‘The Return of Frankie Whittle’ by Caroline England

Published by Bullington Press,
8 February 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-73844486-1 (PB)

Gated communities. Upmarket, expensive, exclusive? Or slightly creepy, selective, with a hidden agenda lurking behind a calm façade? Maybe even both?

When Frankie Whittle discovers that the place where she was born has been redeveloped as Pavilion Gardens, a beautiful, gated estate close to where she was brought up in a leafy Manchester suburb, it feels like the answer to her prayers. Frankie is recovering from a miscarriage brought on by a terrifying experience in the London flat she shares with husband Toby. She is keen to get out of London, and wants the support of her mum Nina, who still lives nearby.  

Frankie and Toby move into a vacant house in Pavilion Gardens, and are quickly drawn into the community, which consists of young professional couples like themselves, and is overseen by an older couple, Ursula and Fabian. Frankie settles into life at Pavilion Gardens quickly, makes friends and is soon pregnant again, as are several of the other young women.

But things are not as perfect as they seem. Toby is less comfortable; he is ambitious, and it is important to him to be in London for his job, though Frankie can work remotely. Cracks begin to appear in their relationship, and she has already fallen out with her mother, who has been harbouring secrets.

One of the novel’s great strengths is a vivid, almost filmic sense of place. Caroline England clearly knows this area of Manchester very well indeed, and in Pavilion Gardens she has created a tight-knit community in startling visual detail. The neatly manicured lawns; Ursula and Fabian’s museum-like home; the slightly ominous brick edifice looming over the development, now an office block but historically the workhouse: it all contributes to a faint air of menace.

The characters, too, are distinctly in two camps: the well-polished, hospitable residents of Pavilion Gardens on one side, and the far less perfect people on the outside, such as Nina, and Toby’s over-critical mother. And then there’s Jerome, Ursula and Fabian’s son. More secrets lurk there.

The questions keep on coming. Why did Nina hide the letter that reveals the biggest secret of all? Why do Ursula and Fabian have so many old photographs of workhouse residents? What happened to their other son? When the seemingly perfect life of Pavilion Gardens goes pear-shaped, as inevitably it must or there would be no story, it happens in the most unexpected way. All the clues are there, but well masked, and it falls to Frankie to get to the bottom of a dangerous and destructive situation. It adds up to the kind of novel that will keep you guessing right to the end.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Caroline England was born in Yorkshire. She studied Law at the University of Manchester and stayed over the border. She writes multi-layered, dark and edgy ‘domestic suspense’ stories that delve into complicated relationships, secrets and the moral grey area. Her debut novel, Beneath the Skin, was published by Avon HarperCollins in October 2017, followed by My Husband's Lies, Betray Her and Truth Games.  Under the name CE Rose she has also penned gothic-tinged psychological thrillers The House Of Hidden Secrets and The House On The Water's Edge.  Drawing on her days as a divorce and professional indemnity lawyer, she loves to create ordinary, relatable characters who get caught up in extraordinary situations, pressures, dilemmas or crime. She also enjoys performing a literary sleight of hand in her novels and hopefully surprising her readers! Caroline has had stories and poems published in a variety of literary publications and anthologies. Watching Horsepats Feed the Rose, and Hanged By The Neck are her two dark, twisty short story collections. Caroline’s new psychological thriller is The Sinner published in June 2022.

www.carolineenglandauthor.co.uk

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.

‘The East Ham Golem’ by Barbara Nadel

Published by Allison & Busby,
20 February 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-74903135-0 (HB)

Another wonderful addition to the Hakim and Arnold mysteries. 

The plot starts with the desecration of a grave in an East London cemetery.  Instead of revealing a body there appears a clay sculpture of a man - a golem - which is a term from Jewish mysticism for a supernatural being.  Arnold and Hakim are given the task of tracing the missing body which involves issues in War Time Czechoslovakia, Jewellery theft, Jewish mysticism, Far Right politics and East End villains.

The tone is bleak and brutal but has the ring of truth.  The detectives secure the help of two characters from previous novels - Detective Tony Bracci and retired detective Vi Collins.  

The plot is both intricate and engrossing and before the ends are finally tied up the reader has gained fascinating information on the history of this part of East London.

Barbara Nadel is a fine and compelling writer and along with the carefully plotted crime scenes we have the continuing saga of the romance between the two detectives.  What a series!  Can't wait for the next episode!
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Reviewer: Toni Russell

Barbara Nadel was born and brought up in the East End of London. She has a degree in psychology and, prior to becoming a full-time author, she worked in psychiatric institutions and in the community with people experiencing mental health problems. She is also the author of the award-winning Inspector Ikmen series and received the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger for the seventh novel in the series Deadly Web. There are now 24 books in the series. She is also the author of the award-winning Inspector Ikem series now adapted by the BBC as The Turkish Detective. Barbara now lives in Essex.

Toni Russell is a retired teacher who has lived in London all her life and loves the city.  She says, ‘I enjoy museums, galleries and the theatre but probably my favourite pastime is reading.  I found myself reading detective fiction almost for the first time during lockdown and have particularly enjoyed old fashioned detective fiction rather than the nordic noir variety.  I am a member of a book club at the local library and have previously attended literature classes at our local Adult Education Centre.  

‘Lie of the Land’ by Kerry Hadley-Pryce

Published by Salt Publishing,
6 January 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-78463331-8 (PB)

It seems, on the surface, a relatively straightforward story of relationships, jealousy and murder. Jemma and Rory are two colleagues working in an office in the Black Country. They have a fling - or what Jemma seems to have thought of as a fling - despite Rory having a girlfriend. But somehow, within six months, they are buying a house together. From there, incrementally, all hell breaks loose.

Except that is far too simplistic a summary. Yes, it accurately describes the plotline of the book, but no, it gets nowhere the narrative, and how the reader is plunged into a tormented, tormenting world of half-truths and possibilities.

The story is told entirely from Jemma's point of view, as if she is, maybe, relating the events after they have happened. It is an extraordinary stylistic tour-de-force which has the reader enmeshed from the very first page, and drawn uneasily, relentlessly through the shadowy, spiky world of Jemma's mind, and what may have occurred.

A slender, brilliantly original book, best read at one sitting.
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Reviewer: Sarah Williams

Kerry Hadley-Pryce was born in Wordsley, in the West Midlands, in 1960. She worked nights in a Wolverhampton petrol station before becoming a secondary school teacher.  She wrote The Black Country whilst studying for an MA in Creative Writing at the Manchester Writing School at MMU, for which she gained a distinction and was awarded the Michael Schmidt Prize for outstanding achievement 2013-14. She lives in the Black Country.

Sarah Williams has been a professional writer for most of her adult life. She started writing under the name of Sarah Matthews, publishing translations from the French, as well as children’s information books, school textbooks, and school editions of authors such as Conan Doyle and Mark Twain. Most recently, she turned to crime, and has published How to Write Crime Fiction (Robinson), a second edition of which is due in Spring 2025. There are also two crime novels in the offing.

Follow her on Substack at https://sarahwilliamsauthor.substack.com 

‘Bloodline’ by Priscilla Masters

Published by Severn House,
7 January 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-4483-1476-8 (HB)

The day that Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy has been longing for has arrived, after almost a year on sick leave, Joanna’s sergeant and dear friend, Detective Sergeant Mike Korpanski, is due to return to work. Joanna’s chief worry is that the injuries Mike received in a serious accident will have left him permanently incapacitated. She is relieved that, although Mike is still on limited duties until he is fully fit, he is still the same reliable, supportive friend he always was.

After a day dealing with two sad but unthreatening crimes, Joanna is lulled into thinking the only thing she has to worry about is her stepdaughter’s forthcoming graduation. As Joanna’s stepdaughter still blames her for the breakup of her parents’ marriage, Joanna has accepted that she and her baby son will be excluded from the event.

However, just a few miles from where Joanna, her husband and baby live, an elderly man has been taken hostage by an armed intruder. Joseph Holden lives alone in an ancient, secluded house called Cloud Mansion, which overlooks Rudyard Lake. Apart from his twice-weekly cleaning lady, Joseph’s only regular contact is Doreen Caputo who also lives near the lake and walks her dog around it every day. Doreen always stops to have a brief chat with Joseph and is concerned when he talks to her through the closed front door and calls her Mrs Caputo when they have been on first name terms for years.

Joseph attempts to walk the fine line between warning Doreen that something is wrong and not alarming or enraging his captor, aware that the man is armed with a high-powered rifle and Doreen’s life is at risk, as well as his own. After some initial doubts, Doreen succeeds in convincing the police that there is something seriously wrong at Joseph’s house and the police manage to establish contact with the intruder. However, the man insists that the only person he will negotiate with is Joanna. This horrifies Joanna, whose only experience of hostage negotiation is a four-day course, undertaken to enhance her cv and please her senior officer. To her surprise, from the start, the intruder seems to know more about Joanna than she can account for, and he also seems to know every move in the negotiation playbook. Even when she receives advice from the tutor on her negotiation course, Joanna feels the man is always one step ahead of her.

The situation grows tenser as armed police officers surround the house, ready to go in and capture the intruder. Joanna becomes acutely aware that not only is she responsible for saving the life of an elderly and potentially sick man, but also, she is afraid that the man’s detailed knowledge about her may place those she loves in danger.

Bloodline is the sixteenth book in the series featuring Joanna Piercy, but it works well as a stand-alone novel. The core characters are engaging, and the plot is complex and well-paced. It is a cleverly constructed novel that leaves both the reader and the central characters wondering what is justice and how is it best served. A fascinating read, which I recommend.
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Reviewer: Carol Westron

Priscilla Masters was born in Halifax, and brought up in South Wales, one of seven multi-racial children adopted by an orthopaedic surgeon and his Classics graduate wife. Priscilla trained as a registered nurse in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. She moved to Staffordshire in the 1970s, had an antiques business for a while and two sons. She started writing in the 1980s in response to an aunt asking her what she was going to do with her life! Winding up the Serpent was her first Joanna Piercy story, published in 1995.  Although that series is still continuing the latest Crooked Street published 2016, she has also written several medical standalones and a new series featuring coroner Martha Gunn, set in Shrewsbury. Her latest book is An Imperfect Truth, a psychological thriller featuring Dr Claire Roget who is a forensic psychiatrist who has some very unpredictable patients. It is set in Stoke on Trent.

http://www.priscillamasters.co.uk/ 

Carol Westron is a successful author and a Creative Writing teacher.  Her crime novels are set both in contemporary and Victorian times.  Her first book The Terminal Velocity of Cats was published in 2013. Since then, she has since written 8 further mysteries.
Carol recently gave an interview to Mystery People. interview

www.carolwestron.com
To read a review of Carol latest book click on the title
Delivering Lazerus

‘The Three Deaths of Justice Godfrey’ by L. C. Tyler

Published by Constable,
21 November 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-40871873-5 (HB)

A new addition to L.C. Tyler’s superb John Grey series is always a very special treat, and this outing, set in the late 1670s, more than lives up to eager expectations.

The English Civil War is over, Charles II sits more or less securely on the throne, and Sir John Grey is settled in the county of Essex with his witty playwright wife Araminta, and is set, he hopes, to live out his days as a magistrate, administering justice, and his estate. Of course, such a peaceable state of affairs does not last long, and John soon finds himself summoned to Whitehall by the new Secretary of State, Joseph Williamson, to investigate the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, who has been found beaten, hanged, and with his own sword thrust emphatically into his chest – murdered, it seems, three times.

It is a time when the fear of Catholic plots is rife, and this fear is seized on and fomented by the dastardly and deeply deceptive Titus Oates, of Popish Plot fame. John Grey has to tread carefully not fall foul of Oates, and find himself facing the doubtful pleasures of the Little Ease prison cell. After many collisions, collusions and cul-de-sacs, John unravels the mystery, and is able, at last, to gather up Araminta and go home.

To say The Three Deaths of Justice Godfrey is well-researched is a bit like saying St. Edward’s Crown (made for Charles II and most recently worn by Charles III) is a bit glittery. Tyler’s knowledge of the period is wide-ranging and profound, and he evokes the sounds, the smells, the sheer awkwardness of the times, with almost invisible deftness and consummate wit.

It was a delight to learn, on reading Tyler’s ‘Factual Note’ at the end, that the existence of Justice Godfrey and the way (or ways) in which he died is absolutely historically accurate, and his murder still remains, to use the current vernacular, open and unsolved. And that has provided L.C. Tyler with a wonderful playground in which to frolic – for which all his readers will be truly grateful.
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Reviewer: Sarah Williams

L. C. Tyler was born in Southend, Essex, and educated at Southend High School for Boys, Jesus College Oxford and City University London. After university he joined the Civil Service and worked at the Department of the Environment in London and Hong Kong. He then moved to the British Council, where his postings included Malaysia, Thailand, Sudan and Denmark. Since returning to the UK he has lived in Sussex and London and was Chief Executive of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health for eleven years. He is now a full-time writer. His first novel, The Herring Seller's Apprentice, was published by Macmillan in 2007, followed by 8 further books in the series featuring Ethelred Tressider and his agent Elsie Thirkettle. The first book in a new historical series, A Cruel Necessity, was published by Constable and Robinson in November 2014. Since then, he has published eight further books in this series.

http://www.lctyler.com/

Sarah Williams has been a professional writer for most of her adult life. She started writing under the name of Sarah Matthews, publishing translations from the French, as well as children’s information books, school textbooks, and school editions of authors such as Conan Doyle and Mark Twain. Most recently, she turned to crime, and has published How to Write Crime Fiction (Robinson), a second edition of which is due in Spring 2025. There are also two crime novels in the offing.

Follow her on Substack at https://sarahwilliamsauthor.substack.com

‘Mrs Hudson and the Capricorn Incident’ by Martin Davies

Published by Allison and Busby,
20 February 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-74903201-2 (HB)

‘Mrs Hudson and the Capricorn Incident’ is the seventh novel in Davies’s Holmes and Hudson series. Sherlock Holmes is kicking his heels with no investigation that meets his demanding requirements on the immediate horizon until the arrival of General Septimus Octavian Nuno Pellinsky, Count of Kosadam, Hereditary Guardian of the Monks of St Stephen and Adjutant General to the House of Capricorn who ‘had almost as many titles on his card as he had brass buttons on his uniform’. As the splendidly-named Flotsam says as she ushers Pellinsky into Holmes’s presence, despite having experience of announcing great people, ‘few of them filled the room in quite the same way as General Pellinsky.’ Flotsam is Holmes’s maid and Mrs Hudson’s sidekick; as well as narrating the story she is in truth the heroine of it.

Pellinsky is the emissary of the Grand Duchy of Rosenau, the stable future of which is vital to peace in the Balkans (there is more than an echo here of the troubles before the outbreak of World War I). The current ruler, Archduke Quintus, is 73 and has no direct heir following the recent death of his younger brother. Although the Archduke is currently in sufficiently rude health to conduct ‘an unfortunate series of scandalous affairs with unsuitable women’, Pellinsky explains that if the Archduke were to die tomorrow it would launch a constitutional crisis which could have potentially serious consequences for the region. His only viable successor is the young Count Rudolph Absberg, but for the Count to be the legitimate heir he must get married within six months of becoming heir apparent. His intended is the beautiful and accomplished Princess Sophia Kubinova. Because of the Archduke’s ability to fall out with anybody and everybody, both Count Rudolph and Princess Sophia have lived most of their lives in exile. The wedding is due to take place in England imminently, but the date has been brought forward. There is only one problem: Count Rudolph has gone missing.

And so starts mayhem. This novel is an absolute joy, and I was so engrossed that for the first time since I started reviewing for Mystery People I realised when I was well into it that I hadn’t made any notes at all. The plot hurtles along with constant twists and turns, but when this is added to the vivid, often comic, characters and the author’s turn of phrase, it is hardly surprising that the story is so entertaining. Holmes, Watson and Mrs Hudson seem relatively staid in comparison with many who make an appearance. There is the Irascible (sic, always upper case) Earl of Brabham who berates all and sundry (‘the Earl’s temper was famous for its generous proportions’); the garrulous and jolly Hetty, Flotsam’s friend, who regrets that she is a woman because that prevents her from horsewhipping a scoundrel on the steps of his club, although she doesn’t shrink from giving us a lengthy verbal treatise on the subject instead; and there are many more. To this one could add, amongst other matters, cross-dressing, a ring that turns up where it shouldn’t, boots by a railway line, another missing person – you get the idea. There is a memorable bicycle ride which brings the novel to a suitably comic conclusion.

Davies’s style is highly entertaining, with improbable and unexplained incidents frequently thrown at us. Here’s an example: ‘He was the magistrate when Viscount Barrowby’s scullery maid was found with the pet weasel and the Aramaic prayer book. He was probably the only magistrate in London who would have believed her story.’ We are not, alas, given the chance to believe it or not. And another: ‘We never cease to give thanks for the help you gave our darling daughter over that affair with the hollyhocks’, not further explained, reminds me of the story of Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe and the Prawns, also never further explained, which tantalises us PG Wodehouse lovers every time it is mentioned. And I’d like to get my hands on the book about eighteenth-century stranglers which Holmes leans his pipe against on the mantelpiece.

The novel is billed as ‘A Holmes and Hudson Mystery’, but they both take a back seat to the immensely likeable, highly intelligent and naively courageous Flotsam. Holmes, indeed, disappears for most of the time to North Wales, even if his shadow is always lurking. If you enjoy humour, a good plot and excellent writing in your crime fiction, I urge you to read this book. I haven’t relished one so much for ages. I’m off to find the other six.....
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Reviewer: David Whittle

Martin Davies grew up in North West England. He has travelled widely, including in the Middle East and India, and his plan for THE CONJUROR'S BIRD was put together on a trekking holiday in Greenland. He lives in South West London and works for the BBC as a producer.

David Whittle is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin, about whom he gives talks now and then. He is currently convenor of the East Midlands Chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association.

‘The Holborn Murders’ by Lynn Brittney

Published by Iris Books,
12 December 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-90714791-3 (PB)

It’s December 1915 and the war that was supposed to be over by Christmas shows no signs of ending.  However, people are trying to make it a special time of year and the London department stores are prepared and hoping for a busy few weeks.  Gamages, the department store in Holborn, is no exception and the seasonal magic show is going ahead.  And the action starts here, when the magician is killed violently in front of his audience.

This is a job for the Mayfair 100 team, a secret group established with the approval of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to deal with certain specific crimes.  The members, mainly female amateur detectives, assisted by hand-picked regular policemen, are quickly allocated their roles, with some members actually working in the store.  As they investigate there is another attempted murder, and then the shocking news that a young actress employed at the Holborn Empire has been killed and that one of their colleagues (a senior police officer) is under suspicion.

The team members have been together for long enough to appreciate and value one another’s strengths and skills and to enjoy each other’s company.  This story enables each member to show and develop their own capabilities, whilst coping with their own private, emotional reactions to the ongoing investigation.

This is a neatly plotted, inventive and well-written story.  Gamages provides some novel backdrops and a good supply of useful characters and adds to the atmosphere and sense of place.  The roles of women in society, the disagreements between the various organisations supporting the major causes (eg, votes for women, the temperance movement, jobs for women in a rapidly changing society) fill in the background and inform the plot, which includes some interesting social history.

This is the sixth in the Mayfair 100 series and, though the central characters are well-established, it’s not necessary to have read any the previous books to enjoy it as stand-alone/introduction to the series. 
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Reviewer: Jo Hesslewood
Other books by this author: Murder in Belgravia, A Death in Chelsea, The Body in Berkeley Square, The Corpses at Waterloo, A Killing near Waterloo Stations

Lynn Brittney has fifty-two plays, books (fiction and non-fiction), and foreign translations of her books registered for PLR. She began novel-writing in 2005 and the first book in her Nathan Fox Elizabethan spy trilogy was nominated for the Waterstones and Brandford Boase Prize. In 2016 she created the Mayfair 100 series, set in WW1. There are now five books in the series. 

www.lynnbrittney.com
  

Jo Hesslewood.  Crime fiction has been my favourite reading material since as a teenager I first spotted Agatha Christie on the library bookshelves.  For twenty-five years the commute to and from London provided plenty of reading time.  I am fortunate to live in Cambridge, where my local crime fiction book club, Crimecrackers, meets at Heffers Bookshop .  I enjoy attending crime fiction events and currently organise events for the Margery Allingham Society.

‘Mystery at the Station Hotel’ by Edward Marston

Published by Allison & Busby,
23 January 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-749030124-4 (HB)

The year is 1866 and at the Station Hotel in Shrewsbury the body is discovered of Julian Lockyer, an important figure in the Great Western Railway. At first it is believed to be suicide, but why would a man expected to be elected as the next Chairman of the Railway kill himself? Plus, the knife used was by his right hand – he was left-handed!

Superintendent Edward Tallis of Scotland Yard dispatches Inspector Robert Colbeck and his Sergeant Victor Leeming to investigate. They have a rather frosty welcome from the local police, who believe they are quite capable of solving the murder themselves, however as things turn out, they really need their help. As Colbeck and Leeming delve more into Lockyer’s life, it becomes clear that he was not the respectable gentleman he would have everyone believe.

A real puzzle is why did he tell friends and family he was going to visit someone he knew in Kent, when he actually went to Shrewsbury? His son Pelham is especially at a lost to understand, and when he finds out is knocked for six.

At the same time, Colbeck’s wife Madeleine, an artist of some repute, has a mystery of her own to unravel. Someone is copying her work and passing themselves off as her. Not only that but one such painting is seen for sale in a shop window. Madeleine is incensed and together with her outraged father Caleb, resolves to find the culprit, leading to a very surprising outcome.

Meanwhile back in Shrewsbury the police wonder if the person responsible for Lockyer’s death is someone jealous of his expected promotion. Colbeck is not too sure, it doesn’t feel right to him.

It soon becomes clear that whoever planned the killing actually hired someone else to do their dirty work for them. If the police can discover who carried out the murder, it will surely lead them to the person behind it all, but this proves more difficult than expected. The local police really do need Colbeck’s expertise now.

Another absorbing book in the Railway Detective series. I have read many of the previous stories and have nothing but praise for the way the author brings to life the times of the days of steam. Highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Tricia Chappell

Edward Marston (A pseudonym used by Keith Miles) was born and brought up in South Wales. A full-time writer for over thirty years, he has worked in radio, film, television and the theatre and is a former chairman of the Crime Writers' Association. Prolific and highly successful, he is equally at home writing children's books or literary criticism, plays or biographies.

www.edwardmarston.com 

Tricia Chappell. I have a great love of books and reading, especially crime and thrillers. I play the occasional game of golf (when I am not reading). My great love is cruising especially to far flung places, when there are long days at sea for plenty more reading! I am really enjoying reviewing books and have found lots of great new authors.

 

‘A Wind in the Hebrides’ by Donna Fletcher Crow

Independently Published,
27 November 2024.
ISBN: 979-830145321-2

‘A Wind in the Hebrides’ is the seventh novel in ‘The Monastery Murders’ series, and features Felicity Sherwood and her husband Father Antony Sherwood, a priest in the Church of England and a lecturer in church history. The latter has been asked to lead a course on Iona which will study Saint Columba, and Felicity, a former student of Father Antony, needs to prepare a lecture she has agreed to give at the AGM of the association of Spiritual Directors. Given that her theme is spiritual awakening, Felicity must research the so-called Lewis Awakening of the post-Second World War years. This was a religious movement whose fervour gripped the outer Hebridean island and led to packed meetings in churches and halls.

Antony and Felicity, accompanied by their five-year-old son Teddy (who plays an important role in the story) go to Iona, via Glasgow where they stay with old friends, one of whom lends Felicity a manuscript of a relative’s story of the Awakening. During her brief stay on Iona, Felicity is convinced that she has seen a body, but as she was in a dangerous position leaning over a cliff to rescue a prized possession of Teddy, she gets only a glimpse. Subsequent investigations by the authorities find no body.

Before long Felicity and Teddy are on their way to Lewis. Between her own researches Felicity reads the manuscript she has been loaned. It was written in 1949 by a young lady from Lewis called Aileana Mackay who appears to be on the verge of a breakthrough in her singing career in Glasgow when she is told her parents are very ill, if not on the verge of death, on her native island. Much against her will Aileana races to Lewis to find that there is nothing wrong with them apart from what was probably a bad attack of food poisoning. However, Aileana’s return throws her into a number of affairs, the maelstrom of the Awakening being one. Her sister’s boyfriend Euan has gone missing. It seems he has led a far from spotless life, and suggestions of wartime dodgy dealings – not only concerning Euan - hang in the air. As Aileana’s story reaches a climax, old relationships come into play. Who can she believe?

Felicity’s own researches on Lewis lead her into an apparently parallel situation. A yacht belonging to one of Antony’s students is seen a few times. What is it doing there when its owner is on Iona? Somebody she is convinced she saw on Iona reappears on Lewis. Who is he? Reports in the press about ‘dodgy diesel’ causing traffic accidents give more credence to her suspicions. Is Lewis a centre for illegal importing? More to the point, are she and Teddy in danger? As her story and suspicions grow, Felicity (like Aileana 70 years before) has to decide who she can trust.

The novel is a slow-burner, with plenty of background before matters come to a head. It is not only Aileana and Felicity who don’t know who to trust, as you will find out. The resolution to both stories is well-handled and convincing, with good plot twists (particularly in Felicity’s tale) that you may or may not foresee.
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Reviewer: David Whittle 

Donna Fletcher Crow is a former English teacher and a Life Member of the Jane Austin Society of America. She is the author of 50 books, mostly novels dealing with British history.  The award-winning Glastonbury, A Novel of the Holy Grail, an Arthurian grail search epic covering 15 centuries of English history, is her best-known work.  She is also the author of The Monastery Murders: A Very Private Grave, A Darkly Hidden Truth and An Unholy Communion as well as the Lord Danvers series of Victorian true-crime novels and the literary suspense series The Elizabeth & Richard Mysteries. Donna and her husband live in Boise, Idaho.  They have 4 adult children and 12 grandchildren. She is an enthusiastic gardener.

To read more about all of Donna’s books and see pictures from her garden and research trips go to: http://www.donnafletchercrow.com/ 
You can follow her on Facebook at: http://ning.it/OHi0MY

David Whittle is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin, about whom he gives talks now and then. He is currently convenor of the East Midlands Chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association.

Coming Soon: 'A Scandal Has Wings' by Graham Donnelly

 
Published The Book Guild Ltd
28 February 2025

In the mid-1970s, a rapidly growing college becomes a playground where young lecturers, barely older than their students, balance ambition with maturity. The competitive atmosphere, marked by jealousy and corruption, blurs the lines between innocent play and darker rivalries.

Lecturers, seen as professionals with full control over their classrooms, usually uphold their responsibilities. However, one day, indulgence and recklessness lead to a situation spiralling out of control, putting two lives at risk. The identities of those in danger and those who have endangered them remain a mystery, until two lecturers, the eager Gillian and the hesitant Roger, embark on solving it, leading to a scandal that will affect the futures of both lecturers and students, guilty and innocent alike.

Graham Donnelly was born in Homerton, London. He holds an Economics degree from the University of London and has a professional background in government service, banking, and lecturing in economics, politics, and management. While lecturing, he published several economics books. His novels reflect his deep interest in political and socio-economic history, a passion shaped by his varied career and academic pursuits. He now lives with his wife in Essex