Those two days in May seem to be a highpoint in Colin Pinnock’s life: a stunning election victory, a new government, and junior office for himself. But among the many congratulations he receives is one hostile message, a grubby card asking, ‘Who do you think you are?’ Is this merely someone putting him back in his place, or do the words have a more profound meaning? And who, indeed, is he? Who were his real parents?As Colin investigates these questions he is led back in time to an ...

There were two Mrs Machins, relicts of the talented working-class writer Walter Machin, who was just about to be immortalised by the literary establishment. Viola was large, overbearing and, even in her seventies, still voluptuous. Hilda, the first (and divorced) Mrs Machin, was perky, sharp and the guardian of the deceased Walter’s literary papers. For ten years the two ‘widows’ had lived together in the same house, not speaking to each other, but jealously guarding his memory and literar...

Opera singers are often described as being larger than life, and certainly this is true of Gaylene Ffrench. Her appetites—for men, for food, for attention—are gargantuan, and her ability to irritate is similarly outsized. So when someone electrocutes the bombastic Australian contralto, few tears are shed at the Northern Opera company (though it’s a pity her understudy’s so lousy).In fact, most of the company members are dancing a jig, and it falls on Superintendent Nichols to deter...

In the Soho studio of Bodies magazine are found four corpses: a photographer, his assistant, an actress-student and a young bodybuilder. Perry Trethowan of London’s C.I.D. can’t discern a motive for the murders and soon finds himself involved in the seedy world of competitive body-building and a sinister operation behind Bodies magazine.

Prize-winning author Robert Barnard presents seventeen witty mystery stories featuring everyday characters who discover their potential for murder, including a young woman who weds a string of old men and develops a penchant for widowhood.

The Ketterick Festival revolves around the Saracen’s Head, a Jacobean inn with its inn-yard and balconies miraculously preserved intact, due to the sloth of successive landlords. Here in festival time are performed the lesser-known masterpieces of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre. This year it is The Chaste Apprentice of Bowe (a play of uncertain authorship, since no one owned up at the time). But the actors find that the Saracen’s Head has been transformed by its new landlord – an Austral...

Superintendent Perry Trethowan was used to cases that involved people in high places, and in this one he finds himself at the top of the tree – among the British royals.A Princess, albeit only a minuscule royal offshoot, with a snug little apartment in Kensington Palace and a snug little sum on the Civil List, is threatened – but by whom, why, and exactly what is uncertain. Her circle consists mostly of boy-friends, and they are a motley lot, drawn from the worlds of politics, the ...

Lydia Perceval was – apparently – a charming and gifted woman. As a successful biographer, she led a privileged and comfortable life in her well-ordered, luxurious country-cottage. She felt terribly sorry for her sister, married to an unemployed drunk, mother of two sons, both of whom had loved their adorable Aunt Lydia much more than their parents. Lydia had a way with young people, particularly boys. She knew how to bring out the best in them. As it happened, her sister’s two boys had pr...

Norway in cherry blossom time seemed exactly the right place to hold a conference of the World Association of Romantic Novelists (WARN for short). Superintendent Perry Trethowan wondered at times how he had allowed his sister to ‘con’ him into accompanying her to the conference but he finally decided that his role was to be one of amused detachment and observation, most especially of the two Queens of the Conference – frothy, gushy, lethal Amanda Fairchild, the British challenger, and the ...

***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...

Featuring:Robert Barnard, Martyn Bedford, Ann Cleeves, Bernie Crosthwaite, Carol Anne Davis, Martin Edwards, Jurgen Ehlers, Kate Ellies, Liz Evans, Paul A Freeman, Jim Gregson, Mick Herron, Sarah Hilary, Andre Marois, Amy Myers, Christine Poulson, Karline Smith, Douglas Stewart and Yvonne Eve Walus.A coroner reveals a body’s tell-tale clues to his students, as he unwittingly dissects his own relationship . . .A breakdown driver turns his roadside ro...

England's celebrated, multiple-award-winning master crime novelist returns with a witty and poignant chiller about the evil of gossip and the sin of indifference.Father Christopher Pardoe is a good priest. He cares about his parishioners. He is also a human being -- and is thus saddled with man's inherent weaknesses. Is it a bit odd, then, how much time the good Father has been spending at the house of a certain young, single mother called Julie Norris? And why, dur...