Showing results by publisher "Soundings" in All Categories

Ellie has always disliked the local big estate agent - aka Great White Shark - and is distressed when her daughter Diana announces that she is carrying his child and about to become his fourth wife. But Ellie is soon drawn into the family circle when one of the Hooper children dies in their private gym and another succumbs to a peanut allergy. The police want to write off the deaths as accident and misadventure, but Ellie believes someone is targeting members of the Hooper family. Surely Diana wouldn't… or would she?

1949. An unsigned letter arrives on the desk of Chief Inspector Derry of the Canterbury police. Enclosed is a jade pendant, identical to the one that went missing from the body of an actress murdered a decade previously. The case had been shut quickly at the time - the accused vagrant gave a written confession and was sentenced to the gallows - but the necklace was never recovered. Until now. Inspector Madden is asked to investigate the letter's worrying claims by his old friend....

He needed a make-believe lover.... It was such a strange request - Gray Chalmers asking Stephanie to pose as his lover to help him resist the attractions of a beautiful but married woman. Gray knew Stephanie, knew she didn't even like being touched. Yet he insisted she come back to the village to play the part of the femme fatale. Gray had never pried into the bitter marriage Stephanie had endured to his cousin. He'd offered only comfort in the 10 years since its tragic ending. So, while she hated the pretence, she couldn't refuse. 

Why do people love trains so much? Tom Chesshyre is on a mission to find the answer by experiencing the world through train travel - on both epic and everyday rail routes, aboard every type of ride, from steam locomotives to bullet trains, meeting a cast of memorable characters who share a passion for train travel. Join him on the rails and off the beaten track as he embarks on an exhilarating whistle-stop tour around the globe, on journeys on celebrated trains and railways.

Gerald Brown is a handsome and brilliant young engineer - wrongfully accused of stealing diamonds from his South African firm. Why has he been framed? Elizabeth Burleigh is a beautiful and talented West End actress – compelled to deny herself what marriage could bring her. What is the secret that impairs her love? Gerald and Elizabeth are half-brother and sister. They are reunited in London and together they face the mysteries that have made them both so unhappy.

No death could have been more welcome than Evan Morgan's, or more fitting for the Welcome Home celebrations in the village of Llanddewi. For Morgan had spent the war making money and enemies down in the Vale of Glamorgan with about equal facility. In fact, on the night, it seemed as if a whole posse of murderers had beaten a path to the door of the Manor House.

Soho during the blackouts of the Second World War. When a piercing scream rends the air and a bloodied knife is found, Detective Inspector MacCarthy is soon on the scene. He must move through the dark, seedy Soho underworld - peopled by Italian gangsters, cross-dressing German spies and glamorous Austrian aristocrats - as he attempts to unravel the connection between the mysterious Madame Rohner and the theft of secret antiaircraft defence plans.

In the peaceful seaside town of Broadgate, an impossible crime occurs. The operator of the cliff railway locks the empty carriage one evening; when he returns to work next morning, a dead body is locked inside - a man who has been stabbed in the back. Jimmy London, a newspaper reporter, is first on the scene. He is quick on the trail for clues and agrees to pool his knowledge with Inspector Shelley of Scotland Yard, who is holidaying in the area.

It’s with mixed motives that Karen Slocombe’s cousin Penn pays her a visit. Not only does Penn want to renew contact with a relative, but she is also looking for help with the disappearance of Justine, another cousin. Drew Slocombe’s reputation for unraveling mysteries is widespread and Penn hopes he and Karen can be of assistance. Justine’s mother, Roma Millan, claims to be unconcerned at her daughter’s disappearance. Roma’s husband, Laurie, however, believes otherwise.

Flora Thompson was born in 1876 at Juniper Hill on the Oxfordshire/Northamptonshire border. She is best known as the author of Lark Rise to Candleford, that classic and evocative observation of her rural childhood which has been a best-seller since its publication in 1945. That story ends with her leaving her native Oxfordshire in 1897 for pastures new. In Heatherley she picks up the story again when she takes her first permanent post in Grayshott, a village on the Hampshire/Surrey border.

The body of an unknown woman is found in an Edinburgh close and the police are quick to label it as a random act of violence...until, that is, Detective Constable Faro finds a playing card, the nine of diamonds, planted on the corpse. His superiors scoff at his suspicions, but days later a man is attacked in the street and left badly bruised and battered, with the nine of diamonds in his pocket. Faro seizes on the connection and it is not the last calling card. But what is it that links the victims? Beset by hostile superiors and a police-hating public, Faro feels he may never crack this confounding case.

Halloween 1861. A special train with two carriages steams across the Lake District at night on its way to a place notorious for its record of supernatural incidents. Lighting inside the carriages is poor, and without warning, the lamp goes out in the last compartment of the second carriage, plunging it into darkness. When the special reaches the end of its journey, the passengers pour out on to the station platform. There are almost 60 of them in all, laughing and jostling. 

1917. The Lotus Hotel offers sanctuary for its exclusively female clientele, attracting the cream of London's society. But a dead body found in one of its rooms is hardly good for business, and when it is discovered that the woman was neither a guest nor a member of staff, the Lotus' reputation as a safe haven is cast in doubt. Inspector Marmion and Sergeant Keedy are dispatched to look into the events at the hotel and soon suspect foul play.

1914. Evie Munro is a Scottish fisher girl, working the herring season from Wick to Great Yarmouth. For Evie, every day is the same - gutting fish at the docks, shoulder-to-shoulder with her friends, followed by fresh bread, a warm whiskey toddy and an early night. But when Germany declares war, everything changes. As her village begins to empty of young men, Evie's life is marked by a heartbreaking tragedy. Her happiness destroyed, she vows to join the war effort as an army nurse, caring for wounded soldiers on the imposing hospital ship Britannic.

London, Autumn 1916. When he slips out of a house in the early hours, Simon Wilder is too preoccupied to realise that he is being stalked. As he walks along the street, lights begin to dim as a warning that there's another Zeppelin attack. British aeroplanes attack the Zeppelin. Suddenly, it bursts into flame and lights up the whole sky. The crowds cheer as the great fireball drops slowly down and crashes in a field but the one person unable to watch is Simon Wilder.

Armistice Day 1940. The Blitz Detective John Jago finds himself despatched to Pimlico to investigate a suspicious death. A young man, Terry Watson, has been found in an Anderson shelter, battered about the head, and with two white poppies in his pocket. As the investigation delves into Watson's background, Jago and his assistant DC Craddock find themselves knee-deep in Pimlico's shady underworld and connections with Oswald Mosley's BUF party. It will take all their skills to uncover the truth behind the pacifist's brutal death.

A new century brings change to Eden Harris's ordered world. Despite years of service to the Bradburys, she hides a secret that would affect them all. When an enemy returns, her world is shattered and her secret exposed. Torn and provoked, she strains to protect her family until a devastating accident leaves her alone and frightened. As the threat against her grows, Eden takes her precious daughters and flees from the only place she's called home. But her attempt to start anew is not so simple.

Sisters Mary and Cathy Ward couldn’t be more different. Fiercely independent Mary is determined to leave the mean streets of Liverpool, whereas Cathy is happy with the life she has. But when both girls fall for the same man, conflict threatens to push them apart, and as they are caught up in their own troubles, Liverpool erupts in the Bloody Sunday riots.

It's a time of turmoil for the village of Turnham Malpas.... Peter and Caroline Harris live a comfortable life at the rectory, but their cosy world is shaken up when Caroline's old flame, Morgan Jefferson, appears. He's intent on convincing her to pursue a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity - in America. Plus, it looks like Caroline's career isn't the only thing Morgan is interested in.

1922. Lady Emily Fitzallan has returned to the country house where she spent her childhood for a family wedding. Leysmorton Manor brings back many memories, especially of her elder sister Clare, who vanished one day after going for a walk, never to return. But the disturbing discovery of a soldier's skeleton at the base of an ancient Yew tree brings the past shockingly into the present. Could the man's untimely death have its roots in Clare's disappearance, which occurred almost half a century ago…?