-defying journey across war-torn Europe. Now looking towards their future together, they must first find a way to reconcile with their difficult pasts. In a small village between Florence and Siena, Fox and Willa are caught up in a deadly ambush. After rescuing the enigmatic woman who is the target of the attack, they take refuge in her opulent villa and learn her heartbreaking story—a tale of loss, deception... and a burning desire for freedom.

When ex-CIA agent Vera Kelly loses her job and her girlfriend in a single day, she reluctantly goes into business as a private detective. Heartbroken and cash-strapped, she takes a case that dredges up dark memories and attracts dangerous characters from across the Cold War landscape. Before it's over, she'll chase a lost child through foster care and follow a trail of Dominican exiles to the Caribbean. Forever looking over her shoulder, she nearly misses what's right in front of her: her own desire for home, connection and a new romance at the local bar.

Houston publishes so many books a year that he can't possibly write them himself. He has a ghost team; writers, agents, publishers. So when he takes a year out to write something of quality, a novel that will win prizes, a lot of people stand to lose their livelihoods. Now Houston, the prime suspect in his wife's murder, has disappeared. He could be anywhere and there are many who'd like to find him.

The body of a teenage boy is found weighted down in a lake. Karin Müller, newly appointed Major of the People's Police, is called to investigate. But her power will stretch only so far, when every move she makes is under the watchful eye of the Stasi. Then, when the son of Müller's team member goes missing, it quickly becomes clear that there is a terrifying conspiracy at the heart of this case.

Richard Knox, freshly returned to active duty after a year out of the field, is ordered to uncover the invisible enemy that's infiltrated the Service in his absence. His quest takes him to Hong Kong, a city on the brink of chaos, where he discovers the lines between friend and foe have never been more blurred. Who is behind the assault on MI5? How long have they been operating in the shadows? And what is their endgame?

Meet Henri and Louise. Two strangers, travelling alone, on the train from Belgrade to Istanbul. Except this isn't the first time they have met. It's the 1960s, and Louise is running. From her past in England, from the owners of the money she has stolen - and from Henri, the person who has been sent to collect it. Across the Continent - from Granada to Paris, from Belgrade to Istanbul - Henri follows. He's desperate to leave behind his own troubles and the memories of his past life as a gendarme in Algeria. But Henri soon realises that Louise is no ordinary traveller.

The headlines scream warnings about the 'Butcher of Berner Street!', and the journalist behind them - Leo Stanhope - is secretly thrilled to see the effect his words are having. Leo's previous work has largely been concentrated on more mundane issues, but when an anonymous letter summons him to a club in East London, only for the owner of the club to be found murdered shortly afterwards, Leo sees a story worth pursuing. Not to mention an opportunity to make a name for himself.

Autumn 1939, war has been declared, and though bullets and bombs are yet to fly, Frederic Stahl’s decision to shoot a film in Paris seems ill-advised. Soon after his arrival, Stahl is drawn into a clandestine world of foreign correspondents, and spies of every sort. As a celebrity from neutral America - who can travel across the continent freely - Stahl could be very useful indeed...

The second instalment in a prize-winning series charting the rise of the House of Medici as they become Masters of Florence and progenitors of the Renaissance. Florence, 1469. The Medici family is preparing for the marriage of its son and heir Lorenzo. His heart belongs to another, but this union will strengthen the alliance with a powerful Roman family. Torn between love and power, the bounties and the compromises of governing, Lorenzo has become complacent. He has forgotten the bloody path he forged on his ascent to power and the enemies left in his wake.

Whalley, 1537: On a day like any other, a devastating fire changes the lives of two young girls. What happens next triggers a series of events leading inexorably to the cells of Lancaster Gaol. Lancashire, 1612: The most notorious witchcraft trials in England are taking place. Among the accused, three generations of the same family. A family rooted in Pendle, tied to the infamous Malkin Towers and always followed by a whisper of evil. A family destroyed by the evidence given by a nine-year-old girl.

Berlin, 1942. For four years, the men in field grey have helped themselves to country after country across Western Europe. For Werner Nehmann, a journalist at the Promi - the Ministry of Propaganda - this dizzying series of victories has felt like a party without end. But now the Reich's attention has turned towards the East, and as winter sets in, the mood is turning. Werner's boss, Joseph Goebbels, can sense it. A small man with a powerful voice and coal black eyes, Goebbels has a deep understanding of the dark arts of manipulation.

It's been a year since Leo Stanhope lost the woman he loved and came closing to losing his own life. Now he is determined to keep his head down and stay safe. But Leo's hopes for peace are shattered when the police unexpectedly arrive: a woman has been found murdered at a club for anarchists, and Leo's address is in her purse. When Leo is taken to the club by the police there is a man there from his past who knows Leo's birth identity. And if Leo does not provide him with an alibi for the night of the killing, he is going to share this information with the authorities.

Scandal, intoxication and lies flourish in the silent film studios of Paris. A silent film, destroyed in a fire in 1914 at the Pathé studio, before it was seen even by its director. A lowly seamstress who makes the costumes she should be wearing but believes her talent - and the secret she keeps, too - will soon get her a dressing room of her own. A famous - and dashing - creator of spectacular cinematic illusions, husband to a beautiful, volatile actress, the most adored icon of the Parisian studios.

On Sunday 22nd June 1941, at 03.05, three and a half million Axis troops burst into the Soviet Union along a 1,800-mile front to launch Operation Barbarossa. The southern thrust of the attack was aimed at the Caucuses and the oil fields beyond. Kyiv was the biggest city to stand in their way. Within six weeks, the city was under siege. Surrounded by Panzers, bombed and shelled day and night, Soviet Commissar Nikita Krushchev was amongst the senior Soviet officials co-ordinating the defence.

Vietnam, 1963. A female Viet Cong assassin is trawling the boulevards of Saigon, catching US Army officers off-guard with a single pistol shot, then riding off on the back of a scooter. Although the US military is not officially in combat, 16,000 American servicemen are stationed in Vietnam 'advising' the military and government. Among them are Ellsworth Miser and Clovis Robeson, two army investigators who have been tasked with tracking down the daring killer.

Summer, 1952. Verity Frost, stranded on her family farm on the Norfolk coast, is caught between two worlds: the devotion of her childhood friend Arthur, just returned from National Service, and a strange new desire to escape it all. Arthur longs to escape too, but only with Verity by his side. Into their world steps Jack, a charismatic American pilot flying secret reconnaissance missions off the North Sea coast. But where Verity sees adventure and glamour, Arthur sees only deception.

London, 1628. Nicolaes de Pelgrom, assassin and devoted servant of George Villiers, will do whatever his master asks of him—even if that means enduring the perilous voyage to the Indies to exact a grieving widow's revenge. Making that same journey is Jeronimus Cornelisz, a conniving apothecary determined to escape the backstreets of Amsterdam and become rich beyond imagination. Hired by a criminal mastermind to escort precious cargo to the Indies, he will kill anyone who stands in his way.