Collins crime

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.

Marshal Guarnaccia feels out of his league when he is assigned to help track down a serial killer, especially when he assigned to work under Simonetti, a man so dedicated to achieving a conviction that he is blinded to the consequences.

The discovery of the mutilated body of a detective who was doing undercover work on the sale of illegal pharmaceuticals is only the first element in a bizarre investigation facing Commander John Coffin. Soon, other bodies begin to appear.

An archeologist on a dig in 1920s Palestine discovers a letter purporting to come from a woman who was an apostle of Christ. A sensational document. When on her return to England the archeologist is murdered, sleuth Mary Russell decides to find out why.

A Monstrous Regiment of Women (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #2) by Laurie R. King Martina Petranović (Translator) A Monstrous Regiment of Women continues Mary Russell's adventures as a worthy student of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes and as an ever more skilled sleuth in her own right. Looking for respite in London after a stupefying visit from relatives, Mary encounters a friend from Oxford. The young woman introduces Mary to her current enthusiasm, a strange and enigmatic woman named Margery Childe, who leads something called "The New Temple of God." It seems to be a charismatic sect involved in the post-World War I suffrage movement, with a feminist slant on Christianity. Mary is curious about the woman, and intrigued. Is the New Temple a front for something more sinister? When a series of murders claims members of the movement's wealthy young female volunteers and principal contributors, Mary, with Holmes in the background, begins to investigate. Things become more desperate than either of them expected as Mary's search plunges her into the worst danger she has yet faced.

Bettina Bilby lives an uneventful, middle-aged life at home with her crotchety mother and the crew of cats she takes care of--until one of the cats finds a downed carrier pigeon with a carrier tube full of diamonds.

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.

When Fletch learns there are four ex-cons on the loose in his part of the county, little does he suspect that one of the scruffy and very dangerous men will claim to be the son he never knew--in fact, was never even told about. But when a muddy and bedraggled young man acosts him in his study, it doesn't take our wily reporter and investigator long to surmise this kid might well be his son. And when Fletch meets the kid's compatriots he wonders how either of them is going to get out of this situation unscathed.From the Trade Paperback edition.

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.