The Salvation Army has come prancing and singing from the slums of London to the poorest quarters of Oxford, but along with its red-hot gospel preaching and music hall songs it brings a prohibition message which sparks immediate opposition and violence. An Army soldier – an ex-drunk – is brutally killed and a note suggests […]
The Moers Murders by Graham Brack
1688, The Netherlands, and Master Mercurius has just settled back into his life as a lecturer at the University of Leiden when he is once again summoned by the Stadhouder, William of Orange. A message from William is never good news, but he is not a man you can say no to. So Mercurius finds […]
Love’s Knife by Tracey Warr
Beatriz de Farrera is a trobairitz (a female troubadour) at the court of Toulouse in 1096. She sings of love but intends to evade marriage and romantic entanglements. Her patron, Philippa, is the heiress of the rich city and county of Toulouse. Philippa’s uncle Raimon plans to marry his niece to the ageing king of […]
A Grave for a Thief by Douglas Skelton
It’s 1716. Christopher Templeton is a lawyer whose conscience troubles him. He knows many of the secrets of The Fellowship, the shadowy group profiting from the civil unrest in the nation, and has intimated to the Company of Rogues that he is willing to share them. The problem is, he has vanished. Jonas Flynt – […]
The Moot at Monzie: international friendship in the shadow of the Second World War
To mark this week’s 85th anniversary of the 1939 International Rover Scout Moot at Monzie, Rob McInroy, whose latest novel is set against this huge gathering, looks back on a celebration of worldwide friendship just weeks before the Second World War broke out — causing many of these young men to end up fighting on […]
The Night in Venice by AJ Martin
Venice, 1911. Monica is a 14-year-old with a wild imagination and an unbearably dull governess named Rose Driscoll. She was supposed to be entering the most exciting time of her life but, with her parents and uncle now dead, she has been forced to leave leafy Hampstead and move to a flat on the busy […]
The Book of Secrets by Anna Mazzola
It’s Rome in 1659, and Girolama Spana lives west of the river Tiber in a house marked by a lily and a garden full of herbs. Many women in Rome seek her help — although they would never admit it — eager for her mysterious balms, her love potions, and her ability to predict their […]
A Divine Fury by DV Bishop
Florence. Autumn, 1539. Where Cesare Aldo was once an officer for the city’s most feared criminal court. Following a period of exile, he is back – but demoted to night patrol, when only the drunk and the dangerous roam the streets. Chasing a suspect in the rain, Aldo discovers a horrifying scene beneath Michelangelo’s statue […]