Showing results by narrator "Diana Bishop" in All Categories

Katherine comes to the court of Edward III at the age of 15. The naïve convent-educated orphan of a penniless knight is dazzled by the jousts and the entertainments of court. Nevertheless, Katherine is beautiful, and she turns the head of the King's favourite son John of Gaunt. But he is married, and she is soon to be betrothed. A few years later their paths cross again and this time their passion for each other cannot be denied or suppressed.

In Cambridge a child has been hideously murdered and other children have disappeared. The Jews, made scapegoats by the all-powerful Christian clergy, have been forced to retreat into the castle to avoid slaughter by angry townspeople. Henry, King of England, is displeased. The Jews provide a large part of his revenue and therefore the real killer must be found, and quickly.

Between April 20th and June 22nd of 1945 the anonymous author of A Woman in Berlin wrote about life within the falling city as it was sacked by the Russian Army. Fending off the boredom and deprivation of hiding, the author records her experiences, observations and meditations in this stark and vivid diary.

Hired to trace Anna Ball, who has vanished, Miss Maud Silver encounters an eccentric art colony, bank robberies, and counterfeiting. As with other Miss Silver mysteries, the story relies on character development. Nadia May reads clearly and distinguishes individuals well; her British voice is ideal for this genteel period thriller (1951). Agatha Christie fans will enjoy this one.

The first of the classic mysteries featuring governess-turned-detective Miss Silver, who investigates a deadly conspiratorial ring. Charles Moray has come home to England to collect his inheritance. After four years wandering the jungles of India and South America, the hardy young man returns to the manor of his birth, where generations of Morays have lived and died. Strangely, he finds the house unlocked, and sees a light on in one of its abandoned rooms. Eavesdropping, he learns of a conspiracy to commit a fearsome crime.

It's nearing the end of WWII, and Michael Harsh has been working for the government on a secret project for years. Finally he is ready to hand over the formula. But the next morning he is dead. It looks like suicide. Only Miss Silver knows it's murder.

There was a certain heavy air of intrigue and mystery emanating from the old inn high on the cliff top. The Catherine-Wheel had once been a home for pirates and smugglers, but now it looked like it was harbouring a murderer. It had begun with an advertisement in the paper requesting descendants of the late innkeeper, Jeremiah Taverner, to stay for a weekend at the inn. They had arrived, a mixed assortment, to the family reunion eager to discover the secrets of their ancestry. But one of them had been hideously murdered, bringing the inn's stormy past into frightening focus.

Rachel Traherne does not want to meet Maud Silver. She does not want to tell her that someone has threatened her life, because she does not want that dreadful fact to be true. But see Miss Silver she must, for the stout, old-fashioned detective is the only person in London who may be able to keep her safe. Rachel has been receiving threatening letters about her deceased father's fortune. The first two letters were vague; the third said simply, "Get ready to die."

She awakes in a dark place. A young woman with a shattered memory, she knows neither who she is nor how she came to be in this abandoned house. All she possesses is a faint sense that someone is lying dead at the foot of the stairs. Horrifyingly, she is correct. In the cellar lies a young woman, her body broken, her head split, her life undone by a revolver’s shell. The amnesiac flees and finally has a stroke of luck: She meets Maud Silver.

Since solving a particularly nasty case of child murder using her forensic skills, Adelia Aguilar is deemed too valuable to send back to the School of Medicine in Salerno. Instead, King Henry II has decided to keep her in England. This is bad news for Adelia – in twelfth-century England women doctors are regarded with great suspicion. So, with her illegitimate child, Adelia is forced to live and practise in the secrecy of Cambridgeshire’s fenland. But at Henry’s court, terrible things are happening.

He has no money, no reputation and no famous ancestors.' The love story of the Emperor Vespasian, who brought peace to Rome after years of strife, and his mistress, the freed slave woman Caenis, this book recreates Ancient Rome's most turbulent period - the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero and Vespasian's rise to power. As their forbidden romance blossoms, Caenis is embroiled in political intrigue, while Vespasian embarks on a glorious career.

Tilling Green was a charming little village nestling in the Ledshire countryside. Not at all the sort of place you would expect to find an anonymous letter writer. And when one of the recipients, a young woman, was found drowned in the lake belonging to the Manor House, Miss Silver was persuaded to go and investigate. Valentine Grey was marrying one Gilbert Earle, but on the night of Valentine's pre-wedding party Jason Leigh, Valentine's former love, returned after months without a word.

Things had never been quite the same at Latter End since Lois had taken over. Suddenly life seemed to be an endless succession of bitter family rows which Lois, needless to say, invariably won. More than one person at Latter End found themselves stretched to the limit by Lois and her bullying, and it was only a matter of time before somebody snapped. It was unthinkable of course...but if anyone ever murdered Lois Latter, it would be very embarrassing to discover just how many people might have wished her dead.

When her fiancé, Giles Armitage, is lost at sea in the middle of the Second World War, Meade Underwood is left in the company of a middle-aged aunt with nothing but a monotonous round of bridge parties and war work to fill her days. A chance encounter restores Giles to Meade but he has lost his memory, and their rediscovered happiness is threatened by the machinations of the scheming Carola Roland, a figure from Giles' forgotten past. So when Carola is viciously murdered, Giles becomes the chief suspect....

When the Metropolitan Police fail to realise a serial killer is at work, London ignites over the fact that the killer's victims are young black and mixed race boys. Institutionalised racism is claimed by the community's activists and tabloids alike. Acting Superintendent Thomas Lynley is given the case, and his Scotland Yard task force is soon handling more killings and a looming tragedy.

The citizens of Melling are perfectly ordinary—exactly the sort one finds in just about every cozy English village—and to a certain person they might even appear boring. But to Miss Silver, people are always interesting. It has been some years since she gave up work as a governess to become a detective, and her interest in people has served her well. She comes to Melling on vacation—a long postponed visit to an old school chum—but Miss Silver’s business is murder, and her vacations never last long.

First she felt herself being pushed downstairs. Then there was the bowl of poisoned mushroom soup. Finally the tampered-with tablet amongst her sleeping pills was the last straw. Adriana Ford, famous actress and mistress of the house decided to call in Miss Silver. And Maud Silver, with impeccable logic, pointed out that the person who was trying to kill her must be a member of her own household. And then the murders started...

The Everton murder case has long been closed. The culprit has been charged with the murder of his uncle and has served a year of his sentence already. Or has he? The evidence against Geoffrey Grey is convincing but his wife believes in his innocence. And so does her young cousin, Hilary, who decides to solve the mystery herself. But when Hilary herself is nearly murdered she turns in desperation to her ex-fiancé for help. He calls upon the services of Miss Silver to help solve another mystery, which she does in her own original style.

Who was William Smith? And why was Mavis Jones so horrified to see him? For seven years William had worked as a woodcarver for the local toyshop, ignorant of his true identity. The war had robbed him of his memory, and no one expected him to ever find the answer. So when he took his work to Evesleys Ltd, why was his life instantly in danger? When William makes the frightening discovery that there are people determined not to let his memory return whatever the cost, Miss Silver is called in to investigate.

In The Pattern in the Carpet, Margaret Drabble tells the history of the jigsaw, a uniquely British form of meditation, from its earliest incarnation as a teaching tool to the extraordinary variety of cut-outs that have continued to amuse children and adults until the present.