Robert Barnard

Vernon Watts may have been beloved by the millions of faithful viewers of the long-running soap opera Jubilee Terrace but his fellow cast members knew him for what he was -- an egotistical former music-hall performer whose untimely death in a pedestrian accident was not something to be universally regretted. Sadly, though, director Reggie Friedman soon fills the supposed void by asking Hamish Fawley, an equally unpleasant former member of the Jubilee Terrace troupe, to rejoin the soap. Hamish was never much liked. Now he's more obnoxious than ever. The mood on the set is not exactly serene, a situation made worse when the police receive an anonymous letter suggesting that Vernon Watts's "accident" may in fact have been murder. Did one of his fellow actors push Vernon into the oncoming traffic? Detective Inspector Charlie Peace faces tough challenges as he probes the make-believe world of skilled thespians to find a possible killer. With a cast of suspects who are trained to emote on cue, Charlie will need all of his policeman's instincts if he's to avert further tragedy. Writing with his usual acerbic wit and penetrating insight into human foibles, acclaimed master of mystery Robert Barnard gives us another winning entry in his magnificent body of work.

A mysterious envelope arrives on Eve McNabb's doorstep soon after she has buried her mother, a woman who kept many secrets. The puzzling letter inside this envelope hints at an illicit passion between the letter writer and Eve's mother, May McNabb. Even when she was a child, Eve sensed that there were parts of May's life she would never understand. She would never know the details of her parents' marriage or why her father suddenly disappeared from her life. While Eve has always believed that her father was dead, she begins to wonder whether her mother's life as a widow had been a ruse. Will she have to question everything her mother has told her? Could her father be alive and well? The letter writer may have some answers, but how can Eve find him or her? With only a blurred postmark for a clue, Eve sets out to locate the writer and journey into her own past. What she never suspected was that questions can be dangerous, perhaps even deadly... Filled with piercing wit and illuminating insight into the human condition, Robert Barnard's Last Post proves yet again that he is one of the great masters of mystery.

Merlyn Cantelo returns to Leeds to claim the house of a late aunt, an aunt who adopted him after a tormented early childhood. As a clairvoyant, she had predicted violence in his future life and had suggested he live overseas with her distant family in Italy. Now he's back and is about to find out the real truth of his aunt's precognition.

Bettina Whitelaw is a grand dame of the English literary scene. Approaching eighty, with a beautiful flat in Holland Park and a comfortable income, her life is not dissimilar to that of her wealthy, elegant neighbours. But her background most certainly is. Brought up in Bundaroo, a small town in the Australian outback, Bettina's childhood was dominated by the relentlessly blazing sun, by the long daily walk to school, and by the simmering animosities of smalltown life. The family house was a simple shack and her parents constantly struggled to make ends meet. Aged sixteen, Bettina managed to escape from Bundaroo and to begin her literary career in Europe. But now, more than sixty years later, her past is coming back to haunt her. As she embarks upon the painful process of writing her memoirs, images from her childhood begin to re-surface. And when her former housekeeper is the victim of a violent attack, Bettina begins to realise that she herself is in serious danger - a danger that has its roots in a small, dusty outback town... A true page-turner, A Cry From the Dark is a tour-de-force by one of Britain's finest crime writers.

Actress Caroline Fawley is enjoying life in her new role as 'the mistress of Alderley'. Her TV work made her popular and wealthy and she laps up the attention she receives from her new neighbours in the Yorkshire village, Alderley. And the romantic weekend visits from her boyfriend, supermarket heir Marius Fleetwood, provide the locals with something to gossip about. But Caroline's idyllic life is shattered when a young man looking remarkably like Marius unexpectedly turns up on her doorstep. Within a few weeks Marius has gone missing and it isn't much longer before a body turns up...

The discovery of a child's skeleton that is at least thirty years old in the attic of the old stone house he has just purchased leads Matt Harper on a journey into the past to solve the mystery.

> The inimitable amateur sleuth Professor John Stubbs is a blustering old botanist from Scotland whose only vice, besides being a bit gruff with incompetent inspectors, is a tendency to drink a trifle too many pints of English bitter. The old bachelor's confessed love for a good "pub crawl" is almost as well known as his incredible, though unorthodox, methods of detection. >In this, one of Stubbs's first adventures, cyanide kills an infamous fraud, Dr. Ian Porter, at a formal congress of geneticists. Any one of a dozen vindictive former assistants or humiliated colleagues could have committed the gruesome deed. Of course, the village police are completely befuddled, and even the professor, who never makes a secret of his likes and dislikes, becomes a prime suspect. Eager to solve the crime before an innocent scientist hangs, Professor Stubbs launches his own unofficial investigation. >His deductive powers meet a formidable challenge in the diverse collection of colorful suspects. The brash American, Dr. Swartz; the victim's snivelling colleague, Professor Silver; and the lovely young genetics student, Miss Mary Lewis, are just three possibilities - not to mention the professor's own nephew, a reporter covering the genetics congress. A brisk pace and witty dialogue make this an exciting and amusing page-turner right up to the dramatic finale when the professor cleverly traps the murderer with a dangerous but ingenious ploy.

Those two days in May seem to be a highpoint in Colin Pinnock's life: a stunning election victory, a new govenment, and junior office for himself. But among the many congratulations he receives is one hostile message, a grubby card asking: 'Who do you think you are?' Is this merely someone putting him back in his place, or do the words have a more profound meaning? Who, indeed, is he? And who were his real parents? As Colin investigates these questions he is led back in time to an old political scandal: a murder case which led to a politician's downfall and disappearance. Events in the present, however, start tangling with those of the past, and he finds himself the object of a series of incidents that at first seem designed to bring down his career with ridicule, but later actually threaten his life. A beautifully written, intriguing mystery in which past crimes come back to haunt today's innocents.

Sarah Jane Fearing, the sole offspring of a father who desperately wants a male heir, has grown up in the imposing mansion of one of England's most influential banking families. At the centre of Sarah's world stands her uncle Frank, the only relative who seems to have escaped the straitjacket of ponderous respectability. Frank's rebellions afford Sarah delight and hope, until his extravagant lifestyle leads him deeper into dept and into a disastrous marriage. Frank's wedding to a coldly ambitious woman produces the family's longed-for Male scion, but the parents fall to quarrels and then to murder.

History meets mystery in a novel about one pupil of Mozart's we have never heard of, the young Princess Victoria, whom the composer soon discovers has quite a talent for the keyboard and a knack for being a murder victim.

A young girl is brought up in seclusion by her elderly parents who are obsessed with isolating her from the sinfulness of life in the wicked world. When, to secure her future, they marry her off to an elderly widower, they set in motion events more terrible than the most hateful of parents could have foreseen. A woman with an enticing sexual secret marries an elderly gentleman - and then another and another. It is all too easy, it seems, to get into the habit of widowhood. A young soldier, home from World War I, is determined to live and love not just for himself, but for all his fallen comrades. But in doing so he enrages a number of husbands. A man going through a midlife crisis meets the bully who made his life hell at school. Some things never change, he discovers, including the taste for inflicting pain. And Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, marooned in the drafty gloom of Queen Victoria's Balmoral Castle, decides that adultery and gambling can be almost as troubling as how to spell words of more than one syllable.

It's bound to be a problem when a vicar's wife loses her faith. In a Robert Barnard novel it can be a source of amusement, dismay, contemplation, and even murder. The hideous neo-Gothic parish church of St. Saviour's may or may not be typical of the Church of England, but clergy wife Rosemary Sheffield definitely does not fit the usual mold. While walking in the park one day, she loses her faith. It just lifts away from her, leaving her feeling free and liberated. Should a woman who loses her faith continue to take an active role in church activities? Rosemary's not about to abdicate her position of power in the Mothers' Union to gossipy Florrie Harridance, not even when Florrie spreads rumors about Rosemary's supposed holiday fling, when she may have been too friendly with a young waiter named Stanko. Rosemary quickly squelches the gossip, but nasty rumors threaten to return when Stanko, a mysterious refugee from the former Yugoslavia, turns up one day at the vicarage, begging for Rosemary's help. In assisting Stanko, Rosemary opens herself and her family to all sorts of unwelcome attentions from inquisitive parishioners. Even her long-suffering husband, Paul, must wonder who Stanko is and what is the nature of Rosemary's involvement with him.

The children of Ellen Heenan strive to hide their father's insanity, after his wife died in childbirth. At first his madness is interpreted as insatiable grief, but then people start to pry and the children realize they are playing a dangerous game.