Mostrando resultados por Editor "Soundings" en Todas las categorías

In 1898 three young girls leave a Dublin orphanage to enter a life of domestic service. They are placed in the home of Captain Charles Whitmore. His wife, Georgina, desperate to break free from a violent marriage. Then an organisation that helps women escape abuse makes Georgina an offer. They propose that her house should become a school to train women for employment in the American West. Can the orphan maids dare dream of a better life for themselves?

In Flora Thompson's semi-autobiographical series Lark Rise to Candleford, she explores the Oxfordshire country life of her protagonist Laura in the 1880s and 1890s. This collection includes all three works in the trilogy, Lark Rise, Over to Candleford, and Candleford Green.

Dimpson McCabe - Dimpsie - has invited his closest friends of the theatre world to join him for Christmas at his castle on a private island some hours' drive from Edinburgh. The festivities have barely begun when Dimpsie is found draped atop the Christmas tree, electrocuted by the lights. It's labelled Accidental Death, but in the swirling snow suspicion is dancing among the flakes. The dogged Inspector Smith begins to circle, seeking to find the leading man or prima donna responsible.

Set against the enchanting background of post war Vienna, with its beautiful palaces and gardens, its disenchanted residents and scars of war, E.C.R. Lorac constructs a characteristic detective story, sure to puzzle and excite. This exceedingly rare mystery, first published in 1956, makes its triumphant return for the first time since its original appearance.

Lord James Harrington and his wife, Beth, run a country hotel in West Sussex, England. Autumn has arrived, and they are helping with the Harvest festivities when they learn that escaped convict Locksmith Joe is in the area. James suspects that his good friend Bert knows more about this than he's letting on. When new arrival Christie Cameron is found dead in his bedroom, clues suggest foul play, yet the room was locked from the inside. How did the killer get in? When a second death occurs at the scarecrow festival, James puts his sleuthing hat on. Will a surprise discovery jeopardise his friendship with Bert?

1895. A senior executive at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is found in his office with a bullet hole between his eyes, a pistol discarded close by. The death has officially been ruled as suicide by local police, but with an apparent lack of motive for such action, the museum’s administrator Gladstone Marriott suspects foul play.

The captain of the Newhaven to Dieppe steamer spots a small pleasure yacht lying motionless in the water and, on closer inspection, sees a body lying on the deck. When members of his crew go aboard the yacht, they find not one male corpse but two. The dead men were chairman and vice chairman of Moxon General Securities, one of the largest financial houses in the country. Inspector Joseph French of Scotland Yard is called in. French soon discovers that Moxon's is on the brink of collapse.

In 1945, Gwen Moffat deserted from her post as dispatch rider in the Army and went to live rough in Wales and Cornwall, climbing and living on practically nothing. She hitch-hiked her way around, travelling from Skye to Chamonix and many places in between, with all her possessions on her back. When the money ran out, she worked as a forester, went winkle-picking on the Isle of Skye and did a stint as an artist's model. And always there were the mountains, drawing her away from a "proper" job.

John Pearce is going home. But he has to avoid capture by an Algerine warship, having his Pelicans pressed into a British frigate, and that's before they are at risk of being hanged for desertion once home. Then there is the problem of Emily Barclay and their son, Adam. By cunning and bluff, he protects his friends but not his troubled love life. In a whirlwind of action, there are forged wills, devious trades, contrived murders and dangerous spy missions, with so much deceit that Pearce does not know whom to trust. All he can hope to do is survive.

In the Welsh borders, isolated by heavy snow and flooding from the thaw, cut off from telephone access, a tragedy has occurred. Old Dr Robinson known to be 'a menace' on the roads has met his end in a car crash, his big saloon thrown from the track down the steep hillside. But when the police arrive there is more to the tragedy than meets the eye: why was there a second body - an outsider to these parts - in the back of the vehicle?

From the dramatic Highlands to bustling cities, the unique landscapes and locales of Scotland have enthralled and shaped generations of mystery writers. This new collection presents 17 classic stories, spanning a period from the 1880s to the 1970s, by a host of Scottish authors alongside writers from south of the border inspired by the history and majesty of the storied country.

Crime author Dick Markham is in love again; his fiancée, Lesley Grant, the mysterious newcomer to the village. When Grant accidentally shoots a fortune teller through the side of his tent at the local fair - following a very strange reaction to his predictions - Markham is reluctantly brought into a scheme to expose his betrothed as a suspected serial husband-poisoner. That night the enigmatic fortune teller - and chief accuser - is found dead in an impossible locked-room setup, casting suspicion onto Grant and striking doubt into the heart of her lover.

In the little hamlet of Lark Rise times are changing and Laura is growing up. Although she must attend the nearby village school, she would far rather read and make up stories in her head. Real-life excitement comes, however, when she and her beloved younger brother Edmund are allowed to walk on their own to the grand market town of Candleford to stay with their relatives one summer. There, Laura discovers the joys of the shops, the ways of boy-talk with her cousins and the secret world of 'Bookworms Ltd' with her Uncle Tom, before an offer arrives that will determine her future.

Antonia and her sister Louise grow up as thick as thieves, in a world apart from their detached parents. Tonia is a dreamer, slipping away into her "listening place" when life is becoming too much for her. When the more adventurous Lou elopes, Tonia is left on her own. Hope comes in the form of Mr Norman, a caring older man who teaches Tonia how to live for herself. They marry and move to London, but when tragedy strikes Tonia is left to build her own life. She returns to Scotland, in search of a new happiness - although there are some obstacles in her way....

When two newlyweds move into their new home, only to discover that a corpse has been buried in their basement a few months prior, a case is begun to trace the identity of the victim. With all avenues of investigation approaching exhaustion, a tenuous lead offers a chance for Chief Inspector Moresby and leads him to the amateur criminologist Roger Sheringham, who has recently been providing cover work in a school south of London. Desperate for evidence of any kind, Moresby begins to sift through the manuscript of a satirical novel Sheringham had been writing about his colleagues.

Welworth Garden City in the 1940s is a forward-thinking town where free spirits find a home - vegetarians, socialists, and an array of exotic religious groups. Chief among these are the Children of Osiris, led by the eccentric High Prophet, Eustace K. Mildmann. The cult is a seething hotbed of petty resentment, jealousy and dark secrets - which eventually lead to murder. The stage is set for one of Inspector Meredith's most bizarre and exacting cases.

It starts with the hanging woman in the Maple Valley woods; the woman with no shoes, no car and no name. On paper it’s an obvious case of suicide - but to Officer Dean Matheson, something doesn’t add up. Then there are the other deaths, deaths that also look like suicides - but are they? The victims are all women living on the fringes of society, addicts and criminals. Who will miss them? Does anyone really care if they die? Dean Matheson is making it his business to care, even if it means he becomes a target....

The tangled destinies of an unusual family are played out against the backdrop of the English countryside where two pretty sisters and a beautiful widow take centre stage in a drama of dangerous flirtation and backstairs gossip. Esther Musgrave, an attractive widow, has her hands full trying to keep her energetic family together – and on speaking terms! Her three daughters, prickly Delia, sensible Meg and carefree Rose, mean everything to her, especially since the death of her husband, Charles.

It’s Christmas, and things are looking good at the Slocombe house. Thea’s daughter Jessica has come to stay, much to her stepdaughter Stephanie’s delight. But then things take a turn for the worse. A local family, the Frowses, finds themselves increasingly harassed by an aggressive landlord. When Beverley Frowse goes missing, Thea and Stephanie both feel they should do their best to help her husband and son to solve the mystery.

Shortly before Bel's marriage to Ellis Brownlee, her friend, Louise Armstrong, goes house hunting for them and discovers a charming but neglected old stone cottage in the Cotswolds. Bel adores the house, called Fletchers End. Ellis buys the place from the absentee-owner, Lieutenant Commander Lestrange, and, after a picture-book wedding, the happy couple move in. As she embarks on her new life as a devoted wife, Bel loyally guides Louise through her own romantic tribulations.