The place is Ceylon, the time the 1930s. Set amid tea plantations, corruption and the backwash of empire, this is a world teetering on the edge of chaos. Sam Obeysekere is a Ceylonese lawyer, a perfect product of empire. His family, which once had wealth and influence, starts to crack open as political change comes to the island, and Sam's...

Alongside the names of James Hadley Chase and Erle Stanley Gardner we must now add that of John Hartley Williams - though Mystery in Spiderville is no run-of-the-mill hard-boiled thriller. The décor is by Dali, the plot is a mixture of Breton and Burroughs, and the main character - the protean and unkillable Spider Rembrandt - has six toes, sleeps...

Young Thomas Culhane grows up in the small Californian town of Eureka. But, although he is adopted by one of the town's wealthy families, he knows he must escape Eureka to make his own way in the world. Then World War I intervenes and Culhane ships to Europe to join the American forces in Europe, where he proves himself a...

Alexander Short is a stylish young reference librarian. With his job in jeopardy and his marriage coming apart, Alexander meets the improbably named Henry James Jesson III, a book-lover who hires the librarian for some after-hours research. His task: to complete a cabinet of curiosities chronicling the life of a mysterious eighteenth-century inventor. As the investigation heats up, Alexander realizes...

The fifth book in the epic Masters of Rome series. Gaul. 54 BC. Julius Caesar sweeps across Gaul, brutally subduing the united tribes who defy the Republic. But, at home, his enemies are orchestrating his downfall and disgrace. Vindictive schemers like Cato and Bibulus, the spineless Cicero, the avaricious Brutus. Even Pompey the Great, Caesar's former ally. But all have...

A complex thriller of ancient and modern betrayal from the author of The English Assassin. ...

The second book in the epic Masters of Rome series. Rome. 97 BC. Gaius Marius is one of the greatest generals Rome has ever known. under him, Rome has conquered the Western world, withstood invasion and crushed its enemies. But when the ageing Marius grows weak, the stability of the mighty Republic looks uncertain. Ambitious, tormented Lucius Cornelius Sulla, once...

Stephanie Plum's fast becoming the most unpopular woman in New Jersey. Even her own mother can't love her for taking on the job of tracking down Uncle Mo, everybody's favourite candy store owner. Cursed with a disastrous new hair colour and an increasing sense that it's time to get a new job, the world's favourite bounty hunter sets off on...

While a young medical student at Edinburgh, Arthur Conan Doyle famously studied under the remarkable Dr Joseph Bell. Taking this as a starting point, David Pirie has woven a compelling thriller, which partners Bell and Doyle as pioneers in criminal investigation, exploring the strange underworld of violence and sexual hypocrisy running below the surface of the Victorian era. The Patient's...

In 1984, Jolene Iolas, a student in upstate New York, encounters Martin Sloane's work while visiting a Toronto gallery. She strikes up a correspondence with the older artist, and eventually they become lovers. And then, without warning, without a word, he vanishes. There is no hint of his fate, no chain of cause and effect to be followed. Over the...

Right on the edge of- love and death-When a psychopathic drug dealer forces Val to witness a cop's murder Val knows he is in deep trouble. The cop was his best friend and, like Val, one of the good guys. So Val, survival instincts on full alert, heads for California and a new identity. But when he meets Kyle, the...

It is the autumn of 330 BC, and three law cases are exciting Athens. Ergokles' case against the wealthy Orthoboulos for malicious wounding seems to come out well for the dignified man, but shortly afterwards he is found dead of poison, evidently hemlock. His second wife is accused of the crime, and her trial for poisoning sets Athens at odds,...

From 1938 to 1969 crime novelist and detective Paul Temple, together with his Fleet Street journalist wife Steve, solved case after case in one of BBC radio's most popular serials. They inhabited a sophisticated, well-dressed world of chilled cocktails and fast cars, where the women were chic and the men wore cravats - a world where Sir Graham Forbes of...

Bob Lee Swagger, one of the deadliest snipers the US has ever produced, has put most of the demons of his past behind him, but not the forty-year-old killing of his father in a sensational shoot out. He returns to his roots, to find out exactly what happened that night in 1955 in Blue Eye, Arkansas. Against him is a...

'Happy fifty-third birthday, Doctor. Welcome to the first day of your death. You ruined my life. And now I fully intend to ruin yours. 'You have exactly one fortnight, starting tomorrow morning at 6 a.m., to discover who I am. When you succeed you must purchase one of those tiny ads at the bottom of the New York Times front...