As thick snow blankets Newcastle, boisterous crowds of Christmas revellers jostle onto the Metro. And Margaret Krukowski – sitting quietly in the middle of the busy train – is viciously murdered, though nobody sees the stabbing take place. Margaret’s murderer is seemingly invisible; her killing motiveless. As DI Vera Stanhope arrives at the scene, she feels a familiar buzz of anticipation, sensing that this will be a complex and unusual case. When a second woman is murdered just days later, Vera knows that the key to this new killing will be found in Margaret’s past. What was troubling this reserved, elegant lady so much before she died? Vera can feel in her bones that there’s a link between the killings – one that she must discover before another life is lost…
Domestic bliss seems in short supply at 44 Scotland Street. Over at the Pollocks, dad, Stuart, is harbouring a secret about a secret society and Bertie is feeling kind of blue. Having had enough of his neurotic hot-housing mother, he puts himself up for adoption on eBay. Will he go to the highest bidder or will he have to take matters into his own hands? Will the lovelorn Big Lou find true love on the internet? And will Angus Lordie and Domenica make it up the aisle? Catch up with all your favourite faces down in 44 Scotland Street as we follow their daily pursuit of a little happiness.
With a single daring leap from an Italian train carrying prisoners of war, John Miller jumped out of the war of soldiers and into the war as lived by Italian civilians – many of whom risked their lives to help him. The year was 1943 and Captain Miller had been in captivity for over a year. Italian anti-fascists harboured and fed him, first in a remote mountain village, then in Rome itself. For months he posed as a deaf-mute and member of the Fascist Youth in order to dodge German patrols and the Italian secret police – until the Allied liberation of Rome brought GIs flooding onto the streets.
Headmaster Theodore Quinn has lived in Liverpool since coming over from America to fight for Britain in the 1940s. Over ten years later he is harbouring two secrets and scars that are both physical and emotional. Where women are concerned, he and his secrets are a closed shop, until Tia Bellamy walks into his life. Tia cuts through Theo’s reserve, and the first of his secrets is shared with her. The pair grow close to the residents of the Lady Streets, a tight community that looks after its own, and in particular to Maggie Stone and her little granddaughter Rosie. Then Theo reveals his second secret, and everything in their life begins to change…
September 1942. Mary arrives in London to take up a new post as a fabric cutter at Liberty’s Carnaby Street store. Recently discharged from the Women’s Army in the wake of scandal, Mary is harbouring a broken heart and a painful secret. Although nervous for her new start, Mary is welcomed into the fold by a group of women who quickly feel like family. And yet not everyone Mary meets becomes a fast friend – least of all her new manager Mabel Partridge. But when Mary is there to help Mabel in her hour of desperate need, things start to change. Strength comes in numbers and the Liberty Girls will have to pull together if they’re to survive the war.
Ann Cleeves is the author behind ITV s VERA and BBC One s SHETLAND. She has written over twenty-five novels, and is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez characters loved both on screen and in print. Her books have now sold over 1 million copies worldwide.
Books by this Author
1887: The streets of Edinburgh seethe with anarchy as two gangs of students rival each other in wild exploits. After a pitched battle between them, an old woman is found savagely battered to death in Leith Harbour. Enter the Thieftaker – Inspector James McLevy. Robert Louis Stevenson, author of THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE, is in the city to bury his deceased father, and the two recognise each other as observers of the dark side of human nature and hopeless insomniacs. But glimpses of the murderer indicate a slender figure with a silver cane – a dancing killer not unlike Mr Edward Hyde. Is it just a coincidence that Mr Stevenson is back in town?
