On a summer's day, a tiny baby vanishes. The mystery is never solved, leaving a young mother lost in grief. Twenty-one years later, ex-police detective Dan Hennessy is struggling with his own tragic loss. When a neighbour disappears and a body turns up at the solar farm, Dan becomes desperate for answers. The haunted landscape is keeping secrets, and there are dangers lurking in the Brecks. Will he find hope for the grieving mother, and can he save himself?

Crime fiction first emerged in the Victorian era and its series form continues to dominate the genre. Despite the prevalence of crime series, very little research has been done on how character is conceived. The Element's focus is contemporary, from the 1970s onward, and it determines the theory and conventions behind writing the detectives in these modern meganarratives. Exemplary series and a range of subgenres are analysed, thriller to cosy crime, professional investigator to amateur sl...

A brutal murder hints at a terrifying mystery, and this time it's personal.A body is found on a quiet lane in Exmoor, victim of a hit and run. He has no ID, no wallet, no phone, and after being dragged along the road no recognisable face.Meanwhile, fresh from his last case, DCI Craig Gillard is unexpectedly called away to Devon on family business.Gillard is soon embroiled when the car in question is traced to his aunt. As he delves deeper, a dark ...

Children's literature takes many forms - works adapted for children in antiquity, picture books and pop-ups - and now includes the latest online games and eBooks. This vast and amorphous subject is both intimately related to other areas of literary and cultural investigation but also has its own set of concerns, issues and challenges. From familiar authors including Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl, classic books such as Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, and The Secret Garden

An Instant New York Times Bestseller!Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers and Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley are back in the next Lynley novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth George.When a police detective is taken off life support after falling into a coma, only an autopsy reveals the murderous act that precipitated her death. She'd been working on a special task force within North London's Nigerian community, and Acti...

DCI Craig Gillard will be pushed to his limits But will he break?It seems like a routine disappearance, a case of musician's stage fright. As a senior detective, Craig Gillard isn't sure why he's even involved. Until it turns out the woman's father is the German Minister of Justice, and the British Home Secretary is on the case too.But nothing about the case is simple. How does a woman on a train simply vanish? What do you do when a trail runs cold and th...

An Undertaker's Diary is based on the diariesthat the authorkept during his 7 years as an undertaker.The stories are told 'through his eyes' and in a raw and down to earth way that will absorb the reader in each and every varied encounter with death.This is not for the 'fainted hearted' and contains gruesome and often disturbing accounts of tragedy and death from plane crashes to house fires, murders to hit and runs. If you have ever wanted to be a 'fly on ...

The twentieth anniversary edition of Henry Jenkins’s Textual Poachers brings this now-canonical text to a new generation of students interested in the intersections of fandom, participatory culture, popular consumption and media theory.Supplementing the original, classic text is an interview between Henry Jenkins and Suzanne Scott in which Jenkins reflects upon changes in the field since the original release of Textual Poachers. A study guide by Louisa Stein helps...

A lawyer and his investigator must uncover a secret worth killing for after a reporter is murdered in this tense legal thriller.By day, the park rings with the sound of children's excited laughter. But in the early hours of the morning, the isolated playground is cloaked in shadows—the perfect hiding place to conceal a brutal murder.When London journalist, Mark Roberts, is found battered to death, the police quickly arrest petty thief, Nick Connor. Criminal...

Creative writing has become a highly professionalised academic discipline, with popular courses and prestigious degree programmes worldwide. This book is a must for all students and teachers of creative writing, indeed for anyone who aspires to be a published writer. It engages with a complex art in an accessible manner, addressing concepts important to the rapidly growing field of creative writing, while maintaining a strong craft emphasis, analysing exemplary models of writing and provid...

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF RICHARD & JUDY THRILLER PICK NO ONE HOMESam Wren gets on a Tube train . . .And never gets off again.Six months later, he's still missing.There's no trace of him - or so it seems. Because the lies go deeper than anyone imagined.And someone is watching.Someone who knows what happened on the tube that day . . .

An essential introduction to a rapidly growing field of study, The Fan Fiction Studies Reader gathers in one place the key foundational texts of the fan studies corpus, with a focus on fan fiction. Collected here are important texts by scholars whose groundbreaking work established the field and outlined some of its enduring questions. Editors Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse provide cogent introductions that place each piece in its historical and intellectual context, mapping t...