Howard Shaw
Death Of A Don

Sinister things are afoot at Beaufort College, Oxford. While the College Fellows rally themselves to hire a professional appeals organiser to raise money to restore their crumbling buildings, the Beaufort Letter, a priceless part of the College's library, is stolen. Next one of the most respected dons in the College is found propped up at his desk with a large dent in his head. As if this is not enough, another murder is to follow, even more gruesome than the last: a don is found strangled, dumped in a books basket at the railway station. To add insult to fatal injury, the deed has been done with a Beaufort tie. Inspector Barnaby of the local police is called in to investigate, but the case is not solved before several other unsavoury events are brought to light.

Alanna Knight
Bloodline

Her Majesty Queen Victoria is expected to visit Edinburgh informally when a man's unidentifiable body is found on the rocks below the Castle. Detective Inspector Jeremy Faro is baffled until his search reveals a jewelled cameo of great antiquity. One of a matching pair, containing miniatures of Mary Queen of Scots and her husband Lord Darnley, the appearance of its partner in Faro's policeman father's belongings evokes sinister and disturbing childhood memories of a thirty-year-old unsolved mystery. The 'Egyptian Style Curse on Edinburgh Castle', as it was known in the popular press, resulted in violent deaths, including that of Constable Magnus Faro. During masonry repairs, the mummified remains of an infant, wrapped in cloth of gold dating back to the sixteenth century, were found entombed in the wall of Mary Queen of Scots' apartments. Jeremy Faro soon discovers there are perils for those who seek the identity of 'the baby in the wall'. Faro's own life is in constant danger and one day his own two small daughters, on holiday from Orkney, disappear . . .

It is not the happiest of journeys to the other side of the world for a family Christmas. Nina Hemslow knows that when she accepts the invitation to join her wealthy friends, Nicola and Jocelyn Foley, for the Foleys had recently lost their only child - a daughter who vanished without trace from her pram outside a supermarket, and whom police and parents are convinced is dead. Moreover, the Foley's marriage is on the rocks, and Nina is reluctantly drawn into their mutual suspicions and recriminations, with each accusing the other of desiring the partner's death. Yet when sudden death occurs in the midst of an Australian Christmas, with turkey and plum pudding in a temperature of ninety degrees, it poses some very curious problems. Their unravelling and the dramatic solution in London show Elizabeth Ferrars at her vintage best.