Allison & Busby

Merrin McKenzie's return to her hometown of St Ives has been a fresh start all round. Putting aside her legal career, she's determined to give her all to the new artists' cooperative shop on vibrant Fore Street. There's also the tantalising prospect of something more than friendship with Chief Inspector Louis Peppiatt. When the glamorous and wealthy Roxy sails into St Ives, Merrin hopes she can cultivate a valuable customer for the shop. Roxy certainly makes an impression on everyone she meets, but her stories don't always add up and she leaves, in her wake, a mounting accumulation of death and destruction. As rumours stir, it becomes clear that Roxy harbours secrets in contrast to her glittering façade. Behind it Merrin will find a tangle of secrets including family tensions, hidden loyalties, and dangers that reach far beyond the dramatic Cornish coastline.

'The writing is delicate and potent . appeals to both the heart and the intellect' The Independent'Dreamlike . a glimpse into the petri dish of 1930s Hollywood . an immersive portrayal' The TimesKatharine Hepburn was a legend. This is the novel of how she became one. After the devastating loss of her beloved brother, young Katharine Hepburn determines that she will be famous and never let anyone hurt her again. Leaving behind her East Coast marriage and patrician family, she arrives in1930s Hollywood determined to live on her own terms. But the studio system has rules, and Kate - brilliant, bisexual and fiercely independent - refuses to follow them. Moving through a glittering world of power and ambition alongside figures like David and Irene Selznick, Cary Grant, John Ford and Howard Hughes, she forges her own path. Kate faces an impossible choice: become the star Hollywood demands, or risk everything to be the woman she always was. Blending meticulous research with incandescent imagination, Priya Parmar delivers an emotionally charged portrait of an icon who refused to be anything but original. 'Anyone interested in Hepburn's early career will have a hard time resisting this stylish, insightful deconstruction of her carefully crafted public persona' New York Times

One city, one day, and a battle of wills reaches boiling pointJoseph Severin, a respectable North London businessman, has a lucrative side job. He's doing the books, old school (because these days the only trail you can't trace is a paper one) for a rogue MI5 outfit, the Shadows, headed by psychopathic Sebastien. However, when the game is rumbled, Sebastien sends hitman Mr Phipps to kill Severin and get those books back. The spider web of collateral damage will be extensive, taking in Lottie, for whom Severin has developed a sudden, wild passion; Sonya, a Russian escort with a desperate deadline; and at MI5, the ambitious Ellerby, who has them all in her sights. It's the hottest summer in fifty years and in the shadows, a deadly domino effect is about to spill out into the harsh light of day. An earlier version of this book was published as One London Day by C.C. Humphreys, now expanded and revised 2026.

January 1901. Abigail and Daniel Wilson, the celebrated 'Museum Detectives', journey to the Great Pyramid of Giza in search of ancient secrets. But their adventure takes a darker turn when, deep within the Robbers' Tunnel, they uncover a brutally murdered man - Simeon McGruder, an American writer who was investigating the mysteries of the Sphinx. Back in Cairo, the American Embassy draws them into the case, thrusting them into a web of intrigue. Caught between British and American powers, a fragile Egyptian government, and a circle of deceitful acquaintances, the Wilsons must navigate shifting loyalties and hidden motives, where every answer only deepens the mystery.

1949. The Cold War is tightening its grip, spies lurk in every shadow, and the race for the atomic bomb is reaching a deadly pitch. When GCHQ operative Beattie Cavendish is sent to a pivotal listening station in a remote corner of the Scottish Highlands, she finds a base in chaos - its commander missing, its mission compromised, and whispers of a German spy ring closing in. But Beattie's task takes a darker and more personal turn when her uncle vanishes nearby, leaving behind a chilling note: I know who you really are. With private detective Patrick Corrigan at her side, Beattie must uncover the truth before snow and secrecy seal them in. For here, betrayal runs deep, and no one is who they seem.

December, 1922. Ruby Vaughn expects nothing exciting from a quiet pre-Christmas visit to Oxford with her elderly employer, Mr Owen. Far from the strange and sometimes dangerous books that pass through their shop and with Mr Owen due to attend meetings of the antiquarian society, Ruby hopes for a peaceful week. But when the body of disgraced scholar Julius Harker is discovered among his exhibition of Egyptian antiquities, panic spreads throughout the city's cobbled streets. Drawn reluctantly into the mystery by an old friend, Ruby soon realises Oxford is hiding dangerous secrets - especially when Ruan Kivell, the enigmatic folk healer she met in Cornwall, unexpectedly reappears.

It is a bitterly cold night, with rain falling and an edge of snow. Under the sickly yellow lighting in the lorry park, three men are looting precious cargo from the tarpaulined trailers - but the crack of a gunshot pierces the night, and everything changes. Six months on and a key witness at the subsequent murder trial finds herself under police protection in the remote ancient highlands around Loch Torridon. She is determined to find out what happened to her beloved Callan, one of the three looters, but everything becomes more complicated by another local murder, and the arrival of DCI Kelso Strang. The local dramatic peaks form the uncompromising backdrop of the police investigation, and Strang must contend with seismic events that will change many lives to get to the truth.

'A sheer delight' Daily Mail April, 1945. Paris has been liberated, but it is not the city blind veteran Frederick Rowlands remembers from the Great War. Summoned by MI5 agent Iris Barnes, Rowlands is drawn into a hunt for traitors and a key witness is a young woman calling herself Clara Metzner, newly released from Ravensbrück concentration camp. Rowlands once met Clara in Berlin twelve years earlier- but the horrors she has endured have changed her beyond recognition, and he must confirm who she really is. But then the investigation is derailed by a shocking death, possibly murder, and Rowlands plunges into the dangerous world of Parisian high society, where secrets linger, loyalties blur and a killer waits in the shadows.

As the bombs rain down, love and hope refuse to surrender. Malta, 1941. As bombs fall across the island and invasion looms, Kitty Campbell is haunted by the daughter she was forced to give up for adoption years before. Desperate to find her child, Kitty begins searching for answers - but uncovering the trail is complicated by her father's secretive past and a mysterious stranger on the island. Working as an Aircraft Plotter at Fighter Command in Valletta, tracking the fierce air battles raging in the skies above Malta, Kitty uncovers secrets that could change everything - and faces an impossible choice between duty, love, and the child she has never forgotten.

January, 1941. Amid the devastation of the Blitz, Detective Inspector John Jago is called to Bloomsbury where the body of a woman has been found. Rosemary Webster was known for her generosity, offering refuge to bombing victims and refugees from war-torn Europe. Now she is the victim of a brutal, cold-blooded murder. As Jago traces her final days through Bloomsbury's leafy squares and into the halls of University College London, he uncovers a web of strained loyalties, envy and buried resentments. Many owed Rosemary their safety - but someone wanted her silenced. In a city already under siege, Jago must discover who would kill an angel of mercy in her own home.

When Juno Browne buys a second-hand car for her lover, Daniel Thorncroft, the last thing she expects to findis a dead man in the boot. As police hunt for answers and the missing seller, Amber Horrell, Juno's curiositypulls her into the mystery. In this quiet corner of Devon, Amber's family are notorious, with an unsolved murderand a vanished red diamond in their past, and a decidedly shady antiques business in their present. When a second body surfaces, Juno's amateur sleuthing turns dangerous, blurring reality andfiction, and revealing a far more tangled crime than anyone imagined.

'The tension never slackens . a very promising criminal debut' The TimesONE DOWN. When a suspected overdose victim is found to have received a postcard marked You're first, DI Hope Fenton uncovers links to a circle of privileged Cambridge alumni: an eco-entrepreneur, a surgeon, a lecturer, and a government minister. They have been bound together since a fateful night twenty years ago, but are they potential victims - or suspect? OUR TO GO. As the body count rises - seemingly the clique is being picked off one by one - Hope fails to cope with the terrible shadow cast by the disappearance of her son Noah eight years ago. The unanswered questions of what happened to him also haunt her ex-husband, colleague, and forensic scientist Dr Adam Fenton. But could it be that this case holds the key to Noah's disappearanc? ive Silver Spoons is a gripping tale of shameless entitlement and merciless revenge.

1953. Refugee Mei has tried to bury her 'gift' of speaking to ghosts, but then former silent film star Holly Zhang invites her to be one of six mediums competing over a series of séances at the infamous Maidenhair House. The startling summons revives Mei's link to the man who destroyed her life. The staggering reward on offer might explain why Mei agrees to take part, but the only prize she wants is revenge. Years later, the events of those nights have faded into urban legend but if Mei wants to finally lay the ghosts she carries to rest, she must uncover what really happened at Maidenhair House.

'Fans of Richard Osman, welcome to your new club' A. J. FinnSomething old, something red, something stolen, something dead. Sunset Hall, a house-share for the old and unusual, is gearing up as energetically as it's aged inhabitants can for Bernadette's big wedding day. However, with the RSVPs comes an anonymous note that threatens to cast a pall over the upcoming festivities. Agnes is in (somewhat begrudging) wedding planning mode and she and the not-so-sprightly gang of pensioners decide to hide the note from the betrothed, not wanting to cause stress. It is up to Agnes to dig into this poison pen letter, determined to help the wedding go off without a hitch . . . aside from the bodies they've already had to hide from the blushing bride. Till death us do part, which might be sooner than you think ... 'A quirky and charming cosy mystery' Katy Watson

At Marigold Cottages, landlady Mrs B only rents to favoured tenants, and they're an eccentric (read: odd, slightly broken) bunch. There is anxious playwright Sophie, agoraphobe Hamilton, single mum and sculptor Ocean, perfectionist Lily-Ann, and the mysterious Nicholas. Their quirky community is upended when ex-con Anthony moves in and a dead body turns up on their doorstep shortly after. The police arrest Anthony, but Mrs B, convinced of his innocence, confesses instead. Horrified, her tenants form the 'Marigold Cottages Murder Collective' to clear her name. When a second body appears, they discover every resident has something to hide - and the killer may be closer than they think.

1900. Archaeologist Abigail Wilson returns to the Eternal City as a guest speaker for a festival on Classical Rome, although she also hopes the trip will be a well-earned holiday for herself and her husband, private investigator Daniel Wilson. However, the bloody history of the ancient arena seeps into the present with the violent murder of one of Abigail's colleagues and his wife at the Colosseum itself. Moving from the Forum to the Spanish Steps, Rome is suddenly the backdrop of another investigation for the Museum Detectives who clash with local authorities and a rising mafia influence in a race to uncover the truth.