Detective Peter Porteous is called to Cranwell Lake where the body of a teenager has been discovered. After trawling through the missing persons files, he deduces that the corpse is Michael Grey, an enigmatic and secretive young man who was reported missing by his foster parents in 1972. For country prison officer Hannah Morton it is the shock of her life. Michael had been her boyfriend, and she had been with him the night he disappeared. The news report that a body has been found brings back dreaded and long-buried memories from her past…
May 1945 and at long last, Rosamund Caradon is feeling optimistic. As she returns the last few evacuees to London from her Devonshire manor, she vows to protect dance-obsessed daughter Jasmine from further peril. But a chance meeting with a Sadler’s Wells ballet dancer changes everything. When the beautiful, elusive Briar Woods bursts into Rosamund’s train carriage, it’s clear her sights are set on the immediately captivated Jasmine. And Rosamund cannot shake the eerie feeling this accidental encounter is not what it seems. Briar may be far away from the pointe shoes and greasepaint of the Sleeping Beauty ballet that is so much a part of her, but her performance for Rosamund might just be her most successful yet. This, Briar feels, is a show for a mother and daughter. A dance that could turn deadly…
May 1945 and at long last, Rosamund Caradon is feeling optimistic. As she returns the last few evacuees to London from her Devonshire manor, she vows to protect dance-obsessed daughter Jasmine from further peril. But a chance meeting with a Sadler’s Wells ballet dancer changes everything. When the beautiful, elusive Briar Woods bursts into Rosamund’s train carriage, it’s clear her sights are set on the immediately captivated Jasmine. And Rosamund cannot shake the eerie feeling this accidental encounter is not what it seems. Briar may be far away from the pointe shoes and greasepaint of the Sleeping Beauty ballet that is so much a part of her, but her performance for Rosamund might just be her most successful yet. This, Briar feels, is a show for a mother and daughter. A dance that could turn deadly…
May 1945 and at long last, Rosamund Caradon is feeling optimistic. As she returns the last few evacuees to London from her Devonshire manor, she vows to protect dance-obsessed daughter Jasmine from further peril. But a chance meeting with a Sadler’s Wells ballet dancer changes everything. When the beautiful, elusive Briar Woods bursts into Rosamund’s train carriage, it’s clear her sights are set on the immediately captivated Jasmine. And Rosamund cannot shake the eerie feeling this accidental encounter is not what it seems. Briar may be far away from the pointe shoes and greasepaint of the Sleeping Beauty ballet that is so much a part of her, but her performance for Rosamund might just be her most successful yet. This, Briar feels, is a show for a mother and daughter. A dance that could turn deadly…
North East India, 1923. On the Night Mail to Jamalpur, a man is shot dead in a first class compartment. Detective Inspector Jim Stringer was sleeping in the next compartment along. Was he the intended target? Jim should have known that his secondment to the East Indian Railway would not be the working holiday he had hoped for. Aside from the Jamalpur shooting, someone is placing venomous snakes in the first class compartments of the railway. Jim also has worries on the home front: his daughter has formed a connection with a Maharajah’s son, who may in turn have a connection to the bristling Major Fisher. Jim must do everything he can to keep his family safe from harm.
Two dead bodies: the first a local PI of suspect reputation – gunned down near the beach at Santa Teresa; the other on the beach six weeks later – he’d been sleeping rough. There’s no identification, except a slip of paper with PI Kinsey Millhone’s name and number in his trouser pocket. Two seemingly unrelated deaths, one a murder, the other apparently of natural causes. But as Kinsey digs deeper into the mystery of the John Doe, some very strange links begin to emerge. And before long at least one aspect is solved as Kinsey finds the key to his identity…
Libby Jones, twenty-five and living on a shoestring budget, is shocked to discover that she has inherited an eight-bedroom property in the heart of Chelsea. But the house is dilapidated and has a sinister past – one in which she and her birth family are tangled. For this is also the day that Libby discovers she has a brother and a sister. That her birth parents were poor, selling their furniture and sleeping on mattresses inside their palatial home. That their bodies were found side by side on the floor in the kitchen, dead in a suspected suicide pact. And that Libby, ten months old, was found alone in a room on the first floor. As Libby begins to delve into the secrets of the past, what she discovers will shake her to the core…
Richard Temperley arrives at Euston station early on a fogbound London morning. He takes refuge in a nearby hotel, along with a disagreeable fellow passenger, who had snored his way through the train journey. But within minutes the other man has snored for the last time – he has been shot dead while sleeping in an armchair. When the police arrive, Detective Inspector James discovers a token at the crime scene: ‘a small piece of enamelled metal. Its colour was crimson, and it was in the shape of the letter Z.’ Temperley sets off in pursuit of a mysterious woman from the hotel and finds himself embroiled in a cross-country chase on the tail of a sinister serial killer.
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
Cantankerous and dishevelled, Chief Inspector Dover is no one’s idea of a model detective – but he does have an uncanny knack for solving crimes. In these radio dramas, set in the 1960s and ’70s, he and his long-suffering sergeant, Charlie McGregor, investigate sinister cases of kidnap and murder. The first four are adapted from Joyce Porter’s novels, while the latter two are original stories based on her characters. Dover Goes to Pott – the irascible chief inspector travels to the Yorkshire town of Pott Winckle to look into the murder of leading businessman Daniel Wibbley’s daughter. Dover and the Claret Tappers – when Dover is kidnapped, only to be released 36 hours later, he finds himself leading the hunt for a criminal gang. Can he catch them before they strike again? Dover Beats the Band – a body is found at Didcaster dump, naked, burned and strangled. Dover follows the trail to Rankin’s Holiday Ranch and an eccentric group of stamp collectors – but was the dead man really an innocent philatelist? Dover and the Unkindest Cut of All – Dover’s annual seaside break becomes a busman’s holiday after his wife witnesses a policeman throwing himself off a cliff. Was it suicide, and is it linked to the recent murder of a local gangster? Dover and the Sleeping Beauty – Isabel Slatcher has been in an irreversible coma for eight months after being shot outside her local church. Now she has been smothered to death. Are the shooter and the killer the same person, and if so, why did they wait till now to complete their evil deed? Dover and the Smoking Gun – McGregor takes compassionate leave to return to Glasgow for an old flame’s funeral. But was Fiona Gordon’s death accidental or foul play? Dover heads north to find out….
