Whodunnit

//Whodunnit
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  • An Inspector Morse mystery. It was Chief Superintendent Strang's opinion that too little progress had been made by the Thames Valley Police since the discovery of a corpse in a North Oxford flat.  The victim had been killed with a single stab wound to the stomach.  Yet the police had no weapon, no suspect and no motive. But within days of taking over the investigation, Inspector Morse and Detective Sergeant Lewis uncover startling new information about the life and death of Dr. Felix McClure, late of Wolsey College, Oxford. The trail leads directly to a staircase in Wolsey College and in particular to a former 'scout' there, one Edward Brooks - who himself disappears following the theft of a knife from the Pitt River Museum.  The another body is discovered and Morse finds himself with too many suspects, including Brooks's long-suffering wife, his attractive step-daughter and an enigmatic school mistress. But each seems to have an unimpeachable and unbreakable alibi. There seems to be no solution - until Morse receives a letter containing a declaration of love...

  • Inspector Morse 5.  Anne Scott's address was scribbled on a crumpled note in the pocket of Morse's smartest suit. He turned the corner of Canal Street, Jericho, on the afternoon of Wednesday, 3rd October. He hadn't planned a second visit. But he was back later the same day - as the officer in charge of a suicide investigation...
  • When tiny scraps of macabre 'art' turn up next to gruesomely displayed corpses, Detective Carson Ryder and his partner Harry Nautilus trace them to the work of Marsden Hexcamp. But Hexcamp was killed thirty years ago.  His art is sought after by some very strange collectors - it was created by torturing people to death and distilling their agony on to canvas.  An auction has been announced and the connoisseurs of serial killer memorabilia are gathering to pay millions for Hexcamp's art - unless Carson and Harry can beat them in their quest for the anti-Grail. But the truth of Hexamp's career may be even more twisted and bizarre than it first appears. Please note:  This title, like many others, is now being shifted to Audio/CD only.
  • Sex, mystery and religion combine in this powerful novel. Set in outer London of the mid-1960's, at the beginning of the sexual revolution,  a police officer investigates the murder of his own mistress, and two clergymen find that his attitudes threaten their beliefs. Hoping that he will face the consequences of his casual involvement, they collude in a revenge action that leads to a surprising and terrifying end. An examination of the response to 20th century urban life.

  • Travis McGee is a big tough beach-walker, a knight-errant and salvage expert, prepared to risk life and limb to  recover stolen goods - provided he gets half. He can't resist the challenge of helping Cathy Kerr, a desolate young dancer defrauded of the treasure her father had amassed during the war. They don't know what the treasure is but they knew who stole it - Junior Allen, a smiling man who had met Cathy's father in prison.  He took up with Cathy long enough to destroy her soul and find the hiding place. It's easy to find Allen's trail - by the money he flaunts the women he's depraved.

  • Reverend Tuckworth 2. In an attempt to procure funding for the rebuilding of his beloved cathedral, Dean Tuckworth finds himself traveling to London with his obnoxious colleague, the self-serving Reverend Mortimer. If that is not troublesome enough, when a disfigured corpse is discovered at a dinner party hosted by mysterious philanthropist Hamlin Price, Tuckworth is thrown into the role of detective once again. The Bow Street inspector in charge of the investigation wants to pin the crime on Price's vanished secretary, but Tuckwell  is not convinced. With the help of maverick poet and writer Leigh Hunt, Tuckworth sets out to discover the identity of the dead man and in the process stumbles on a secret so horrifying it threatens to destroy all that he stands for. The Devil runs free in Bellminster, and only Tuckworth can stop him...

  • When five women are brutally raped and murdered in Sierra Leone, Reuters correspondent Connie Burns questions the arrest of three rebel soldiers for the crimes. No-one listens - in a vicious civil wear where hundreds of thousands are killed, the rape and murder of women is of no consequence. And who cares if child soldiers are beaten into confessing? With nothing to go one except her witnessing a savage attack on a prostitute, Connie believes a foreigner is responsible - a man who claims to have been in the SAS and who works as a bodyguard for a Lebanese diamond trader. She remembers him when he was a mercenary of Kabila's Kinshasa regime, and she suspects he uses the chaos of war to act out sadistic fantasies against women. Two years later in Iraq, the consequences of her second attempt to expose him are devastating. Terrified, degraded and destroyed, she goes into hiding in England where she strikes up a friendship  with Jess, a reclusive loner. Borrowing Jess's strength. Connie makes the decision to attempt a third unmasking of a serial killer, knowing he will come after her...

  • Book VIII of The Cadfael Chronicles. In the autumn of 1140 the Benedictine monastery at Shrewsbury finds its new novice, Meriet Aspley, a little...disturbing. The younger son of a prominent family, Meriet is meek and biddable by day, but his sleep is rife with nightmares so violent that they earn him the name of "Devil's Novice". Shunned by the other monks, Aspley attracts the concern of Brother Cadfael. Then the body   of a young priest, last seen at the Aspley estate, is found. Can Meriet be involved in the death?  Cover shows Sir Derek Jacobi as Cadfael in the series of the same name. 
  • When the strangely scarred body of a tramp is discovered in a secluded Amsterdam park, Detective Van Hijn believes this is another victim of a serial killer currently terrorising the city.  Discovered on the corpse are contact details for Jon Reed, who can identify the victim as Jake Colby, a stranger he took off the streets and into his London home for a few weeks.  Yet it seems that Jon didn't choose Jake - Jake chose Jon.  Was Jake really a tramp? And what led him to a life on the streets?  What is the connection between the murders and the appearance of alleged Holocaust footage on an illegal internet auction site?
  • Set in the snowy location of Wideview Chalet, Detective Inspector Bonaparte, half-caste aboriginal and  'Boney' to his friends, find an uncanny set of tracks in the snow that may reveal the killer.  The victim is a German who left his country before its wartime collapse and is living under an assumed name at the chalet.  All manner of things become clear to Boney - the strange tracks, a conversation about deep sea fishing and clothing given to a charity.
  • Originally published in 1895, an unusual murder mystery set in Brisbane at the time of the disastrous 1893 floods, backed by the land scandals that rocked the local political structure during a period of violent change for Queensland.   The story opens with the strange death of prominent citizen the Hon. Constant M'Watt. George Jackson is accused of the murder and circumstantial evidence is so strong against him his conviction is a foregone conclusion...but do they have the right man?
  • To Aphra Coleman, exquisite actress, the invitation to perform at the magnificent Abbotswood estate seemed heaven-sent. And the man of the manor, David Hillyard, wanted her, wed her and enthroned her in Abbotswood...only to turn her bliss into trembling terror. The beauty of Abbotswood could not mask David's suddenly sinister behavior...the whispered warnings of the lusty, red-haired blacksmith...the gaslight games her husband played to torment her...and the growing awareness that she was the quarry of David's obsession with a bird of prey - the eagle at the gate...
  • Scobie Malone No. XIX. Scobie Malone is leaving the Homicide and Serial Offenders Unit of the Sydney police, and his last investigation could be his most bizarre. When a housemaid is found dead in a dotcom millionaire's penthouse, Scobie suspects a kidnap that's gone wrong. But never in his wildest dreams could he imagine just how wrong. the kidnappers' plan to grab a millionaire's girlfriend has instead netted them a millionaire. Worse, the dotcom bubble has burst, leaving the millionaire in debt to the YaKuza and high on their hit list. The trial leads Scobie to renew the acquaintance of some old adversaries...
  • Who is Billy Blake - an alcoholic vagrant who quoted poetry and preached redemption - and why did he die? Mike Deacon, cynical and discredited journo, wants to know how Blake could have starved to death in one of the wealthiest districts in London.  Deacon is also intrigued by the beautiful Amanda Powell, who found Blake and who avoided the Press at the time. Yet she's obsessed with Blake's life now. Deacon investigates to see if there's a connection to her merchant banker husband who absconded abroad with ten million pounds five years ago, and who has not been seen since...
  • Who is Billy Blake - an alcoholic vagrant who quoted poetry and preached redemption - and why did he die? Mike Deacon, cynical and discredited journo, wants to know how Blake could have starved to death in one of the wealthiest districts in London.  Deacon is also intrigued by the beautiful Amanda Powell, who found Blake and who avoided the Press at the time. Yet she's obsessed with Blake's life now. Deacon investigates to see if there's a connection to her merchant banker husband who absconded abroad with ten million pounds five years ago, and who has not been seen since...
  • A quadriplegic since a beam crushed his spinal cord years ago, Lincoln Rhyme is desperate to improve his condition and goes to the University of North Carolina Medical Center for high-risk experimental surgery. But he and Sachs have hardly settled in when the local authorities come calling. In a twenty-four-hour period, the sleepy Southern outpost of Tanner's Corner has seen a local teen murdered and two young women abducted. And Rhyme and Sachs are the best chance to find the girls alive. The prime suspect is a strange teenage truant known as the Insect Boy, so nicknamed for his disturbing obsession with bugs. Rhyme agrees to find the boy while awaiting his operation. Rhyme's analytical skills and stellar forensic experience, combined with Sachs's exceptional detective legwork, soon snare the perp. But even Rhyme can't anticipate that Sachs will disagree with his crime analysis and that her vehemence will put her in the swampland, harboring the very suspect whom Rhyme considers a ruthless killer. So ensues Rhyme's greatest challenge - facing the criminalist whom he has taught everything he knows in a battle of wits, forensics, and intuition...facing his his best friend and soul mate.
  • In a sleepy resort town where the lake divides the rich from the just-folks and secrets are almost impossible to keep, Maud Chadwick waits tables at the Rainbow Cafe. Her confidant is Sheriff Sam DeGheyn and what they have in common is obsession. Maud cannot bear watching her twenty year old son take his final steps out of her life and into his own; and Sam cannot let go of the unsolved murders of three local women - or his intuition that the killer is still out there...
  • Goodman-Bradley II. Rayford Goodman (still-tough-at-fifty-something macho detective) and Mark Bradley (thirty-something, gay, hip writer) are as opposite as cat and mouse. But when it comes to murder, no other pair can match wits with this Hollywood odd couple. It all begins when Goodman gets invited - by the business end of a .38 - to 'return a favour' for a mob boss: to guard three-time Oscar winning director Claudio Fortunata, recuperating from cosmetic surgery in an elegant Beverly Hills hotel. Ironically, Bradley's next assignment is to write the great Fortunata's steamy biography. Instead of finding a 'nip and tuck' superstar, Goodman and Bradley find a bullet-ridden corpse whose face was used for target practice. But is the dead man Fortunata? From the back lots of Hollywood to the back rooms of dirty deals, Goodman and Bradley of a twisted killer who is giving a whole new meaning to 'makeovers...'