The perfect quirky nostalgic crime read – a tale of steam trains, giant squid, missing screenplays, missing mothers and a quest for the truth, from the inimitable Malcolm PryceIt's the winter of 1948. The four great railway companies have just been nationalised and Jack Wenlock – the last of a fabled cadre of railway detectives – is thrown out onto the street.Penniless, with new bride Jenny to support, and hiding from a murderous organisation called Room 42...

Jack Wenlock is the last of the Railway Goslings: that fabled cadre of railway detectives created at the Weeping Cross Railway Servants' Orphanage, who trod the corridors of the GWR trains in the years 1925 to 1947. Sworn to uphold the name of God's Wonderful Railway, Jack keeps the trains free of fare dodgers and purse-stealers, bounders and confidence tricksters, German spies and ladies of the night.But now, as the clock ticks down towards the nationalisation of the railways Jack...

'A nostalgic experience, informative, humorous, charming, but pervaded by the bitter-sweet scent of regret' Daily MailThe A303 is more than a road. It is a story. One of the essential routes of English motoring and the road of choice to the West Country for thousands of holidaymakers, the A303 recalls a time when the journey was an adventure and not simply about getting there.Tom Fort gives voice to the stories this road has to tell, from the bluestones of Stonehenge to Rom...

The fifteenth book in the award-winning Peter Diamond series, from Peter Lovesey.A nightmare discovery in the boot of a stolen BMW plunges car thief Danny Stapleton into the worst trouble of his life. What links his misfortune to the mysterious disappearance of an art teacher at a private school for girls in Chichester?Orders from above push Peter Diamond of Bath CID into investigating a police corruption case in the Chichester force, and he soon finds hims...

A whip-smart, impeccably crafted debut mystery, A Murder of Magpies takes readers on a whirlwind tour of London and Paris with an unforgettably original new heroineIt's just another day at the office for London book editor Samantha "Sam" Clair. Checking jacket copy for howlers, wondering how to break it to her star novelist that her latest effort is utterly unpublishable, lunch scheduled with gossipy author Kit Lowell, whose new book will dish the juicy dir...

In the suspenseful and darkly funny sequel to Don't Point that Thing at Me, married life only compounds the danger facing art dealer Charlie Mortdecai.Art dealer and degenerate aristocrat Charlie Mortdecai has gotten himself into a spot of trouble over a certain stolen Goya. In order to save himself, he must marry the beautiful, sex-crazed and very, very rich Johanna Krampf. The fly in the ointment is that Johanna thinks nothing of involving poor Charlie in...

CREAM TEAS! SCHOOL DINNERS! SATANIC SURFERS!Join our heroes as they follow up a Norfolk Mystery with a bad case of … DEATH IN DEVON.Swanton Morley, the People’s Professor, sets off for Devon to continue his history of England, The County Guides. Morley’s daughter Miriam and his assistant Stephen Sefton pack up the Lagonda for a trip to the English Riviera.Morley has been invited to give the Founder’s Day speech at All Souls School in Rousdon. But when the trio arriv...

Pyke joins the newly formed Detective Branch of the Metropolitan police in a tale of corruption and murder set in the dangerous backstreets of 19th-century London...Drury Lane, 1844. A robbery has been committed at a pawnbroker's, leaving three people dead. The man called in to investigate is Pyke, head of the Metropolitan Police's newly formed Detective Branch at Scotland Yard. Pyke must find the culprit and quickly, especially as the identity of one of the victim...

The third Dr Dody McCleland mystery ... Agatha Christie meets Phryne Fisher.'If a black dog appears along the old corpse way, the route a funeral procession takes to the churchyard, it is thought to be escorting the dead soul to the afterlife. A black dog sighting without a funeral procession, however, is supposed to foreshadow death.'For Doctor Dody McCleland, the unearthing of an ancient skeleton in a dry riverbed is a welcome break from the monotony of chaperoni...

It is the Seventies and Horse’s Arse is the affectionate name for Handstead New Town, a North Manchester overspill and an unholy dump. The police use it as a penal posting – all the bad egg coppers end up there. Worst amongst the residents of Handstead are the Park Royal Mafia, a gang of violent thugs who terrorise their neighbourhood. They and the officers doomed to serve at Handstead wrestle constantly for dominance. This is the story of some of those police officers - the Grim Brothers,...

Ethelred Tressider, mid-list crime writer, is surprised when fellow author Henry Holiday unexpectedly turns up on his doorstep. He's even more surprised when Henry confesses that he may have committed murder while drunk on New Year's Eve. Though he has little recollection of the night, Henry fears he may have killed drinking companion and fellow crime writer Crispin Vynall, and asks Ethelred to discreetly make enquiries in order to discover the truth.

Long-term Bangkok resident and former New Orleans cop Bob Turtledove has the knack of getting people out of difficult situations.So when a young man from Utah goes missing in Bangkok, his parents are soon knocking on Bob's door asking for help.But what starts out as a simple missing person case takes a deadly turn as Bangkok Bob's search for the missing Mormon brings him up against Russian gangsters, hired killers, corrupt cops and kickboxing thugs.And he learns tha...