Д. В. Бишоп0.0 The Darkest Sin is an atmospheric historical thriller by D. V. Bishop, set in Renaissance Florence and is the sequel to City of Vengeance.
Florence. Spring, 1537.
When Cesare Aldo investigates a report of intruders at a convent in the Renaissance city’s northern quarter, he enters a community divided by bitter rivalries and harbouring dark secrets.
His case becomes far more complicated when a naked man’s body is found deep inside the convent, stabbed more than two dozen times. Unthinkable as it seems, all the evidence suggests one of the nuns must be the killer.
Meanwhile, Constable Carlo Strocchi finds human remains pulled from the Arno that belong to an officer of the law missing since winter. The dead man had many enemies, but who would dare kill an official of the city’s most feared criminal court?
As Aldo and Strocchi close in on the truth, identifying the killers will prove more treacherous than either of them could ever have imagined . . .
Анна Маццола3.8 Париж. Зима 1750 года. В надежде на лучшую жизнь бывшая проститутка Мадлен устраивается горничной в дом знаменитого часовщика Рейнхарта. По заданию полиции девушка должна выяснить, чем в действительности занимается часовщик, ведь по городу ходят упорные слухи, будто Рейнхарт создает свои диковинные механизмы — украшенных драгоценностями птиц, серебряных пауков, кроликов, летучих мышей — с помощью магии, бросая вызов законам природы. Но в доме часовщика Мадлен чувствует себя крайне неуютно: ей кажется, будто она постоянно под прицелом чужих глаз. События принимают еще более зловещий оборот, когда с улиц начинают исчезать дети. Мадлен, исполненная решимости выяснить правду, с ужасом понимает, что, возможно, имеет дело с заговором, который ведет в самое сердце Версаля. Но что лежит в основе этого заговора? Кто такая заводная девушка? И что на самом деле ищет Мадлен? «Заводная девушка» – это потрясающая история об одержимости, иллюзиях и цене свободы.
J.B. Mylet0.0 There were good people in The Homes. But there were also some very, very bad ones...
A thousand unwanted children live in The Homes, a village of orphans in the Scottish Lowlands on the outskirts of Glasgow. Lesley was six before she learned that most children live with their parents. Now Lesley is twelve, and she and her best friend Jonesy live in Cottage 5, Jonesy the irrepressible spirit to Lesley's quiet thoughtfulness.
Life is often cruel at The Homes, and suddenly it becomes much crueller. A child is found murdered. Then another. With the police unable to catch the killer, Lesley and Jonesy decide to take the matter into their own hands. But unwanted children are easy victims, and they are both in terrible danger...
Inspired by a true story, and introducing readers to the unforgettable voice of young orphan Lesley, The Homes is a moving and lyrical thriller, perfect for readers of Val McDermid, Chris Whitaker, Jane Casey and Denise Mina.
Харини Нагендра0.0 A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
The first in a charming, joyful crime series set in 1920s Bangalore, featuring sari-wearing detective Kaveri and her husband Ramu. Perfect for fans of Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.
When clever, headstrong Kaveri moves to Bangalore to marry handsome young doctor Ramu, she's resigned herself to a quiet life.
But that all changes the night of the party at the Century Club, where she escapes to the garden for some peace and quiet—and instead spots an uninvited guest in the shadows. Half an hour later, the party turns into a murder scene.
When a vulnerable woman is connected to the crime, Kaveri becomes determined to save her and launches a private investigation to find the killer, tracing his steps from an illustrious brothel to an Englishman's mansion. She soon finds that sleuthing in a sari isn't as hard as it seems when you have a talent for mathematics, a head for logic, and a doctor for a husband . . .
And she's going to need them all as the case leads her deeper into a hotbed of danger, sedition, and intrigue in Bangalore's darkest alleyways.
Leonora Nattrass0.0 Death came aboard with the cormorant. It arrived on the seventh day of our voyage...
This is the secret report of disgraced former Foreign Office clerk Laurence Jago, written on the mail ship Tankerville en route to Philadelphia. His mission is to aid the civil servant charged with carrying a vital treaty to Congress that will prevent the Americans from joining with the French in their war against Britain.
When the civil servant meets an unfortunate 'accidental' end, Laurence becomes the one person standing between Britain and disaster. It is his great chance to redeem himself at Whitehall - except that his predecessor has taken the secret of the treaty's hiding place to his watery grave.
As the ship is searched, Laurence quickly discovers that his fellow passengers - among them fugitive French aristocrats, an American plantation owner, an Irish actress and her performing bear - all have their own motives to find the treaty for themselves. And as a second death follows the first, Laurence must turn sleuth in order to find the killer before he has an 'accident' of his own.
The new pageturning historical mystery from the author of BLACK DROP, a 2021 TIMES Book of the Year. Perfect for readers of Andrew Taylor, Laura Shepherd-Robinson and S.J. Parris.
Сэйра Смит0.0 In the burgeoning industrial city of Glasgow in 1817 Jean Campbell - a young, Deaf woman - is witnessed throwing a child into the River Clyde from the Old Bridge.
No evidence is yielded from the river. Unable to communicate with their silent prisoner, the authorities move Jean to the decaying Edinburgh Tolbooth in order to prise the story from her. The High Court calls in Robert Kinniburgh, a talented teacher from the Deaf & Dumb Institution, in the hope that he will interpret for them and determine if Jean is fit for trial. If found guilty she faces one of two fates; death by hanging or incarceration in an insane asylum.
Through a process of trial and error, Robert and Jean manage to find a rudimentary way of communicating with each other. As Robert gains her trust, Jean confides in him, and Robert begins to uncover the truth, moving uneasily from interpreter to investigator, determined to clear her name before it is too late.
Based on a landmark case in Scottish legal history Hear No Evil is a richly atmospheric exploration of nineteenth-century Edinburgh and Glasgow at a time when progress was only on the horizon. A time that for some who were silenced could mean paying the greatest price.
Стивен Бейтс0.0 A brilliant narrative investigation into the 1920s case that inspired Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Margery Allingham In 1922, Major Herbert Armstrong, a Hay-on-Wye solicitor, was found guilty of, and executed for, poisoning his wife, Katharine, with arsenic.
Armstrong’s case has all the ingredients of a classic murder mystery, from a plot by Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers (indeed some aspects of his story appear in Sayers’ Unnatural Death). It is a near-perfect whodunnit. One hundred years later, Agatha Award-shortlisted Stephen Bates examines and retells the story of the case, evoking the period and atmosphere of the early 1920s, a time of newspaper sensationalism, hypocrisy and sanctimonious morality.
Мартин Эдвардс0.0 In the first major history of crime fiction in fifty years, The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and their Creators traces the evolution of the genre from the eighteenth century to the present, offering brand-new perspective on the world’s most popular form of fiction.
"The Life of Crime" is the result of a lifetime of reading and enjoying all types of crime fiction, old and new, from around the world. In what will surely be regarded as his magnum opus, Martin Edwards has thrown himself undaunted into the breadth and complexity of the genre to write an authoritative – and readable – study of its development and evolution. With crime fiction being read more widely than ever around the world, and with individual authors increasingly the subject of extensive academic study, his expert distillation of more than two centuries of extraordinary books and authors – from the tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann to the novels of Patricia Cornwell – into one coherent history is an extraordinary feat and makes for compelling reading.
Amit Katwala0.0 A thrilling account of the creation of the so-called lie detector, exploring shocking murders and dramatic trials to uncover the true nature of the polygraph.
Henry Wilkens burst through the doors of the emergency room covered in his wife’s blood. But was he a grieving husband, or a ruthless killer who’d conspired with bandits to have her murdered?
To find out, the San Francisco police turned to technology, and a new machine that had just been invented in Berkeley by a rookie detective, a visionary police chief, and a teenage magician with a showman’s touch.
John Larson, Gus Vollmer and Leonarde Keeler hoped the lie detector would make the justice system fairer - but the flawed device soon grew too powerful for them to control. It poisoned their lives, turned fast friends into bitter enemies, and as it conquered America and the world, it transformed our relationship with the trusts on ways that are still being felt.
As new forms of lie detection gain momentum in the present day, this book reveals the incredible truth behind the creation of the polygraph. Touching on psychology, technology and the science of the truth, Tremors in the Blood is a vibrant, atmospheric thriller, and a warning from history: be careful what you believe.
Mackay Julie, Murphy Rob0.0 The gripping true story of how Detective Superintendent Julie Mackay brought Melanie Road's murderer to justice.
Bath, 1984
Jean Road, a 49-year-old mother of three, awakens to news that her daughter Melanie has been murdered in a nearby street as she walked home from a club in the early hours.
Britain's biggest manhunt begins. A trail of blood is found leading away from the scene. It's a rare blood type. But despite a year-long inquiry and 94 arrests, the case is wound down. No one is charged with Melanie's murder.
Avon & Somerset Police HQ, 2009
Detective Sergeant Julie Mackay, a 41-year-old single mother of three who has been overlooked for promotion for years, transfers to the Cold Case Unit. She unearths a file from the original inquiry and becomes hooked by the details: the rare blood type, Bath on a summer's night, the investigative wrong turns … She takes on the case, and with the help of Melanie's inspirational mother works tirelessly to rebuild it.
This is the true story of how she did it.
David Whitehouse0.0 The book that everyone will be talking about this year: a staggering work of honesty, empathy and humanity, wholly unlike anything else you will have read' Terri White
On the evening of Halloween in 2015, Morgan Hehir was walking with friends close to Nuneaton town centre when they were viciously attacked by a group of strangers. Morgan was stabbed in the heart and lungs and died hours later. He was twenty years old and worked in the local hospital, a graffiti artist who dreamed of moving away and building a life for himself by the sea.
From the moment he heard the news, Morgan's father Colin Hehir began to keep an extraordinary diary. It became a record not only of the immediate aftermath of his son's murder, but also a chronicle of his family's evolving grief, the trial of Morgan's killers, and his personal fight to reveal the truth behind the lies, mistakes and cover-ups that led to a young man with a history of violence being free to take Morgan's life that night.
Inspired by this diary, About a Son is a unique and deeply moving exploration of grief and the restless pursuit of justice. Part true crime, part memoir, it puts the reader in the shoes no parent wants to be in. It tells the story of a shocking murder, the emotional repercussions, and the culture and judicial lapses that enabled it to take place. It asks how grief affects and changes us, and what justice means if the truth is not heard. It asks what can be learned.
Венди Джозеф0.0 'Every day in the UK lives are suddenly, brutally, wickedly taken away. Victims are shot or stabbed. Less often they are strangled or suffocated or beaten to death. Rarely they are poisoned, pushed off high buildings, drowned or set alight. Then there are the many who are killed by dangerous drivers, or corporate gross negligence. There are a lot of ways you can kill someone. I know because I've seen most of them at close quarters.'
High-profile murder cases all too often grab our attention in dramatic media headlines - for every unlawful death tells a story. But, unlike most of us, a judge doesn't get to turn the page and move on. Nor does the defendant, or the family of the victim, nor the many other people who populate the court room.
And yet, each of us has a vested interest in what happens there. And while most people have only the sketchiest idea of what happens inside a Crown Court, any one of us could end up in the witness-box or even in the dock.
With breath-taking skill and deep compassion, the author describes how cases unfold and illustrates exactly what it's like to be a murder trial judge and a witness to human good and bad. Sometimes very bad.
The fracture lines that run through our society are becoming harder and harder to ignore. From a unique vantage point, the author warns that we do so at our peril.
