Vienna, 1711. Eleven years after the events of Secretum, and by means of a mysterious bequest, Atto Melani arranges for his faithful helper to relocate from a Roman slum to the imperial court in Vienna. Here, Atto enlists his help in a secret mission to bring about the end of the war between France and Austria. Meanwhile, a Turkish delegation has arrived in Vienna for talks with Emperor Joseph I, despite the fact that Austria is supposed to be at peace with the Ottoman Empire....

'An exuberant and discursive historical novel, crammed with fascinating detail' - The Independent11 September 1683, Rome. Rome is a city on a knife-edge. The citizens wait anxiously for news of the outcome of the Battle of Vienna, as the Islamic forces of the Ottoman Empire lay siege to the defenders of Catholic Europe. Meanwhile a suspected outbreak of plague causes a famous Roman tavern to be placed under quarantine. Among this detained in the Locanda Donzello is...

July, 1700, Rome. Atto Melani - once a celebrated castrato soprano, now a spy in the service of King Louis XIV, the Sun King - mingles with other high-ranking guests at the villa of Cardinal Spada. Despite being there to celebrate the Cardinal's nephew's wedding, the main topic of conversation is the grave illness of the Pope and the approaching demise of Charles II, King of Spain. Charles has no heir and Kaiser Leopold of Austria and King Louis are each demanding the throne, with the Vati...

1582, St Andrews. A violent storm wrecks a ship nearby, and the only man about dies without revealing how he came to be there alone, or where the ship was headed. But neither he nor the wreck is really of interest to the townsfolk of St Andrews. Lashed to the deck of the ship is a windmill, a much-needed innovation for the town, but one which soon brings devestation as squabbling over its ownership breaks out.Tasked with tracing the ship to its source, reluctant lawyer Hew Cullan e...

Castillon: Part One of a fast-paced serialised novel set in the turbulent Europe of the fifteenth century.1450s France. A young Englishman, Tom Swan, is kneeling in the dirt, waiting to be killed by the French who have taken him captive.He's not a professional soldier. He's really a merchant and a scholar looking for remnants of Ancient Greece and Rome - temples, graves, pottery, fabulous animals, unicorn horns. But he also has a real talent for ending up i...

In the wake of the 2011 tsunami, Ruth discovers a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the shore of her beach home in British Columbia. Within it lies a diary that expresses the hopes, heartbreak and dreams of a young girl desperate for someone to understand her. Each turn of the page pulls Ruth deeper into the mystery of Nao’s life, and forever changes her in a way neither could foresee.Weaving across continents and decades, A Tale for the Time Being is an extraordinary nove...

THE TOP TEN BESTSELLER, NOW AN AWARD-WINNING NETFLIX HIT'Effortlessly brilliant . . . hugely moving and outrageously funny.' Observer'A treat to read.' The Times'The great London novel of the twenty-first century.' New Statesman'Brimming with perception, humane empathy and relish . . . a capital achievement.' Sunday Times

St Andrews, 1583, and tensions are running high.Dissension rages between King and councillors, and between separate factions of the Kirk. Hew Cullan is called to investigate a mysterious incident, and finds suspicion falling upon him as he is ensnared in a world of superstition, subterfuge and death.Hew Cullan finds himself once again in the company of his sister Meg and her husband, Giles Locke, in their most challenging case yet. Alliances are formed; there are old scores...

After three long years, exiled from home and family, and drawn into the depths of the London underworld under the tutelage of Elizabeth I's spymaster Francis Walsingham, Hew returns to Scotland with his new English wife, Frances.The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots has unleashed a torrent of anti-English sentiment in the Scottish people and fear in King James VI, jeopardising Hew's now unlawful marriage. However, the king invites Hew to investigate the pe...

Don't miss THE SHRINE, the brand new Detective's Daughter mystery - available nowAs winter closes its grip on snow-bound London, a cleaner determines to solve the case that her detective father never could. A Kindle number one bestseller.It was the murder that shocked the nation. Kate Rokesmith, a young mother, walked to the banks of the Thames with her three-year-old son. She never came home.For three decades, the case fil...

Venice: part two of a fast-paced serialised novel set in the turbulent Europe of the fifteenth century.A young Englishman, Tom Swan, travels to Italy in the bodyguard of a Cardinal. He finds it a different world. Food is delicious, women are beautiful, men are quick to make friends and quick to draw knives. Swan likes it, and dives into the politics and the plotting, the art and the fashion - and the bordellos - of Renaissance Italy.He's not a professional ...

'Does for Elizabeth's reign what CJ Sansom does for Henry VIII's' Sunday TimesThe first book in the iconic John Shakespeare series, beloved by thousands of readers, from true master of historical fiction, Rory Clements.-------------------------------------------------------'Sixteenth-century London comes alive in all its tawdriness' Daily Mail'Beautifully done . . . alive and tremendously engrossi...