Up from the Ashes

Bolderdale lay to the southern end of the Yorkshire Dales.

A relatively new town having been in existence since the nineteen fifties, it was about to have it?s relatively peaceful atmosphere and tranquillity shattered by the discovery of the brutally murdered body of a local middle class businessman.

What at first appeared to Inspector John Cline as a possible simple one off crime was soon to develop into a complicated web of intrigue involving blackmail, retribution,

revenge and kidnapping.

With very limited resources at his disposal, and the long standing mutual loathing and resentment between Cline and Superintendent Knowels not helping the situation, a great deal of luck, as well as all his experience would be required before all could rest peacefully again.

With the body count increasing, it soon became obvious that this was no one off murder,

but what was the link that tied them together?

With evidence in short supply at the start of the investigation, it soon became a matter of urgency to find the killer, as the number of bodies rose.

After moving from Los Angeles to Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, homicide detective Claire Morgan has at last adjusted to the peaceful rhythms of rural life. Until a grisly celebrity murder at an ultra-exclusive "wellness" resort shatters a quiet summer morning. . .

With Every Twist Of The Mind. . .

One of Dr. Nicholas Black's high-profile clients, a beautiful young soap opera star, has been found dead, taped to a chair at a fully set table. . .submerged in the lake. Back in L.A., Claire investigated the rich, famous, and the deadly--but she never expected the problems of the privileged to follow her to this sleepy small town. Just as she never imagined crossing the line with her prime suspect. . .

With Every Beat Of The Heart. . .

Immersed in the case, Claire finds herself drawn to the charismatic doctor, spending more and more time in his company--and in his bed. Now, to catch a killer, Claire will have to enter the darkest recesses of the human mind. But is Black leading her there to help her. . .or luring her ever deeper into a madman's grip?

Head To Head

When the nanny to the young Darrow boys is found mysteriously murdered on the outskirts of the village of Blackfield, Charlotte Markham, the recently hired governess, steps in to take over their care. During an outing in the forest, they find themselves crossing over into The Ending, "the place for the Things Above Death," where Lily Darrow, the late mother of the children, has been waiting. She invites them into the House of Darkling, a wondrous place filled with enchantment, mystery, and strange creatures that appear to be, but are not quite, human.

However, everything comes with a price, and as Charlotte begins to understand the unspeakable bargain Mrs. Darrow has made for a second chance at motherhood, she uncovers a connection to the sinister occurrences in Blackfield and enters into a deadly game with the master of Darkling—one whose outcome will determine the fate of not just the Darrows but the world itself.

Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling is a Victorian Gothic tale about family ties, the realm beyond the living, and the price you pay to save those you love.

Scottish Barrister Rex Graves and his fiancée Helen have traveled to Aston-on-Trent in Derbyshire, England to attend the wedding ceremony of one of Helen’s former students. The dreary gray skies and bickering families underscore Rex’s private reservations about the unlikely couple’s long-term prospects. But when people connected to the ill-fated wedding start falling faster than the gloomy May rain, Rex must determine who among the sniping wedding guests is the killer in this traditional locked-room mystery. Murder of the Bride is book 5 in the Rex Graves Mystery series.

Praise:
“A winner . . . A must for cozy fans.”—BOOKLIST, starred review

“A welcome diversion from today’s style of writing . . . The writing is crisp and the story fast-paced.”—BELLAONLINE

“Skillfully choreographed.”—WASHINGTON POST

“Contemporary in setting but classic in style and voice, it’ll have you guessing to the very end. Four stars.”—RT BOOK REVIEWS

In New York's Long Island, in the unpredictable decade of the 1960s, a young boy laments the approaching close of summer and the advent of sixth grade. Growing up in a household with an overworked father whom he rarely sees, an alcoholic mother who paints wonderful canvases that are never displayed, an older brother who serves as both tormentor and protector, and a younger sister who inhabits her own secret world, the boy takes his amusements where he can find them. Some of his free time is spent in the basement of the family's modest home, where he and his brother, Jim, have created Botch Town, a detailed cardboard replica of their community, complete with clay figurines representing friends and neighbors. And so the time passes with a not-always-reassuring sameness—until the night a prowler is reported stalking the neighborhood.

Appointing themselves ad hoc investigators, the brothers set out to aid the police—while their little sister, Mary, smokes cigarettes, speaks in other voices, inhabits alternate personas . . . and, unbeknownst to her older siblings, moves around the inanimate residents of Botch Town. But ensuing events add a shadowy cast to the boys' night games: disappearances, deaths, and spectral sightings capped off by the arrival of a sinister man in a long white car trawling the neighborhood after dark. Strangest of all is the inescapable fact that every one of these troubling occurrences seems to correspond directly to the changes little Mary has made to the miniature town in the basement.

Not since Ray Bradbury's classic Dandelion Wine has a novel so richly evoked the dark magic of small-town boyhood. At once a hypnotically compelling mystery, a masterful re-creation of a unique time and place, a celebration of youth, and a poignant and disquieting portrait of home and family—all balancing on a razor's edge separating reality from the unsettlingly remarkable—The Shadow Year is a monumental new work from one of contemporary fiction's most fearless and inventive artists.