1954: When her former novice’s dependable letters stop, Nora Breen asks to be released from her vows. Haunted by a line in Frieda’s letter, Nora arrives at Gulls Nest, a charming hotel in Gore-on-Sea in Kent. A seaside town, a place of fresh air and relaxed constraints, is the perfect place for a new start. Nora hides her identity and pries into the lives of her fellow guests. But when a series of bizarre murders rattles the occupants of Gulls Nest it’s time to ask if a dark past can ever really be left behind.

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway's latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the best-selling crime writer for years, she's intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan's traditional formula has proved hugely successful.

Early one morning, a body is found lying next to the railway tracks just outside of Kuki Station in Saitama Prefecture, shot dead. It is identified as belonging to the owner of a local mill which is embroiled in a labour dispute. Suspicion initially falls on the workers' union, then on a new religious sect that has been gaining followers recently. Chief Inspector Onitsura and his assistant Tanna are called in to investigate, and soon set off in a journey across Japan, from Tokyo to Kyoto and Osaka, and finally to the island of Kyushu, in a hunt for the killer.

Spring, 1918. The Great War is at a crucial stage, the Germans are making one last push into France, and the Allies are struggling to hold them back. Battle lines are shifting, and men, and their machines, are being sent up and down the front to shore up defenses. Major Heathcliff Lennox, and his batman Greggs, are told to report to their new HQ. They set off on a sunlit day to fly the distance, but the enemy is never far away, and disaster strikes. They're sent crashing to the ground behind enemy lines, where life, death, and love await.

London, 1941: Miss Jane Treen is at her desk, strong black coffee in hand and fluffy ginger cat by her side, when her top-secret government work is interrupted by an urgent call to Devon. A woman has been found dead in a lake in a place where she shouldn’t have been. Jane needs to gather the clues and find the killer before someone else from the agency gets hurt… Shy and handsome code-breaker Arthur Cilento is bewildered by the arrival of the efficient Miss Treen and her cat Marmaduke.

Miranda’s parents live in a dilapidated house in rural France that they share with two llamas, eight ducks, five chickens, two cats, and a freezer full of food dating back to 1983. This wry, propulsive story about a singularly eccentric family and the sibling rivalry, generational divides, and long-buried secrets that shape them, is a glorious debut novel from a seasoned playwright with immense empathy and a flair for dialogue.

London, 1921: Mabel Canning is proud to be a modern woman working for the Useful Women’s Agency, carrying out tasks for gentlewomen from flower arranging to washing muddy dogs. But when she answers the door for wealthy widow Rosalind Despard, she almost chokes on her cucumber sandwich when she finds a soldier’s body on the doorstep. As she offers tea to the policemen of Scotland Yard, Mabel can’t resist getting drawn into the investigation.

We are 40 years into the future, and London is a city in decay. John Watson has returned from medical service in the war in Afghanistan and lives by himself in a run-down part of ​town. On his way home from work, he stumbles upon a beaten man in the street – unconscious and completely naked. His chances of survival are minimal. The same evening, a passenger plane crashes in Richmond Park. There are several hundred victims, and Watson and the mysterious man are left to their own devices.

Meet Major Bricket, an infrequent resident of Highfield House in Stunston Peveril, Suffolk. In the past the Major's work assignments, frequently in foreign countries, have prevented him from spending much time there and as a result, there is an air of mystery around him while everyone in the village speculates on the nature of his occupation. But now the Major has retired and has come home for good in his open-topped little red sports car... and what a homecoming it is, for lying spreadeagled on his lawn in the summer sunshine is the corpse of a clown.

Every nosy neighbor, gossipy friend, and meddling relative is just one good mystery away from becoming a detective. From behind locked doors or out in broad daylight, driven by chance or curiosity, amateur sleuths get in over their heads in these six hair-raising, hilarious stories.

Former stand-up comic Juno Mulligan has been suffering a serious sense-of-humour failure. Not only has she lost the love of her life, but she’s having to relocate to the (admittedly idyllic) village of Inkbury to watch out for her elderly mother, who she’s genuinely worried might be marrying a wife-killer. She hopes that her old friend, disgraced-journalist-turned-novelist Phoebe Fredericks can help her crack the case of whether her mother’s perma-tanned, iceberg-smiled, three-times-a-widower fiancé is hiding a murderous past.

Richard is a middle-aged Englishman who runs a B&B in the fictional Val de Follet in the Loire Valley. Nothing ever happens to Richard, and really that’s the way he likes it. One day, however, one of his older guests disappears, leaving behind a bloody handprint on the wallpaper. Another guest, the exotic Valérie, persuades a reluctant Richard to join her in investigating the disappearance. Richard remains a dazed passenger in the case until things become really serious and someone murders Ava Gardner, one of his beloved hen...and you don’t mess with a fellow’s hens!

When an English expat is brutally murdered, his charred corpse left on a Loire Valley hillside, the police turn to juge d’instruction Matthieu Lombard to find the perpetrator. Instead, Lombard discovers a wealth of secrets, grudges, and feuds in the idyllic town of Saint-Genèse-sur-Loire. He begins to suspect that the remaining members of the Comité des Fêtes know more about the death than they are letting on.

A group of friends gather at an Airbnb on New Year’s Eve. It is Benjamin’s birthday, and his sister Abigail is throwing him a jazz-age Murder Mystery themed party. As the night plays out, champagne is drunk, hors d’oeuvres consumed, and relationships forged, consolidated or frayed. Someone kisses the wrong person; someone else’s heart is broken. In the morning, all of them wake up—except Benjamin. As Abigail attempts to wrap her mind around her brother’s death, an eminent detective arrives determined to find Benjamin's killer.

It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favorite criminal. But when Elizabeth meets Nick, a wedding guest asking for her help, she finds the thrill of the chase is ignited once again. And when Nick disappears without a trace, his cagey business partner becomes the gang’s next stop. It seems the duo have something valuable—something worth killing for.

1954: When her former novice’s dependable letters stop, Nora Breen asks to be released from her vows. Haunted by a line in Frieda’s letter, Nora arrives at Gulls Nest, a charming hotel in Gore-on-Sea in Kent. A seaside town, a place of fresh air and relaxed constraints, is the perfect place for a new start. Nora hides her identity and pries into the lives of her fellow guests. But when a series of bizarre murders rattles the occupants of Gulls Nest it’s time to ask if a dark past can ever really be left behind.

Spring, 1918. The Great War is at a crucial stage, the Germans are making one last push into France, and the Allies are struggling to hold them back. Battle lines are shifting, and men, and their machines, are being sent up and down the front to shore up defenses. Major Heathcliff Lennox, and his batman Greggs, are told to report to their new HQ. They set off on a sunlit day to fly the distance, but the enemy is never far away, and disaster strikes. They're sent crashing to the ground behind enemy lines, where life, death, and love await.

London, 1921: Mabel Canning is proud to be a modern woman working for the Useful Women’s Agency, carrying out tasks for gentlewomen from flower arranging to washing muddy dogs. But when she answers the door for wealthy widow Rosalind Despard, she almost chokes on her cucumber sandwich when she finds a soldier’s body on the doorstep. As she offers tea to the policemen of Scotland Yard, Mabel can’t resist getting drawn into the investigation.

Every nosy neighbor, gossipy friend, and meddling relative is just one good mystery away from becoming a detective. From behind locked doors or out in broad daylight, driven by chance or curiosity, amateur sleuths get in over their heads in these six hair-raising, hilarious stories.

There's a serial killer targeting the streets of Newcastle, seemingly picking his victims at random but subjecting them all to the same torturous end. When the Chief Inspector on the case goes missing, it falls on DCI Ryan to track down the man who is brutally murdering women and goading the police to 'catch me if you can'. As everyone becomes a suspect, Ryan and his team get drawn further and further into the case, but for Ryan the nightmare gets closer to home than he could ever have imagined.

Meet the Williamson sisters, Britain’s most treasured World War II veterans. Now in their late nineties, Josephine and Penny are in huge demand, popping up at commemorative events and history festivals all over the country. Despite their age, they’re still in great form—perfectly put together, sprightly and sparky, and always in search of their next “excitement.” This time it’s a trip to Paris to receive the Légion d’honneur for their part in the liberation of France. And as always, they will be accompanied by their devoted great-nephew, Archie.

As the London Daily Gazette’s popular gossip columnist, she is extremely adept at sneaking into houses, assuming disguises and overseeing a vast network of spies to ensure she stays abreast of the beau monde’s comings and goings. If it sometimes seems as though she was hiding behind the settee during a particularly fierce quarrel between a husband and his wife, it’s most likely because she was hiding behind the settee during their fierce quarrel.

1692. On the outskirts of Salem, a bookstore stands covered in overgrown vines. Inside, a young woman hides a linen-wrapped journal under a loose floorboard and runs away, panicked by the sound of hounds barking in the distance. The bookstore vanishes into thin air…

When Abigail agreed to move to Soap Lake, Washington, for her husband’s research, she expected old-growth forests and craft beer, folksy neighbors and the world’s largest lava lamp. Instead, after her husband jets off to Poland for a research trip, she finds herself alone, in a town haunted by its own urban legends. When a young boy runs through the desert into Abigail’s arms, her life becomes entwined with his and the questions surrounding the death of his mother, Esme.

Anxiety is a natural first-time reaction in the face of danger. It is the body’s automatic fight-or-flight response triggered when your body senses any form of threat, when you are under pressure, or even when you are facing a situation that is challenging. Taking a job interview, exam, or going out on a first date can leave you with anxiety. This simply means that anxiety isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As a matter of fact, anxiety doesn’t necessarily result in something bad.

In 1940, 18-year-old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever. Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat.

The winter of 1578, four years prior to the Honno-ji Incident. Araki Murashige has betrayed his ally Oda Nobunaga and holed himself up in Arioka Castle—but a string of unsettling incidents within the castle walls has him at his wit’s end. The desperate warlord’s only hope for solving these mysteries is imprisoned in the castle’s dungeon: a man named Kuroda Kanbei, one of Oda’s most gifted strategists. When all the conflict and intrigue come to a close, what will these two men have gained…and lost?

For lovers of the supernatural and the macabre comes this collection of ghostly and chilling stories from legendary mystery writer Agatha Christie. Fantastic psychic visions, specters looming in the shadows, encounters with deities, a man who switches bodies with a cat - be sure to keep the light on whilst listening to these tales. The Last Séance gathers 20 stories, some featuring Christie’s beloved detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, in one haunting compendium that explores all things occult and paranormal, and is an essential omnibus for Christie fans.

It’s the summer of 1994, and all Maeve Murray wants are good final exam results so she can earn her ticket out of the wee Northern Irish town she has grown up in during the Troubles—away from her crowded home, the silence and sadness surrounding her sister’s death, and most of all, away from the simmering violence of her divided community. And as a first step, Maeve’s taken a summer job in a local shirt factory working alongside Protestants with her best friends, kind, innocent Caroline Jackson and privileged and clever Aoife O’Neill.

On the day Stockholm police officer Hanna Ahlander’s personal and professional lives crash, she takes refuge at her sister’s lodge in the Swedish ski resort paradise of Åre. But it’s a brief comfort. The entire village is shaken by the sudden vanishing of a local teenage girl. Hanna can’t help but investigate, and while searching for the missing person, she lands a job with the local police department. There she joins forces with Detective Inspector Daniel Lindskog, who has been tasked with finding the girl. Their only lead: a scarf in the snow.