Mirabelle Bevan Mystery Series

1951, Brighton. With the excitement of the war over and the Nazis brought to justice, Mirabelle Bevan, ex-Secret Service, moves to the seaside to put the past behind her. She takes a job as a secretary at a debt collection agency run by Big Ben McGuigan, but when confronted by the case of Romana Laszlo, a pregnant Hungarian refugee, Mirabelle discovers that her specialist knowledge is vital. With enthusiastic assistance from the pretty insurance clerk down the corridor

1952, Brighton and London. When 17 year old debutante Rose Bellamy Gore goes missing in a seedy Soho jazz club the prime suspect is black saxophone player, Lindon Claremont, the last person to be seen talking to her. Under suspicion, Lindon heads straight for Brighton and his childhood friend, Vesta Churchill who works with ex-Secret Service office girl Mirabelle Bevan, now in charge of the McGuigan and McGuigan Debt Collection Agency. When Lindon is taken into custody the two women dive into London's underworld of smoky night clubs, smart cars and lethal cocktails to establish the truth.

It's 1955. When Mirabelle Bevan is rescued from a fire at her home on the Brighton seafront, she's lucky to escape unharmed - but the blaze takes the life of her neighbour, Dougie Beaumont, a dashing and successful racing driver living in the flat above. It soon becomes clear that this was arson, raising questions about the young man's death that Mirabelle can't resist investigating further.

Brighton, 1956.When Mirabelle's on-off boyfriend, Superintendent Alan McGregor, is taken off a gruesome murder case because the key suspect is an old school friend, Mirabelle steps in to unravel the tangle of poisoned gin, call girls and high stakes gambling that surrounds the death. It isn't long before McGregor's integrity is called into question and Mirabelle finds herself doubting him. So when a wartime hero's body turns up on the Sussex Downs, she is glad that McGregor is caught up in a mystery of his own as Brighton's establishment closes ranks.

Brighton, 1957. Mirabelle Bevan can't resist a cry for help, be it the little girl at a seaside sanatorium who is getting bullied or the strange behaviour of Uma, the Indian nurse who is looking after her. Intrigued, she soon finds herself drawn into a spider's web of connections between an upmarket brothel, local priest Father Grogan, a man's body washed up on Brighton beach and a missing nursing sister.

Britain is awash in Cold War anxiety as Mirabelle Bevan heads for the Highlands on a holiday to visit Superintendent Alan McGregor's family. More glamorous than she expected, the Robertsons welcome her with open arms and an array of cocktails, but she has scarcely arrived when the body of an American fashion buyer turns up brutally murdered, plunging the local village into disarray and sending shockwaves around the close Highland community.