FICTION

This collection of twelve stories includes many of the most memorable escapades of the world's greatest detective.The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a collection of twelve short stories by Scottish author Arthur Conan Doyle, is considered a milestone in the genre of detective fiction. With Sherlock Holmes’s clever disguises and ability to solve even the most elusive mysteries, as well as Holmes’s loyal friend and biographer, Dr. Watson, who narrates most of the stories, Doyle’s suspenseful stories and well-developed characters keep readers on the edges of their seats. Featuring colorful sprayed edges and a heat-burnished cover with foil stamping, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a stylish addition to the libraries of all classic literature lovers.

Murder On Line OneDarkness looms over sunny Sidmouth, when an unsolved murder comes to the attention of late-night radio talk show host Edward Temmis.Recently sacked from his beloved job after a devastating tragedy, Edward is cast adrift – until he meets Stevie, whose grandmother, a devoted listener, died in a suspicious fire last year. Well, nobody hurts his listeners and helping Stevie might just give him the purpose he needs.Joined by his old fling, Kim, they discover Stevie's grandmother wasn't the only one of his listeners targeted – this is just the tip of the iceberg.But who is pursuing his ageing audience and why? And can Edward, Stevie and Kim get to the bottom of this mystery before it’s too late?

The Ladies Road Guide To Utter Ruin In Regency England, the eccentric Colebrook sisters are amateur detectives who use their wits and invisibility as 'old maids' to fight injustice in this delightful and fiercely feminist novel of mystery and adventure from New York Times bestselling author Alison Goodman.To most of Regency high society, forty-two-year-old Lady Augusta Colebrook, or Gus, and her twin sister, Julia, are just unmarried ladies of a certain age - hardly worth a second glance. But the Colebrook twins are far from useless old maids. They are secretly protecting women and children ignored by society and the law.When Lord Evan - a charming escaped convict who has won Gus's heart - needs to hide his sister and her lover from their vindictive brother, Gus and Julia take the two women into their home. They know what it is like to have a powerful and overbearing brother. But Lord Evan's complicated past puts them all in danger. Gus knows they must clear his name of murder if he is to survive the thieftakers who hunt him. But it is no easy task-the fatal duel was twenty years ago and a key witness is nowhere to be found.In a deadly cat-and-mouse game, Gus, Julia, and Lord Evan must dodge their pursuers and investigate Lord Evan's past. They will be thrust into the ugly underworld of Georgian gentlemen's clubs, spies, and ruthless bounty hunters, not to mention the everyday threat of narrow-minded brothers. Will the truth be found in time, or will the dangerous secrets from the past destroy family bonds and rip new love and lives apart?Praise for the Ill-Mannered Ladies:'A rollicking feminist romp - think Jane Austen meets James Bond - that breaks the shackles of period genre fiction and liberates women from the forces arrayed against them.' Sydney Morning Herald'Goodman's ladies are the undercover Regency heroes we've been waiting for! This is sparkling, thrilling, romantic fun.' Toni Jordan'Goodman skillfully blends mystery, adventure and a dash of romance' Washington Post

See How They Fall Perfect Family. Perfect Weekend. Perfect Crime. Stay up all night with this twisting thriller... perfect for fans of Lucy Foley, Liane Moriarty and Ali Lowe. Turner Corp, a luxury goods empire, has been rocked by the death of its founder. As his three sons gather at the family's opulent estate for a long weekend, tensions rise when an illegitimate heir is introduced - and no one could predict the tragedy that follows.  Skye, who married into the dynasty, is uneasy in her husband's world, hiding her own secrets while trying to maintain a normal life for their six-year-old daughter. The weekend quickly morphs into any parent's worst nightmare, leaving Skye desperate to uncover the truth about the Turner family.  Mei, the detective assigned to the case, is pressured by her superiors to close the investigation swiftly. However, as she begins to unpick the complex web of lies and betrayal, she realizes that pulling at these threads might just bring down an empire.  A gripping thriller with sumptuous settings, breathless plotting and twists you won't see coming - you'll stay up all night to race to the end. 'Beautifully evoked, pacy and unpredictable' ROSE CARLYLE 'An artfully plotted thriller that masterfully delivers unexpected twists to keep readers hooked . . . Paris [is] an author to watch in the world of domestic noir' BOOKS+PUBLISHING 'A truly splendid debut . . . A good bet to win every prize in the genre this year' COUNTRY STYLE MAGAZINE

How To Seal Your Own Fate  The much-anticipated sequel to How To Solve Your Own Murder Annie thought the murders were over. She was wrong. It is autumn in Castle Knoll and Annie Adams is busy settling into her new home. She doesn't find Gravesdown Hall particularly cosy, especially since she found two dead bodies there over the summer. What's more, ever since she arrived in the village, Annie has had the creeping sense she's being watched. Lonely, and desperate for some company, Annie starts talking to a stranger she meets in the grounds of the estate. The striking old woman introduces herself as Peony Lane, the fortune-teller who predicted Great Aunt Frances' murder all those years ago. And now she has a fortune to tell Annie. Desperate not to fall into the same trap as Frances, Annie flees Peony Lane, refusing to hear any of her grim predictions. But she can't outrun Peony for long, as hours later she finds her, dead on the floor of Gravesdown Hall, a ruby-hilted dagger plunged into her back. But who killed the mysterious fortune teller and why? And can Frances' library of evidence help Annie solve the case? ************************************** EVERYONE LOVES HOW TO SOLVE YOUR OWN MURDER 'Warm, clever and wildly original' Elly Griffiths 'Delightfully refreshing' Daily Mail 'Stuffed with secrets and surprises . . . a terrific read' J. M. Hall 'Sharply observed . . . vivid characterisation and theatrical plotting' Sunday Independent 'A puzzling whodunnit, with plenty of action and some VERY funny one liners' Jennie Godfrey 'Plenty of twists and red herrings . . . entertaining' Guardian 'I so enjoyed this smart, original murder mystery' Beth O' Leary 'Ridiculously fun . . . unputdownable . . . One to savour for fans of Only Murders in The Building' My Weekly 'A deliciously inventive new take on the classic murder mystery' Bobby Palmer 'Intriguing . . . skilful storytelling . . . a compelling read' Daily Mirror 'Fresh, unconventional . . . charming and multilayered' Sarah Penner 'A masterclass in the art of mystery' Elle Cosimano 'I loved it . . . an utterly charming whodunnit' Karma Brown 'A brilliant and masterful whodunnit' Liv Constantine  'If you loved Hot Fuzz, or binged Only Murders in the Building, this one is for you!' Samuel Burr 'A bright, fresh and natural voice' Jessica Bull

Return To Blood PRE-ORDER CARVED IN BLOOD, THE BRAND NEW MICHAEL BENNETT NOVEL, COMING SPRING 2025. FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF BETTER THE BLOOD COMES ANOTHER CASE FOR NEW ZEALAND'S BEST INVESTIGATOR, HANA WESTERMAN. ‘Another cracking, page-turning journey into another culture’ VAL McDERMID Two murders. Two decades apart.One chance to get justice. Hana Westerman has left Auckland and her career as a detective behind her. Settled in a quiet coastal town, all she wants is a fresh start. The discovery of a skeleton in the dunes near her house changes everything. The remains are those of a young Māori woman who went missing four years before, and Hana has a connection to the case. Twenty years ago, a schoolfriend of hers was found buried in the exact same spot. Her killer died in prison, but did the police get the wrong man? And if he was innocent, then why did he plead guilty? No longer part of the Criminal Investigation Branch, Hana turns to her ex-husband Jaye, a high-flying Detective Inspector, for help. But when he cuts her out of the investigation, she realises that she will have to find the answers she needs on her own. But in digging deeper, she sets herself on a potentially fatal collision course with a killer. ‘The vivid picture of ethnic cultural life alone marks out the book as special, but it’s Bennett’s control of a tense narrative that is key’ Financial Times ‘Evocative’ Crime Monthly ‘A confident, convincing work in a crowded genre’ NZ Listener ‘A powerful novel that stays in the mind long after it is finished’ Jeff Popple

When She Was Gone 'I absolutely LOVED this book.' Marian Keyes <strong><em>Was she taken ... or did she run?</em></strong> The pulse-pounding new psychological thriller from the bestselling author of <em>You Don't Know Me Rose was torn away from her daughter. Now, is she the only one who can save her?</em> Former London police officer Rose Campbell has been estranged from her daughter, Lou, for almost a decade. But when Lou disappears from a remote Western Australian beach, and the police suspect her of kidnapping the two young children in her care, Rose is asked to help bring Lou home. The police think Rose's insights will lead them to Lou, but they don't realise that Rose hardly knows her daughter anymore. This is the final case in DSS Mal Blackwood's illustrious career, and there's a lot riding on it. The missing children are heirs to the Fisher property empire, and as their multimillionaire grandfather breathes down Blackwood's neck for results, the media storm is intensifying. Faced with a deluge of evidence and accusations, Blackwood doesn't know who he can trust. Rose arrives in Australia intent on proving her daughter's innocence, but how can she be sure of that when she's no longer part of Lou's life? Meanwhile, as Blackwood begins to expose the Fishers' secrets, the investigation takes a much darker turn. Shadows of the past gather around the Fishers and Rose, and soon it's clear that every hour is critical. What has happened to Lou and the children? And can Rose and Blackwood find them in time? 'I was gripped by <em>When She Was Gone</em>, I couldn't bear being away from it. The characterisation is top-notch: such interesting, flawed, nuanced people. And the plotting is excellent - I was guessing and guessing and getting it wrong. <strong>I absolutely LOVED this book.' Marian Keyes 'This assured, utterly absorbing novel will have you up late into the night, still turning pages. Sara Foster sensitively and persuasively renders both the banality and unique horror of violence against women and asks, how far would you be willing to go to save someone you love? <strong>This was an absolute highlight of my reading year.' Hayley Scrivenor 'Masterfully told, the stakes are high in this <strong>emotionally gripping and utterly unforgettable </strong>story. Don't plan on getting anything else done once you start reading!' Natasha Lester 'I was <strong>hooked from the first chapter</strong>: the characters were compelling, the pace was perfect and the ending was satisfying, with a few twists I didn't see coming. It's a read-in-one-gulp story (my favourite kind) that <strong>kept me guessing until the end</strong>.' Kayte Nunn '<em>When She Was Gone </em>is <strong>a masterclass of suspense</strong>, an edge of your seat story that kept me up all night.' Dervla McTiernan 'A chilling family saga about power, privilege and revenge. <strong>Sara Foster at her spine-tingling best' Tim Ayliffe 'I loved the premise before I even opened the book, and from then on, I was hooked. <strong>Sharp, compelling and clever</strong>, Sara's story of rich people behaving badly had me captivated until the final pages. Put it on your to-read list!' Ali Lowe, author of <em>The Trivia Night 'The most propulsive thriller of the year. I challenge anyone to put it down once you've read the first page.' Tess Woods, author of <em>The Venice Hotel Praise for Sara Foster and her novels: 'Gripping and chilling all at once' <em>Australian Women's Weekly 'A twisty, well-crafted thriller' <em>West Australian </em>

Curl up with this collection of classic scary stories from the masters of the genre. With dozens of stories of the macabre, fantastic, and supernatural, Classic Horror Tales is sure to keep readers on the edges of their seats. This collection of works by classic writers spans more than a century—from nineteenth-century trailblazers such as John William Polidori, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Washington Irving to twentieth-century masters like Saki, Edith Wharton, and Franz Kafka. The fear of the unknown is a driving force in literature, and the horror genre surpasses all others in bringing this idea to the forefront of the reader’s consciousness. A wide range of cultures and classes of society are represented in this volume, reminding us that dark forces lurk all around us—for even in broad daylight, a shadow exists somewhere. Featuring colorful sprayed edges and a heat-burnished cover with foil stamping, this collection of stories is a stylish addition to your bookshelf.

The Cia Book Club  'Entertaining and vivid… This is a gripping account of an intriguing and little-known Cold War moment' OBSERVER 'Reads like a thriller' THE SUN The astonishing story of the ten million books that were smuggled across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. For almost five decades after the Second World War, Europe was divided by the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. The Iron Curtain, a near-impenetrable barrier of wire and wall, tank traps, minefields, watchtowers and men with dogs, stretched for 4,300 miles from the Arctic to the Black Sea. No physical combat would take place along this frontier: the risk of nuclear annihilation was too high for that. Instead, the conflict would be fought in the psychological sphere. It was a battle for hearts, minds and intellects. No one understood this more clearly than George Minden, the head of a covert intelligence operation known as the ‘CIA books programme’, which aimed to win the Cold War with literature. From its Manhattan headquarters, Minden’s global CIA ‘book club’ would infiltrate millions of banned titles into the Eastern Bloc, written by a vast and eclectic list of authors, including Hannah Arendt and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, George Orwell and Agatha Christie. Volumes were smuggled on trucks and aboard yachts, dropped from balloons, and hidden in the luggage of hundreds of thousands of individual travellers. Once inside Soviet bloc, each book would circulate secretly among dozens of like-minded readers, quietly turning them into dissidents. Latterly, underground print shops began to reproduce the books, too. By the late 1980s, illicit literature in Poland was so pervasive that the system of communist censorship broke down, and the Iron Curtain soon followed. Charlie English tells this true story of spycraft, smuggling and secret printing operations for the first time, highlighting the work of a handful of extraordinary people who risked their lives to stand up to the intellectual strait-jacket Stalin created. People like Miroslaw Chojecki, an underground Polish publisher who endured beatings, force-feeding and exile in service of this mission. And Minden, the CIA’s mastermind, didn’t waver in his belief that truth, culture, and diversity of thought could help free the ‘captive nations’ of Eastern Europe. This is a story about the power of the printed word as a means of resistance and liberation. Books, it shows, can set you free.

‘A blackly funny twist on the Country House mystery, with bodies and wit galore’ John ConnollyAnd Then There Were None meets The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.Ten strangers. An old dark house. A killer picking them off one by one. And a missing girl who's running out of time. . . Ten strangers wake up inside an old, locked house. They have no recollection of how they got there. In order to escape, they have to solve the disappearance of a young woman. But a killer also stalks the halls of the house, and soon the body count starts to rise. Who are these strangers? Why were they chosen? Why would someone want to kill them? And who – or what – is the Beast in the Cellar? Forget what you think you know.Because while you can trust yourself, can you really trust THE OTHER PEOPLE? ‘The Other People chilled me to the bone, made me laugh out loud - and everything in between. This devilishly clever mystery holds you captive from its explosive opening, right up to its shocking final pages. I never saw the twist coming, yet it made perfect sense. Brilliant!’ Alison Gaylin

'Edgy, gripping and full of menace' Hannah Richell An abandoned resort seems the perfect place to hide, but is Barren Cape a refuge or a trap? Former housemates Mac and Erika are homeless. Well, Erika is fine, she just has to live with her parents until she can find another rental. Mac's situation is much worse – family isn't an option and she's surfing the couches of her increasingly exasperated friends. Driving around one lonely afternoon, Mac discovers Barren Cape. Once destined to be a luxury escape, now it's just wire fence and gray cement. It's stark, but quiet. There's no harm in staying a little while… From the bestselling author of The Rush comes a spine-chilling thriller about what happens when people are pushed to the edge and forced to make unthinkable choices. ‘Taut, terrifying and timely’ B.M. Carroll ‘Prak’s books keep you reading long into the night’ Vikki Petraitis

The fifth book in Lynda's brilliant Detective Jack Warr crime series.

The Marlow Murder Club Mysteries (3) - The Queen Of Poisons ‘I love the audacity of the Marlow gang, those ladies sure know how to live’ Reader review ?????‘Fiendishly clever and a satisfying puzzle to try and solve’ Reader review ?????‘A brilliant whodunnit mystery that keeps you guessing’ Reader review ?????* * *Who killed the Mayor? It’s up to the Marlow Murder Club to find out …Geoffrey Lushington, Mayor of Marlow, dies suddenly during a Town Council meeting. When traces of aconite – also known as the queen of poisons – are found in his coffee cup, the police realise he was murdered. But who did it? And why?The police bring Judith, Suzie and Becks in to investigate as Civilian Advisors right from the start, so they have free rein to interview suspects and follow the evidence to their heart’s content, which is perfect because Judith has no time for rules and standard procedure. But this case has the Marlow Murder Club stumped. Who would want to kill the affable Mayor? How did they even get the poison into his coffee? And is anyone else in danger? The Marlow Murder Club are about to face their most difficult case yet …* * *Praise for The Marlow Murder Club Mysteries:‘I love Robert Thorogood’s writing’ Peter James‘Cosy crime at its best’ Crime Monthly‘Cleverly plotted and laugh-out-loud funny’ Yours magazine‘The perfect cosy crime to curl up with’ Heat

Death Comes To Marlow ‘I was hooked from the first page, wonderful’ Reader review, ????? ‘Brilliant, brilliant book … this was one of the best books I’ve read in a long time’ Reader review, ????? ‘Entertaining, engaging and thoroughly enjoyable . . Wonderful escapism’ Reader review, ????? ‘Never a dull moment, lots of red herrings, plenty of humour and a plot worthy of Agatha!!!’ Reader review, ????? * * * It’s been an enjoyable and murder-free time for Judith, Suzie and Becks – AKA the Marlow Murder Club – since the events of last year. The most exciting thing on the horizon is the upcoming wedding of Marlow grandee, Sir Peter Bailey, to his nurse, Jenny Page. Sir Peter is having a party at his grand mansion on the river Thames the day before the wedding, and Judith and Co. are looking forward to a bit of free champagne. But during the soiree, there’s a crash from inside the house, and when the Marlow Murder Club rush to investigate, they are shocked to find the groom-to-be crushed to death in his study. The study was locked from the inside, so the police don’t consider the death suspicious. But Judith disagrees. As far as she's concerned, Peter was murdered! And it’s up to the Marlow Murder Club to find the killer before he or she strikes again… * * * Praise for Robert Thorogood ‘Keeps you guessing right to the end’ Good Housekeeping ‘I love Robert Thorogood’s writing’ Peter James ‘Lots of laughs, a quick pace and an easy read to escape into’ Glamour ‘A perfect locked room mystery’ My Weekly ‘Cosy crime at its best’ Crime Monthly ‘Satisfying locked-room mystery’ Saga ‘The perfect cosy crime to curl up with’ Heat

The Marlow Murder Club‘I want to be Judith Potts when I grow up’ Reader review ?????‘Read the whole thing in one day . . . I was hooked. It had me laughing to myself all day. Would recommend' Reader review ?????‘Comedy, thrilling, suspenseful. It was a brilliant read’ Reader review ?????‘A deftly plotted, funny and unexpected murder mystery . . . Highly recommended!’ Reader review ?????* * *To solve an impossible murder, you need an impossible hero…Seventy-seven-year-old Judith Potts is blissfully happy. She lives alone in a faded mansion in Marlow, sets crosswords for The Times, and there’s no man in her life to tell her what to do or how much whisky to drink.One evening, while out swimming in the Thames, Judith witnesses a brutal murder. When the local police don’t believe her story, Judith and two unlikely friends decide to investigate for themselves. Together, they are the Marlow Murder Club.But soon another body turns up, and it seems they have a real-life serial killer on their hands. Now the puzzle they set out to solve has become a trap from which they might never escape…* * *Praise for Robert Thorogood ‘Agatha Christie with a modern twist’ Sun‘This brilliantly crafted, hugely enjoyable and suitably goosebump-inducing novel is an utter delight from start to finish’ HEAT‘A hugely enjoyable murder mystery written with wonderful verve, humour and compassion. Utterly delightful’ Robert Webb