Showing results by publisher "Zaffre" in All Categories

When a body is found in one of London's poorest districts, the coroner's report identifies the victim as young, black and female, but impossibly anonymous. One thing is clear to Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison about this victim - that news of her murder will tear apart a city already cracking with racial tensions, hurling Scotland Yard and Tennison herself into a maelstrom of shocking accusations and sudden, wrenching violence.

As war is declared once more, a shadow falls over Britain. The staff at the luxurious Buckingham hotel must do all that they can to keep their important guests happy, but behind the scenes, they are scared. Away from the glitz and the glamour of the ballroom, they must face this new reality. Newlywed Nancy knows that her brave husband, debonair dancer Raymond de Guise, will want to fight for his country and enlist. She loves and supports him but is heartbroken at the thought of them being apart and the dangers he will face.

In the city of Lahun, Hui lives an enchanted life. The favoured son of a doting father, and ruler-in-waiting of the great city, his fate is set. But behind the beautiful façades a sinister evil is plotting. Craving power and embittered by jealousy, Hui's stepmother, the great sorceress Isetnofret, and Hui's own brother Qen, orchestrate the downfall of Hui's father, condemning Hui and seizing power in the city.

1997. A desperate government clings to power; a hungry opposition will do anything to win. And journalist Gil Peck watches from the sidelines, a respected commentator on the sport of power politics. He thinks he knows how things work. He thinks he knows the rules. But when Gil's estranged sister, Clare, dies in a hit-and-run, he begins to believe it was no accident. Clare knew some of the most sensitive secrets in government. One of them might have got her killed.

Seventeen-year-old Jenny is abducted in broad daylight and taken to a dilapidated, isolated house where she is chained and caged along with several other girls. Their captor is unpredictable, and as wily as he is cruel: he foils every one of their desperate attempts to escape...and once caught they rarely survive their punishment. Five years later, Jenny is found dead in a public park, and the police are scrambling to find a lead among the scant evidence. But Detective Joona Linna realizes that this murder has an eerie connection to a death that was declared a suicide years before.

It's 1942, and at 19 years old, Hannah Compton has the world at her feet. But with World War II raging, the country is in turmoil, and Hannah decides to do her bit for the War effort. Hannah's beloved grandfather taught her to grow vegetables in his market garden and inspires her to become one of over 200,000 women joining the Land Army. Posted to Salhouse Farm on the outskirts of Norwich, Hannah is excited for the adventure ahead of her. But soon reality hits. Hannah is a city girl at heart, and life in the countryside is not what she imagined.

As the Battle of Britain rages, the Castle family are standing their ground at the heart of the community, running Castle's Café. German guns shell Dover and danger lurks around every corner, but despite this, Lily Castle is excited to be starting her nursing career at last. Lily is enjoying her life. She's a good nurse, has a group of friends at the hospital and there is romance on the horizon. That is until her world comes crashing down around her. When she tries to help an injured prisoner of war at the hospital, she ends up implicated in a crime.

Camden mortuary assistant Cassie Raven has pretty much seen it all. But this is the first time she's come face to face with someone she knew on the slab. Someone she cared about. Geraldine Edwards, the teacher responsible for her returning to education after she got ensnared in a life of drugs. The woman who acted as a second mother to the orphaned Cassie. Deeply intuitive and convinced that she can pick up the last thoughts of the dead, Cassie senses that there must be more to the ruling of an accidental death.

Marina is a divorced mother of three preschoolers. Lilah is a shy and lonely librarian. Opal is a broke post-menopausal fitness guru. These three strangers have nothing in common-except for the man who's been lying to all of them. And who they are now holding hostage in a basement. EAT, SLAY, LOVE is a book about making friends, finding joy, and discovering the woman you really are . . . though sometimes, becoming your best self involves committing abduction and murder.

When Libby Nicholls arrives in London, broken-hearted and with her life in tatters, the first person she meets on the bus is elderly pensioner Frank. He tells her about the time in 1962 he met a girl on the number 88 bus with beautiful red hair just like her own. They made plans for a date, but Frank lost the ticket with her number written on it. For the past sixty years, he's ridden the same bus trying to find her. Libby is inspired by the story and, with the help of an unlikely companion, she makes it her mission to continue Frank's search.

When a woman is snatched from a wood, Inspector Superintendent Pat North seizes control of her first major enquiry - one that appears to be over before it begins, when a local sex offender quickly confesses. With no body and inconsistent statements, North and her team are not convinced. They investigate a strange family of musical geniuses - each with their own motive. But if the man who confessed isn't the perpetrator - who is? And how far will they go to evade capture?

Dover 1940 As firebombs fall on Dover, Edie Castle's life is thrown into turmoil when the garage where she lives and works is damaged and her beloved boss is arrested. With no job and nowhere else to go, Edie returns to Castle's Café and her formidable mother, Nellie. Living with her mother is never easy, but tensions reach boiling point when an old friend of Nellie's arrives looking for a place to stay. Meanwhile, desperate to clear her boss's name, Edie turns to his nephew for help.

On the beautiful beaches of Crete, an old woman is handing out scraps of paper. Sofia, eighty-five years old, unable to speak, is desperate to find a daughter she has never known. After a tragic childhood in Athens and a soaring career as a singer, the brutal treatment of the man she loved by a tyrannical regime forced her to give up her daughter mere days after her birth. Now she longs to be reunited with her child before it's too late. Meanwhile in London, Zoe is searching too. In the months since the disappearance of her teenage daughter, Zoe's life has crumbled apart.

A warmhearted and nostalgic festive family saga. Will Tilly finally find a family to call her own? As Christmas grows nearer, Tilly, a young maid, is sent away from her home in London to care for a sick child in an old cottage on the Isle of Sheppey, and she little imagines how her life will change.... Having settled in with her new family, Tilly dares to believe that the happiness she's longed for could be hers at last and that she might finally be free from the secrets of her past.

Sweden, 1942—Two old friends meet. They are cousins. One is Prince George, Duke of Kent, brother of the King of England. The other is Prince Philipp von Hessen, a committed Nazi and close friend of Adolf Hitler. Days later, the Prince George is killed in a plane crash in the north of Scotland. The official story is that it was an accident—but not everyone is convinced. There is even a suggestion that the Duke's plane was sabotaged, but with no evidence, Cambridge spy Tom Wilde is sent north to discover the truth . . .

Violent burglars have been terrorising residents across the English countryside. But when a mutilated body is discovered in a Cotswolds house, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary group of opportunist thieves. As Detective Jack Warr investigates, he discovers locals with dark secrets, unearths hidden crimes - and hits countless dead ends. With few leads and the violent attacks escalating, he will have to act as audaciously as the criminals if he hopes to stop them.

Detective Anna Travis is up for promotion, but with her boss DCI James Langton accusing her of professional misconduct, this latest case could make or break her. Shortly after the announcement of a tell-all memoir, a young film star is found dead. With careers at stake and secrets to hide, almost everyone has a motive to kill. From jealous ex-flatmates to famous lovers, Langton and his team are confronted with a vast array of suspects, keen to keep their secrets close to their chests.

In the midst of WWII, an English mother, Norah, places her eight-year-old daughter on a ship leaving Malaya, desperate to keep her safe from the Japanese army as they move down through the Pacific. In Singapore, a Welsh-Australian nurse, Nesta, has enlisted to tend to Allied troops. But as the island falls to the Japanese she joins the terrified cargo of people, including the heartbroken Norah, crammed aboard the Vyner Brooke merchant ship. Only two days later, they are bombarded from the air off the coast of Indonesia, and in a matter of hours, the Vyner Brooke lies broken on the seabed.

Mortuary technician Cassie Raven is shocked to find the body of Bronte, a talented singer on the brink of stardom, in her fridge. The two of them were once schoolmates, although not exactly friends . . . The police say Bronte jumped from her tenth-floor apartment, but Cassie's instincts are telling her it's murder. The death ignites a social media frenzy, and when police watchdog Phyllida Flyte is sent in to assess the handling of the case she is the only one willing to listen to Cassie.

Turning to online dating each with their own reasons, four women download an app, hoping to swipe their way to love and happiness. But not everyone is who they seem online. Hidden behind a perfect smile and charming humour, he appears to be the perfect date. But the night he has planned is unlike any other. The clock is ticking, and for one woman, this date might just be her last....