DI Herbert Reardon investigates the curious case of a man seemingly returned from the dead, in the latest 1930s-set historical mystery from Marjorie Eccles. February, 1933. When their eldest brother Paul walks into their hallway, fourteen years after he was presumed dead, successful property developers Thea and Teddy Millar are beset with questions. Where has he been? Why has he never written to let them know he was alive? And most of important of all: what happened to Paul, after the end of the Great War, to make him abandon everything and everyone he ever knew? When Paul's body is found floating in the canal two weeks later, Detective Inspector Herbert Reardon feels sure the murder is connected to his new life in London. For who would want to kill a man who's been thought dead for over a decade? But Reardon knows the past can cast long shadows, and as he investigates, he finds a knot of dark secrets and old grudges that someone is determined...

Renowned architect Clive Lethberidge was wealthy, powerful and successful, but when he''s brutally murdered, DI Gil Mayo can''t find anyone with a good word to say about the man. As the investigation begins, Mayo has no shortage of suspects.'

"When local antique jeweller Nigel Fontenoy’s body is found at his cousin’s building site, DCI Gil Mayo and DI Abigail Moon think they have a simple case on their hands. Both detectives suspect that this murder is a family matter and they needn’t search far down the family tree. After all, Fontenoy’s cousin, Jake Wilding, was heavily in debt to the dead man and his inability to offer even a vaguely plausible account of his whereabouts on the night of the murder casts Wilding in a dubious shadow. And things look even more bleak for Wilding when traces of Fontenoy’s blood are found on one of his trucks. But the puzzle becomes intricate when Wilding finally names his alibi—an ex-wife—and claims that Fontenoy has been pressuring him to secure something of great value to the jeweller from the woman. Is it a piece of jewellery, a document, or something even more precious? Abigail Moon soon finds that in this case of tangled family ties, as soon a one thing is gained, another is lost."From Publishers WeeklyFerocious weather combines with the past to make life interesting for some affluent residents of an English village in this melodramatic offering. When Jake Wilding won't account for his whereabouts during the dark and stormy night on which his cousin, jeweler Nigel Fontenoy, is killed, it appears that Superintendent Abigail Moon and Detective Chief Inspector Gil Mayo have a straightforward case on their hands. But this family tree is more gnarled-and active-than most. And then Wilding, a well-off contractor who seems to have been in the dead man's debt, produces his ironclad alibi. He was visiting his ex-wife, the free spirited Naomi, who has returned to town after years of carefree existence in Greece. The indifferent mother of children from several relationships, Naomi herself seems to have roiled the normally placid village-as has the storm, which has knocked down the village's oldest house and cleared a particularly valuable plot of land. Or was it Wilding who cleared it, using the storm as his cover? Naomi has something the dead man wanted when he was seen carrying a parcel to London the morning before his death. Meanwhile, there are enough half brothers, half sisters, paternity issues and confrontations to keep a not especially credible soap opera rolling for months, all leading up to an ending that stretches credibility beyond its breaking point. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus ReviewsBuilding-developer Jake Wilding; his cousin Nigel Fontenoy, an antique jewelry dealer; and Tom Callaghan, a TV talk-show host, have grown up together in the town of Lavenstock, home to CDI Gil Mayo (The Company She Kept, p. 1099, etc.), and now to newly promoted DI Abigail Moon. Abigail's first big case is the killing of Nigel Fontenoy, who is found after an awesome storm in a tatty alley next to the Rose bar. It doesn't take long to uncover a clutch of motives for Nigel's demise--among them his fondness for young girls, one of them Callaghan's 16-year-old daughter, who'd thrown herself under a bus years before. Jake Wilding's son Matthew, interested only in race cars, worked, reluctantly, in Nigel's elegant shop and has been left a substantial share of his estate. Meanwhile, Wilding's first wife Naomi had left him and Matthew long ago to live a wanton, gypsyish life. She's now back in Lavenstock with her motorcycle-riding, butch daughter Cassie and a twentysomething son Joss, who may or may not have been fathered by Jake. Toss into this cauldron a priceless Faberg‚ piece, separated from its provenance; another killing; and a slew of disturbing interrelationships. It all makes for lively entertainment, enhanced by the author's forthright style, some resonant characters, a subdued village ambiance, and a puzzle neatly deconstructed but with minimum help from Lavenstock's likable police team. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The year is 1919 and the population of Great Britain is still struggling to its feet after being hit by the atrocities of the First World War. Progress is slow, even in quiet spots like the village of Broughton Underhill, on the edge of the Black Country. Gradually, soldiers return, wounds begin to heal and people try to move on with their lives. But for the Wentworth family, this proves to be impossible as former police sergeant Herbert Reardon returns to the village, determined to finally find out what happened the night that his daughter, Marianne, was found drowned in the lake all those years ago, when the war was just beginning. However, as Reardon begins to investigate, it becomes clear that secrets still abound and lips are staying sealed. When Edith Huckaby, a maid from Oaklands Park, is found murdered in exactly the same spot, Reardon is convinced that the two cases are linked. As Reardon tries to discover the hidden truth, his suspects and witnesses are painstakingly trying to rebuild their lives, in a world which has been changed and scarred forever. "Broken Music" is a masterful portrait of the horrors of the frontline and the anxiety of the home front, as the loves and losses of wartime Britain are woven together and the truth slowly dawns on a local tragedy.**

A baby is kidnapped – and the repercussions reach the highest levels of government in this absorbing historical mystery. London, April, 1912. The third Irish Home Rule Bill is passing through Parliament and the situation is growing ever more tense. Closely involved in the negotiations, cabinet minister Edmund Latimer finds himself under growing pressure – which only intensifies when his seventh-month-old niece Lucy is snatched away in her pram in Regent's Park. Could there be a connection between Lucy's kidnapping and the Irish talks? With her husband under intolerable strain, Edmund's wife Alice makes it her business to find out. But the more she discovers, the more she realizes how little she really knows the man she married five years before.

Moving back to Yorkshire was the last thing DI Tom Richmonds thought he would do. His superiors are also perturbed by his decision to transfer. Surely after the murder of the young girl, Yorkshire is the last place he should want to be? Is this Richmond's attempt to make peace with the past, or does he have ideas about reopening a bungled investigation? Whatever Richmond's intentions, events soon overtake him. When a local biographer is found murdered, the investigation leads Richmond straight to the Denshaw family. It's been ten years since eight-year-old Beth was killed, snatched from the garden of the Denshaw family home. Her corpse was found four months after her disappearance in the local park. Even though her mother confessed to the killing, there are still those - Richmond among them - who believe that Beth's stepfather, vicar Peter Denshaw, was actually responsible for her death. As Richmond's investigation of the biographer's death has him rummaging once again through the Denshaw family's dirty laundry, he cannot help but begin to see clues to the older murder as well.

The Reverend Cecil Willard was not one of those born to be loved. A scholarly and austere man, former headmaster of the local boys' school, his stern moral principles and die-hard opinions never endeared him either to those close to him or to his neighbours in the village of Castle Wyvering where he lived and worked. Nevertheless, the discovery of his murdered body at the foot of the altar steps in the church shocked the whole community.Situated at the outskirts of the Lavenstock Division, tiny Castle Wyvering and its inhabitants are unfamiliar to DCI Gil Mayo and his support team. However, Mayo soon learns that there are plenty of people in Castle Wyvering who had cause to resent the old man, including his on long-suffering daughter—but who would want to kill him, and why? Does his death have anything to do with the power struggle for the headmaster's position at the school, or with the shooting of three badgers in a neighbour's garden? And who is the mysterious Sara...

February, 1927. The remains of an unidentified middle-aged man are found beneath the snow in the grounds of Maxtead Court, home of the wealthy Scroope family. Meanwhile, Margaret Rees-Talbot is preparing for her wedding to the Rev Symon Scroope - to the disapproval of some residents of the small market town of Folbury, who think it's too soon after the death of Margaret's father Osbert, found drowned in his bath a few months previously. An accident - or was there more to it than that? Before he died, Osbert had been writing an account of his experiences as a soldier during the Second Boer War. But what really happened in South Africa back in 1902? Could there be a connection to his death? **

A family with secrets---is murder one of them? Membery Place has been the home of the Calvert family for over one hundred years. Below it, set in a forest clearing, is a modern, award-winning house designed by architect Mark Calvert, one of Alyssa Calvert's three sons.Mark's wife, Francesca, has been conscious of an intriguing element of mystery surrounding Bianca Morgan ever since Chip, the eldest Calvert brother, brought her and her child to live with him at Membery. No one, except possibly Chip, knows anything about her previous life. Bianca remains an enigma---and then one day her body is found in a pool beneath a waterfall on the estate.The three brothers have always been very close, but the subsequent inquiry now reveals that they all had their own secret connection with Bianca. Could one of them have had reason to kill her? Perhaps Jonathan, to save his career as an international cello soloist; Mark, to save his marriage---or even...

Jack Lilburne has spent a long and distinguished career in the Prison Service, highly thought of as the just and humane Governor of Conyhall Young Offenders' Institution. But not everyone believes he deserves the honour and respect universally given to him. Someone believes he deserves to die a violent death.At least one of the young criminals who had been under his care has sworn vengeance for his imprisonment. But as Gil Mayo, in his new role as detective superintendent, discovers, there are others who cannot be ruled out..In what turns out to be a double murder investigation, he is confronted with elements of Lilburne's past and present—with members of a local protest group, for instance, and two women with a shared past and secrets best left hidden. And where does Marc fit in, the young man with a need to reconstruct his life and an obsessive love for Flora, Lilburne's beautiful daughter...?

When the half-dressed body of Angie Robinson is found strangled in the lay-by on a lonely moorland road, it seems that her murder is the result of a random attack, for Angie has led a blameless life, with no interests other than her untiring support for the local women's hospital.But there are too many apparently unrelated elements in the case for DCI Gil Mayo to be satisfied with that explanation. For one thing, an anonymous letter has been sent to the police with hints of a long-ago murder and ancient sacrificial rites. Then there is the old house, Flowerdew, which exerts a strange but compelling fascination. And what of Flowerdew's eccentric but endearing owner, Kitty Wilbraham, former archaeologist who had worked on the ruins of ancient Carthage? Kitty always had a group of young men and women drifting through the house; what roles could they have played, and where is Kitty now?It is not until another body is discovered that Mayo, with his new Sergeant, Abigail Moon,...

Introducing Detective Inspector Herbert Reardon in a new mystery series, set in the Downton Abbey period.November, 1928. Family and friends have gathered at the Shropshire country home of Penrose Llewellyn to celebrate the retired wealthy businessman's 60th birthday. But the morning after what should have been a convivial supper party, their host is found dead in his bed – and the circumstances look decidedly suspicious.As he questions the victim's nearest and dearest, DI Reardon discovers there are several longstanding secrets lurking amongst the Llewellyn clan – and he is convinced that not everyone is telling him the truth, or at least not the whole truth. Those who stand to inherit most from Pen Llewellyn's will – if it can be found – are under the strongest suspicion, and among them hides a ruthless killer.

Detective Sergeant Gil Mayo has a problem on his hands. Even Lavenstock isn't immune, these days, from the threat of drugs infiltrating into what was hitherto a town noted only for nice, ordinary crime. In the fight against drugs, his team seems to be getting nowhere. But when a member of a well-known and respected family is killed, inquiries take another direction.As Mayo and his assistant Abigail Moon plunge into the investigation of this murder and more of the unsavoury details of the victim's private life are revealed, it becomes not simply a question of who had a motive to kill him, but who didn't: any of his shady associates, his ex-business partner, the woman he's currently having an affair with, or the family of social drop-outs living in the condemned house by the river. Even his family doesn't escape scrutiny, for the victim's marriage had been on the rocks and his father-in-law hated him.But as Mayo and Abigail finally uncover the truth it becomes clear the...

A new novel in the popular DS Gil Mayo series. When the murdered body of a woman is found floating in flooded uplands near an isolated farm and nearby cottage, it poses problems of identification, prompting the press to dub her the 'Mystery Woman.' Who is she? As time goes by, Detective Superintendent Gil Mayo and his assistant Inspector Abigail Moon, begin to fear that question is destined to remain unanswered, until the bursar of a public school, currently involved in controversy over a proposed new entrance to the school, is murdered at his desk. Though the murders are seemingly unrelated, events begin to show that this is not so. As a temporarily unemployed ex-student, Cleo Atkins will do anything rather than take the safe secretarial position her mother has lined up for her, even to taking a job with Maid to Order, a firm of cleaning contractors, something her mother feels she is singularly unfitted for. The firm is much in demand following the trail of destruction left by the floods, and working with the team Cleo comes across evidence from a totally unexpected source, and ultimately finds herself involved in the investigation. With her cooperation, Mayo and Moon are able to follow a chain of events that eventually lead to the identity of the Mystery Woman being revealed, and to the unexpected solution of both murders.

A young woman investigates the murder of her mother in this absorbing historical mysteryLondon, May, 1911. The new king, George V, is preparing for his coronation. The suffragettes are campaigning for women to get the vote. The East End seethes with unrest. And 18-year-old Kitty Challoner is looking forward to 'coming out' in London society.But Kitty's secure, sheltered world is about to be torn apart. Lydia Challoner is shot dead while out riding in Hyde Park, and during the ensuing murder investigation Kitty discovers that there was so much she didn't know about her mother. Was Lydia really the killer's intended target? Is there a link to her Russian heritage? Why had she been behaving so strangely in recent weeks? Was she having an affair?As Kitty determines to uncover the truth and wonders exactly whom she can trust, she learns that the household in which she lives harbours a number of dangerous secrets.