A TERRIBLE ENEMY
Year after year, the villagers near Stanton Moor celebrate May Day with bonfires and the laying of rowan branches to seek protection for home and cattle. But the men who gathered this May evening hadn’t come for blessings. They had come for murder. The dead body is discovered on a lonely moor, decapitated in the fashion of a Muslim killing of sacrificial sheep or chickens. As fear over a second murder grips the villagers, the CID Team soon discovers this dead man may have had connections with an organization that smuggles illegal products into Britain. Through the tangle of smugglers, murder, and village secrets, Brenna fights to keep focused on the case and nab the one person who may be responsible for the trail of villainy that threatens to engulf everyone who is connected with the moorland murders.
A WELL DRESSED CORPSE
One dark March evening Vera Howarth vanishes from her village. Despite search teams, TV appeals and a police investigation, she is never found, and her disappearance transmutes into a local ghost story. That was 23 years ago. Now Reed Harper, the organizer of the village well dressing custom, goes missing, and the incident is linked by speculation and fear to Vera’s. Detective-Sergeant Brenna Taylor, her boss, Detective-Chief Inspector Geoffrey Graham, and other members of their Murder Team from the Derbyshire Constabulary are called in to investigate when a handful of bones is discovered in the forest that hugs the village. During the search, Reed’s body is found several feet from the skeletal remains. Vera? As the police team investigates they discover a tangle of jealousy, betrayal and lies, all involving Reed and Vera. And harking back to the ghost stories of the region.
SIREN SONG
Michael McLaren tries to convince himself that he is perfectly happy repairing dry stone walls in Derbyshire, a make-do career after resigning his job in an eddy of anger, disgust and an overwhelming sense of injustice. But when a murder victim’s friend asks him to investigate a cold case, McLaren agrees, the chance to rectify a wrong and return to the work he loves too heady to ignore. Yet, in the midst of his investigation, McLaren becomes entangled in his own mystery: anonymous late-night phone calls, a vanished hitchhiker, and a car crash threaten his life and sanity. Is Dena, his former fiancée, playing tricks on him, still angry over their broken engagement? Or does the killer fear McLaren’s relentless law-skirting pursuit? But it isn’t until McLaren unravels his personal puzzles that he discovers Marta’s killer, a killer obsessed with old anger and new revenge.
SWAN SONG
Ex-police detective Michael McLaren had no intention of delving into another cold case murder. And certainly had no intention of making his inquiries a new career. But when his fiancée dangles the intriguing aspects of the unsolved murder of local folk musician Kent Harrison before McLaren, he snaps at the bait. It was at Tutbury Castle’s Minstrels Court reenactment that Kent, albeit unknowingly, last appeared and gave his swan song to his fans. McLaren first questions Kent’s ex-wife. Was she still bitter over their divorce last year? Or had a possible argument escalated into murder? Other suspects soon crop up: Kent’s neighbor, a local herbalist, Kent’s fiancée, a covetous colleague…even the curator of another castle who tried to lure Kent into performing there. Through the maze of unearthing the truth about Kent’s murder McLaren must also rescue someone near and dear to him, kidnapped to scare McLaren off the investigation. It’s a hard task when a web of jealousy, anger and lies permeates both cases.
TORCH SONG
An up-and-coming singer of 1940s-style torch songs, Janet Ennis tragically died five years ago in what the police labeled an accidental fire. But Janet’s mother, Nora, believes it to be murder and arson. And she’s hoping ex-cop Michael McLaren can prove it quickly, for she’s losing her memory to dementia. As McLaren pokes through the case details, he becomes emotionally involved with the dead woman, succumbing to the spell of her singing and her beauty. Yet, Janet Ennis isn’t the only person from the past who threatens his peace and sanity. A series of arsons on his own property hint that he’s upset someone connected with this case, someone capable of harming him and his fiancée. And one dark night another danger confronts McLaren: the nemesis from his personal past, Charlie Harvester. The man he tangled with, the man who was responsible for McLaren leaving his police job. Can McLaren solve the cold case while Nora is still able to comprehend the facts and die in peace, or does Harvester have other plans that will stop McLaren in his tracks?
CIDER, SWORDS AND STRAW: Celebrating British Customs
Ready to track down the ghostly black dog, dress a well, or stand in for Saint Nicholas? Want to submerse yourself in the Taylor & Graham British mystery novels and the customs on which they’re based?
Cider, Swords and Straw is the companion book to this British mystery series, and offers synopses of each of the series’ first twelve novels. The book is crowded with over three hundred food recipes—in American measurements—for you to make and enjoy. But Cider, Swords and Straw is more than a standard cookbook, also offering detailed explanations of the British customs mentioned in the books, as well as illustrations and suggestions for hosting your own parties based on these customs! Haven’t read the Taylor & Graham mysteries? Cider, Swords and Straw is an interesting book in its own right!
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