Since leaving the army, Peter Blair has embraced a quiet life of solitude and sailing off the Salcombe coast. So it's an unpleasant shock when he stumbles across a body on the rocks off Prawle Point.The case seems simple, if sad - the woman is identified as Edna Brown, a mousy London secretary whose hotel room contains a suicide note.But all is not as it seems. Someone is very keen to keep Peter quiet, and before long he realises that if he wants to stay safe, it is up to h...

So you AZre in A C or striving to be in A C The Lawyer AZs top 200. But are you being measured on what your clients actually find attractive? With increased demand for efficiency, value added services and effective governance, a ranking based simply on revenue is not sufficiently compelling. Having an effective governance model and the right measures of success in place are now vital to secure sustainable profitability for your firm. AZs report on Law Firm Governance and Measurements of Su...

Old Mr Quenenden seems not to have an enemy in the world: having retired to a cottage in Berkshire, he leads an idyllic life breeding tropical plants. Which is why it comes as a complete shock when his body is discovered in his greenhouse - murdered.In London, Peter Blair is hard at work on his own investigation into top-level blackmail in the City, but he quickly realises that the two cases have more in common than meets the eye.A complex botanical clue means Peter must di...

When the deputy chairman of a world-leading oil company gets kidnapped in Hamburg, Peter Blair is urgently called in to lead the rescue mission.The captured Dr Braunschweig is a wealthy and powerful man, and a sizeable ransom demand seems certain. So it seems very strange when all the kidnappers desire in exchange for their hostage is a certain 17th Century Arctic map.But when the map is suddenly reported missing from its museum in Cambridge, it becomes clear there is much ...

When the Caribbean island of Nueva is struck by an earthquake - with near fatal consequences - Peter Blair is suspicious that this supposedly natural disaster might have a very unnatural origin - especially when the body of a government scientist is discovered in caves underneath the island.Joined by the beautiful and intelligent Ruth Caval, Peter is determined to dig up the root of the mystery. But this is no ordinary murder case: devious political forces are at play, and as the P...

When a man's body is found on the banks of the Thames with no means of identification, the police enquiry quickly stalls.But Peter Blair has never been one for leaving a case unsolved. And when the wealthy chairman of a London shipping company mysteriously goes missing - along with an enormous unauthorised loan - Peter realises that there's more to this death than meets the eye.All the clues point towards some deeply suspect shipping activity, sending Peter running to the E...

A routine commercial voyage into Scarborough takes a horrific turn when the crew stumbles across a booby-trapped corpse afloat on a life raft - and the resulting explosion has fatal consequences.Shocked by the news, the Home Office urgently calls for their trusted detective, Peter Blair, who quickly sets sail into dangerous and unchartered waters.But with the freighter and its crew in desperate danger, Peter may have to risk everything to find the solution - and hope that h...

Thirty years ago, China seemed hopelessly mired in poverty, Mexico triggered the Third World Debt Crisis, and Brazil suffered under hyperinflation. Since then, these and other developing countries have turned themselves around, while First World nations, battered by crises, depend more than ever on sustained growth in emerging markets.In Turnaround, economist Peter Blair Henry argues that the secret to emerging countries' success (and ours) is discipline -...

When a Cambridge undergraduate room is broken into, the police's firm belief is that it's mere petty theft.But this is no ordinary student - Mike Rawlinson has recently hit the headlines for surviving a near-death experience in the Carminian desert. When poison is found in the burgled room, Colonel Peter Blair realises the two incidents might share a common villain.Rawlinson has been working for a Carminian mining consortium, and Blair suspects there is more to their activi...

Vital information is being leaked from top British companies, and with the Cold War intensifying, the Home Office suspects it is travelling east.The leak is traced to the Oxfordshire headquarters of a large scientific engineering group. Thanks to his new-found reputation as an amateur sleuth, Peter Blair is called to investigate.Peter travels undercover as a river-bound holidaymaker. But this is no pleasure cruise - before long Peter finds himself face-to-face with murder.

Redeemed From the Ashes is the story of a misguided young woman named Evelyn Richardson whose maimed husband Carl goes missing as a result of the Halifax Explosion of 1917. Bedridden because of an injury, she is unable to immediately search him out. The chances of finding him grow thin as the days pass into cruel winter and the chaos of a shattered city remains.After several weeks of searching, Evelyn is encouraged by her disheartening mother to leave Carl for dead and to move on w...

In the five years since the first edition of this book published, there has been an accelerated rise in the number and influence of COO roles in the legal sphere. No longer the preserve of the largest national and international firms, mid-tier firms and even New Law and alternative legal service providers are considering a COO as a potential – perhaps even essential – component of law firm management, to achieve increased efficiency, productivity, and meet the demands of a highly competiti...