Showing results by author "Minette Walters" in All Categories

Dorset, 1642. When bloody civil war breaks out between the king and Parliament, families and communities across England are riven by different allegiances. A rare few choose neutrality. One such is Jayne Swift, a Dorset physician from a royalist family, who offers her services to both sides in the conflict. Through her dedication to treating the sick and wounded, regardless of belief, Jayne becomes a witness to the brutality of war and the devastation it wreaks.

England, 1685. Decades after the end of the civil war, the country is once again divided when Charles II's illegitimate son, the Protestant Duke of Monmouth, arrives in Dorset to incite rebellion against his Catholic uncle. Armed only with pitchforks, Monmouth's army is quickly defeated by King James II's superior forces and charged with high treason. Those found guilty will be hanged, drawn and quartered. As Dorset braces for carnage, the redoubtable Lady Jayne Harrier and a small group of trusted allies contrive ways to save men from the gallows.

When Lieutenant Charles Acland is flown home from Iraq with serious head injuries, he faces not only permanent disfigurement but also an apparent change to his previously outgoing personality. Crippled by migraines, and suspicious of his psychiatrist, he begins to display sporadic bouts of aggression, particularly against women, especially his ex-fiancee who seems unable to accept that the relationship is over. After his injuries prevent his return to the army, he cuts all ties with his former life and moves to London.

Twelve hours after a woman's broken body is washed up on a deserted shore, her traumatized three-year-old daughter is discovered twenty miles away wandering the streets of Poole. But why was Kate killed and her daughter, a witness, allowed to live? And why weren't they together? More curiously, why had Kate willingly boarded a boat when she had a terror of drowning at sea? Police suspicion centers on both a young actor, whose sailing boat is moored just yards from where the toddler is found, and the murdered woman's husband.

When elderly Ailsa Lockyer-Fox is found dead in her garden, dressed only in night clothes and with blood stains on the ground near her body, the finger of suspicion points at her wealthy, landowning husband, Colonel James Lockyer-Fox. A coroner's inquest gives a verdict of 'natural causes' but the gossip surrounding him refuses to go away.

Reuters correspondent Connie Burns is no stranger to the world’s trouble spots, including the vicious civil unrest in Sierra Leone and the war in Iraq. But as she begins to suspect that a foreigner is using the chaos of war to act out sadistic fantasies against women, her efforts to bring him to justice leave her devastated. Degraded and terrified, she goes into hiding in England and strikes up a friendship with Jess Derbyshire, a loner whose reclusive nature may well be masking secrets of her own.

Mathilda Gillespie's body was found nearly two days after she had taken an overdose and slashed her wrists with a Stanley knife. But what shocked Dr Sarah Blakeney the most was the scold's bridle obscuring the dead woman's face, a metal contraption grotesquely adorned with a garland of nettles and Michaelmas daisies. What happened at Cedar House in the tortured hours before Mathilda's death? The police assume that the coroner will return a verdict of suicide. Only Dr Blakeney, it seems, doubts the verdict. Until it is discovered that Mathilda's diaries have disappeared.

The terrifying new Hammer novella by Minette Walters, best-selling author of The Sculptress and The Scold's Bridle. Muna’s fortunes changed for the better on the day that Mr and Mrs Songoli’s younger son failed to come home from school. Before then her bedroom was a dark, windowless cellar, her activities confined to cooking and cleaning. She’d grown used to being maltreated by the Songoli family, to being a slave.

Acid Row. The name the beleaguered inhabitants give to their 'sink' estate. A no-man's land of single mothers and fatherless children—where angry, alienated youth controls the streets. Into this battleground comes Sophie Morrison, a young doctor visiting a patient in Acid Row. Little does she know that she is entering the home of a known pedophile . . . and with reports circulating that a tormented child called Amy has disappeared, the vigilantes are out in force

November 1978. Britain is on strike. The dead lie unburied, rubbish piles in the streets—and somewhere in West London a black woman dies in a rain-soaked gutter. Her passing would have gone unmourned but for the young woman who finds her and who believes—apparently against reason—that Annie was murdered. But whatever the truth about Annie—whether she was as mad as her neighbors claimed, whether she lived in squalor as the police said—something passed between her and Mrs. Ranelagh in the moment of death which binds this one woman to her cause for the next twenty years.

A body is found in the woods.... Based on the true story of the shocking murder of Mrs Caroline Luard, which took place in Kent in August 1908. Caroline Luard is shot dead in broad daylight in the grounds of a large country estate. With few clues available, her husband soon becomes the suspect... but is he guilty? Bringing to life the people involved in this terrible crime, in A Dreadful Murder best-selling author Minette Walters uses modern detective skills to attempt to solve a 100-year-old crime.

Jane “Jinx” Kingsley, fashion photographer and heiress, tries to kill herself after being unceremoniously jilted by her fiancé, who has since disappeared—together with Jinx's best friend Meg Harris . . . But when Jinx wakes from her coma, she can remember nothing about her alleged suicide attempt. With the help of Dr Alan Protheroe of the Nightingale Clinic, she slowly begins to piece together the fragments of the last few weeks. Then the memories begin to surface . . . memories of utter desperation and absolute terror.

Bestsellerautorin Minette Walters kehrt nach über 10 Jahren zurück. Juni 1348: In England bricht die Pest aus. Binnen kürzester Zeit werden ganze Landstriche entvölkert, Angst und Panik regieren. Allein Lady Anne, die Burgherrin von Develish, bleibt ruhig. Als die Pest auch ihr Gebiet erreicht, bringt sie kurzentschlossen all ihre Schutzbefohlenen in der Burg in Sicherheit und lässt die Zugbrücke verbrennen. Nicht einmal ihren Ehemann, der von einer Reise zurückkehrt, lässt sie ein.

September 1348: Die Pest wütet in Südengland. Lady Anne von Develish ist es gelungen, ihre Schutzbefohlenen in Sicherheit zu bringen. Doch die Versorgung wird mit der Zeit immer schwieriger. Ihr Verwalter und heimlicher Vertrauter Thaddeus ist losgezogen, um Vorräte zu beschaffen und weitere Überlebende zu retten. Doch Thaddeus wird gefangen genommen. Wird Lady Anne ihn retten können, bevor er - und mit ihm die ganze friedliche Gemeinschaft von Develish - verloren ist?

September 1348: Die Pest wütet in Südengland. Lady Anne von Develish ist es gelungen, ihre Schutzbefohlenen in Sicherheit zu bringen. Doch die Versorgung wird mit der Zeit immer schwieriger. Ihr Verwalter und heimlicher Vertrauter Thaddeus ist losgezogen, um Vorräte zu beschaffen und weitere Überlebende zu retten. Doch Thaddeus wird gefangen genommen. Wird Lady Anne ihn retten können, bevor er – und mit ihm die ganze friedliche Gemeinschaft von Develish – verloren ist?

Fesselnd vorgelesen von Gabriele Blum

In 1970, Harold Stamp, a retarded 20-year-old, was convicted on disputed evidence and a retracted confession of brutally murdering his grandmother. Less than three years later he is dead, driven to suicide by isolation and despair. Thirty years on, Jonathan Hughes, an anthropologist specialising in social stereotyping, comes across the case by accident. He finds alarming disparities in the evidence and has little doubt that Stamp's conviction was a terrible miscarriage of justice. But how far is Hughes prepared to go in the search for justice?

Bestsellerautorin Minette Walters kehrt nach über 10 Jahren zurück. Juni 1348: In England bricht die Pest aus. Binnen kürzester Zeit werden ganze Landstriche entvölkert, Angst und Panik regieren. Allein Lady Anne, die Burgherrin von Develish, bleibt ruhig. Als die Pest auch ihr Gebiet erreicht, bringt sie kurzentschlossen all ihre Schutzbefohlenen in der Burg in Sicherheit und lässt die Zugbrücke verbrennen. Nicht einmal ihren Ehemann, der von einer Reise zurückkehrt, lässt sie ein.

In Sowerbridge herrscht Empörung: Die 93jährige Lavinia Fanshaw und ihre Haushälterin wurden tot aufgefunden, mit einem Hammer erschlagen. Der Schmuck der wohlhabenden Lavinia ist verschwunden. Sofort fällt der Verdacht auf den arbeitslosen Iren Patrick O'Riordan. Die Beweislast ist erdrückend, denn bei ihm findet man nicht nur die Tatwaffe, sondern auch die gestohlenen Ringe. Einzig die ebenfalls irischstämmige Siobhan Levenham will nicht an Patricks Schuld glauben.

1970 wird der geistig etwas zurückgebliebene Howard Stamp für schuldig befunden, seine Großmutter Grace kaltblütig ermordet zu haben. Trotz dürftiger Beweislage erhält er eine lebenslange Haftstrafe, die er allerdings nie verbüßt...

In the small Hampshire village of Sowerbridge, Irish labourer Patrick O'Riordan has been arrested for the brutal murder of elderly Lavinia Fanshaw and her live-in nurse, Dorothy Jenkins. As shock turns to fury, the village residents form a united front against Patrick's parents and cousin, who report incidents of vicious threats and violence. But Siobhan Lavenham remains convinced that Patrick has fallen victim to a prejudiced investigation and, putting her own position within the bigoted community in serious jeopardy, stands firmly by his family in defense of the O'Riordan name.