Charley Bates was an outsider. Always the third wheel to the Artful Dodger and Oliver Twist’s double-act in Fagin’s gang. Then he became the redeemed thief who managed to turn himself into ‘the merriest young grazier in the whole of Northamptonshire.’ But would he remain on the straight and narrow or go back to his criminal ways? What he needed was a mission to keep himself honest. And then he got one: a chance to bring justice to bear on a villain from his past, Monks, the half-brother of...

Charley Bates was an outsider. Always the third wheel to the Artful Dodger and Oliver Twist's double-act in Fagin's gang. Then he became the redeemed thief who managed to turn himself into 'the merriest young grazier in the whole of Northamptonshire.' But would he remain on the straight and narrow or go back to his criminal ways? What he needed was a mission to keep himself honest. And then he got one: a chance to bring justice to bear on a villain from his past, Monks, the half-brother of...

‘It’s a good story, Samuel. You’re a piece of living history.’Oxford 1863: Young Samuel Speed sets a barley stack alight in the hope it will earn him a bed in prison for the night. He wants nothing more than a morsel of food in his belly and a warm place to sleep off the streets. What he receives is a sentence of seven years’ servitude, to be served half a world away in the penal colony of Fremantle, Western Australia.When Samuel boards the transport ship Belgr...

**The convict women who built a continent..."A moving and fascinating story." --Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's GhostHistorian Deborah J. Swiss tells the heartbreaking, horrifying, and ultimately triumphant story of the women exiled from the British Isles and forced into slavery and savagery-who created the most liberated society of their time.**The Tin Ticket takes us to the dawn of the nineteenth century and into the lives of Agnes McMillan, wh...

Queen's Inn is London's youngest and most fashionable Inn of Court. On 29th February 1902, at a Feast, senior barrister Alexander Dauntsey collapses into his soup and dies. He has been poisoned. Soon after his friend Woodford Stewart is shot dead, and Lord Francis Powerscourt is summoned to discreetly investigate the matter of the murdered barristers.His inquiries take him into the heart of legal London where the wills of the dead can reveal the crimes of the living. It takes him t...

The bestselling, critically acclaimed new women’s history book from Philippa Gregory – adapted for teen and YA readers!Shortlisted for the SLA Information Book Award 2026!Today, when we think of women of the past, we often think of the 1800s and 1900s – crinolines and stage coaches, bonnets and balls – a time when women were told they were naturally inferior to men, and must stay at home while men went out to work and have fun.

The year is 1905 and Powerscourt is sent to Ireland to investigate a series of art thefts from stately houses. Motive troubles Powerscourt; were these robberies merely for gain? A number of Old Masters had been left untouched and the ones taken were all ancient family portraits of the aristocratic Protestant gentry. Are these thefts political?Then, astonishingly, some of the portraits begin to return - but with altered faces; the aristocrats' being replaced by those from the estate...

The first man murdered was Abel Meredith, a resident at the Jesus Hospital Almshouse near London.The second victim, Roderick Gill, was burser at the Allison's school in Norfolk. Victim number three, Sir Rufus Walcott, was slain in his own hall by the Thames. All had their throats cut.And all had strange markings on their chests, carved there by the murderer but which neither doctor nor coroner could identify.Lord Francis Powerscourt, brought in to solve this case of triple murder, ...

A collection of traditional Nova Scotian folktales, superstitions and home remedies compiled by the Canadian folklorist and author of Bluenose Ghosts.Beginning in 1928, Dr. Helen Creighton traveled across her native Nova Scotia seeking out and recording its rich heritage in the form of ghost stories, folktales, and folksongs. She first shared her findings in 1957 with the collection Bluenose Ghosts, and followed its success eleven years later with...

Master of the Hunt, the fifteenth Earl of Candlesby, has come to lead his riders once again. But this time he comes as a corpse, wrapped in blankets across his horse, a corner of his scarlet coat visible in the morning mist. Only three people see the body. One dies. Another vanishes. Now only one man knows how he was killed. Powerscourt is summoned to investigate murder in a crumbling house where the paper is peeling off the walls and the stuffed owls each only have one leg.The est...

Celebrate the rapier-like wit of the royal rebel, the late, great Princess Margaret – or ‘Ducky’ as she was known behind closed doors.Even as a child, Princess Margaret – younger sister of Elizabeth – was noted for her theatrical and witty demeanour. Her nanny, 'Crawfie’ described her as a ‘born comic’ and her sister, now Queen Elizabeth II, remarked that parties were always better with Margaret in attendance as she made everyone laugh. She made John Lennon blush a...

An unwelcome guest - Death - gatecrashes a society wedding and Lord Francis Powerscourt is summoned by his barrister friend, Charles Augustus Pugh, to investigate this most singular case of murder in the Fens.The dead man is Randolph Colville, successful wine merchant and father of the groom. The murderer would appear to be his brother Cosmo, found in the same room with a gun in his hand. But is this simply a modern-day version of Cain and Abel, or is there more to it than that? Co...