Radio Broadwich decides to do a documentary on the small village of Twytching for international broadcast, and the townspeople divide between those who seek the patronage of Mrs. Deborah Withins, arbiter of taste and morals, and those determined to displace her in the cutthroat contest for media recognition. When a rash of poison-pen letters and a murder coincide, quiet inspector George Parrish begins to uncover secrets the leading citizens of Twytching had thought, and fe...

Robert Barnard, one of the great contemporary masters of classic mystery, returns with a brilliant new tale of passion and deception.Well-known actress Caroline Fawley has given up a successful stage and television career for love and life in the country. International business titan Marius Fleetwood can't marry her. He already has a wife, though he claims they are "just friends." But Marius has done something very special for Caroline: he has "bought" her Alderley, an elegant count...

***Winner of the National Crime Short Story Prize***Robert Barnard's contribution 'Sins of Scarlet' won the National Crime Short Story Prize.Featuring:Michael Jecks, Bill Kirton, Peter Lovesey, Stuart Pawson, Christine Poulson, Zoe Sharp, Frank Tallis, Yvonne Eve Walus, Carla Banks, Tonino Benacquista, Robert Barnard, Natasha Cooper, Matt Coward, Martin Edwards, Kate Ellis, Paul A Freeman, Edward D Hoch.A wom...

From Robert Barnard, the internationally acclaimed Diamond Dagger–winning crime writer . . .Kit Philipson has always felt like something of a stranger in his family. Growing up as the only child of professional parents in Glasgow, Scotland, he had every advantage. His mother was a teacher; his father, a journalist, escaped from Nazi Germany at the age of three on one of the 1939 Kindertransports. But on her deathbed, Kit’s mother tells him he was adopted and that his birth name was...

Assigned as British Princess Helena’s personal bodyguard, Scotland Yard Detective Perry Trethowan struggles to defend his own virtue against the lascivious princess while tracking down the methodical killer who is murdering her numerous lovers.

Vernon Watts may have been beloved by the millions of faithful viewers of the long-running soap opera Jubilee Terrace but his fellow cast members knew him for what he was -- an egotistical former music-hall performer whose untimely death in a pedestrian accident was not something to be universally regretted.Sadly, though, director Reggie Friedman soon fills the supposed void by asking Hamish Fawley, an equally unpleasant former member of the Jubilee Terrace troupe...

From Robert Barnard, the internationally acclaimed Diamond Dagger-winning crime writer . . .Some memories are better left buried in the past. Well-known author Graham Broadbent has managed to repress one particularly dangerous memory for many years, but a trip home to a school reunion brings back the shocking reality of a desperate youthful passion.It all begins with a knock on Graham's hotel door. His visitor is nineteen-year-old Christa, who read in the n...

Scotland Yard Superintendent Perry Trethowan is enjoying a vacation evening at a cozy Yorkshire pub when an old woman shows him an original, unpublished Bronte manuscript. Trethowan agrees to engage in a little literary detective work, but he doesn’t realize that for a criminal the manuscript is motive for theft, torture—and murder.

What an honor, to become a trustee of one of England’s distinguished stately homes. Yorkshire cop Charlie Peace’s wife Felicity is at first thrilled when she’s asked to help oversee Walbrook Manor, a recent gift to the nation. It’s not long, though, before both she and Charlie smell trouble. Suspenseful, witty and, as always, superbly insightful, A Charitable Body shows Barnard at his scintillating best.

A mysterious envelope arrives on Eve McNabb's doorstep soon after she has buried her mother, a woman who kept many secrets. The puzzling letter inside this envelope hints at an illicit passion between the letter writer and Eve's mother, May McNabb.Even when she was a child, Eve sensed that there were parts of May's life she would never understand. She would never know the details of her parents' marriage or why her father suddenly disappeared from her life. While Eve has always bel...

Old church meets new with a vengeance when a monk is brutally murdered at St. Botolph’s.

From award-winning mystery writer Robert Barnard comes a classic British whodunit about a bestselling author who is murdered—and his latest unpublished manuscript has gone missing.Sir Oliver Fairleigh-Stubbs, overweight and overbearing, collapses and dies at his birthday party while indulging his taste for rare liquors. He had promised his daughter he would be polite and charitable for the entire day, but the strain of such exemplary behavior was obviously too grea...