A first class mystery story, very different from the murder mysteries that I normally read but just as mysterious and intriguing.

Gerald Candless was an admired and popular author so his death was a loss to literature as well as to his two adoring daughters. One of them agrees to write a memoir of life...

The book begins with Severn Vale District Coroner Jenny Cooper being called to a cemetery in Bristol where the naked body of a man has been discovered with the sign of the cross scored into his flesh. On returning to her office she is asked by Father Lucus Starr to look into the death of Eve Donaldson, an ex-porn star who professed to be born again and became a...

A second novel about Inspector Malcolm Fox and the team from Internal Affairs. Fox, Kaye and Naysmith encounter the usual hostility from colleagues when they are sent to Fife to investigate the misconduct of Detective Paul Carter. What should be a straightforward case unearths something much more complicated – including an unresolved murder case from the 1980’s.

Fox becomes...

With a new twist on the body in the library ‘Alexandria’ takes us a long way from Agatha Christie and Miss Marple territory. As the title suggests, the library in question is the Royal Library of Alexandria, the largest and most significant library in the Ancient World.

Falco, private informer (we would call him a private investigator today) and hero of Lindsay Davis' long...

It is 2010 and Jonathan Kellaway is looking forward to retiring when he is called to the Augusta HQ of the multi-million mining firm he has worked for since leaving University. There is a last task that Greville Lashley, former Chairman (‘officially retired but not quite out of touch’) wants Jonathan to carry out. A historian has been hired to document a history of the company...

Sicilian detective Inspector Montalbano has to try and solve a murder - a dismembered body found in a field during a torrential rain storm. The body is cut up into 30 pieces, hidden in a bin liner and buried in the field. At the same time he has to try and figure out why his second in command Mimi is acting so strangely (obviously being a Sicilian man he just can’t ask)....

The cover of this book a man alone in the snow says it all. Henning Mankell has given us a multilayered novel for Kurt Wallander’s final case. The story takes nearly two years to solve and it moves not only through Kurt’s life but around Sweden.

The main crime is a missing person case involving the future father in law of Kurt’s daughter Linda. He first gets interested in...

Dark Fire is number 2 in the very successful historical crime series, set in the sixteenth century during the reign of Henry Eighth. The main protagonist is hunchback lawyer-detective, Matthew Shardlake, who finds himself defending a young girl on a murder charge. He is also on a mission for Lord Cromwell (first...

This was a very enjoyable read, I think!  It was an unexpected read, I was intrigued by the setting, it appealed to me as gardener and also its Italian setting. So why was I not overwhelmed by the book?

The classical illusions, using Greek and Roman mythology to hide the puzzle was at times confusing as my knowledge of these topics is non existent. Yet the solving of the puzzle was...

This is a compelling read. Susan Hill has again given Simon Serrailler a double murder but her skill is in weaving the personal story of Simon, his colleagues and family into a convincing narrative with the transient population of the local town. While Simon is away in Scotland taking a long overdue break, the people of Lafferton and his family are getting on with their lives. The first half sets the...

Prize winning author Hilary Mantel has given us a stunning novel, following the rise of hard man Thomas Cromwell, from his lowly background to chief advisor at the court of Henry the Eighth. Cromwell’s character has been redeemed by this novel. From the ‘bad boy’ of the Tudor court to someone with integrity, intellect, a man of the enlightenment…a ‘Mr...