Glenfield BookChats August 2009

"1864 and, once again, Inspector William Monk, now of the Thames River Police, must face a dangerous foe. After a game of cat and mouse, Monk has finally captured Jericho Phillips, the man he suspects of brutally killing a young mudlark, and running a child prostitution ring. In bringing Phillips to justice, Monk hopes to close down the ring and to avenge the memory of Durban, his old commander, who was determined to capture Phillips. At trial, however, justice does not prevail. Oliver Rathbone, Monk's friend, is hired anonymously to represent the accused and when he proves that vital evidence missing, Phillips is freed. Monk, determined to prove Phillips' guilt, begins the investigation again. But as he ventures deeper into London's murky underworld, he realises that Durban may have had his own reasons for pursuing Phillips and, shockingly, that secret support for Phillips may reach further into civilised society than anyone could have ever imagined."--Publisher description.

Moving with his boss to state-level cases, Lucas Davenport, having recently become the head of a family, investigates the hanging deaths of an African American man and a white woman, a case that proves more complicated than it appears.

Dark secrets and lies surround the death of a woman called Red Knot, destined to lead an independent village and the Greenstone clan. The Panther is a sorcerer who is desperate to avert a war but it appears that the lust for blood is now unstoppable.

Dreaming daily of escaping her life of slavery in South Carolina and returning to her African home, slave Aminata Diallo is torn from her family when she is sold and thrown into the chaos of the Revolutionary War, during which she helps create a list of black people who have been honoured for their service to the king.

Mma Ramotswe is widely known for many things; for example, everybody knows about her kindness and her taste for redbush tea and cake -- she is after all traditionally built. Everybody is familiar, too, with her tiny white van, which is beginning to feel its age. Are its difficulties to be terminal, or will Charlie, the feckless garage apprentice, be able to save the day? Mma Makutsi certainly thinks the van's days are numbered, but she can do little to help, as she is experiencing a crisis in her engagement to Phuti Radiphuti. A scheming woman, the pernicious Violet Sephotho, has obtained a job at Phuti's store, clearly intending to prise him away from Mma Makutsi. And Charlie has to deal with a young lady with a baby who she claims is his responsibility. Is all this enough to unsettle Mma Ramotswe?

When the naked, mutilated body of a man is found in a Notting Hill graveyard and the police investigation led by Detective Chief Inspector Grant Foster and his colleague Detective Superintendent Heather Jenkins yields few results, a closer look at the corpse reveals that what looked at first glance like superficial knife wounds on the victims chest is actually a string of carved letters and numbers, an index number referring to a file in city archives containing birth and death certificates and marriage licenses. Family historian Nigel Barnes is put on the case. As one after another victim is found in various locations all over London, each with a different mutilation but the same index number carved into their skin, Barnes and the police work frantically to figure out how the corresponding files are connected. With no clues to be found in the present, Barnes must now search the archives of the past to solve the mystery behind a string of 100-year-old murders. Only then will it be possible to stop the present series of gruesome killings, but will they be able to do so before the killer ensnares his next victim? Barnes, Foster, and Jenkins enter a race against time and before the end of the investigation, one of them will get much too close for comfort.

Lincoln's estranged cousin Arthur Rhyme is arrested on murder charges when forensic evidence from Arthur's home is found all over the scene of the crime. Lincoln grudgingly agrees to investigate the case and soon he and his partner, Amelia Sachs, uncover a string of similar murders and rapes with perpetrators claiming innocence - despite ironclad evidence against them. Rhyme's team realises this "perfect" evidence may actually be the result of masterful identity theft. The investigation points to a master criminal, whom they dub "522." When "522" learns the identities of the crime-fighting team, the hunters become the hunted.

January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man shed never met, a native of Guernsey. He'd come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb. As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island - boasts a charming cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all. Juliet begins a correspondence with the societys members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

Russia 1915 - Aged 16, Georgy Jachmenov steps in front of an assassin's bullet intended for a senior member of the Russian Imperial family. He is proclaimed a hero and soon becomes bodyguard to Tsar Nicholas II's son. 65 years later, visiting his dying wife in hospital, memories of the life they had together flood his mind.

A lonely woman of 53 vanishes in fog. A fat 22 year old never returns from a morning walk. Experienced policemen know that most missing persons either turn up or go missing on purpose. But fresh young D.S. Freya Graffham won't drop it - until she discovers what links the people who disappear on 'The Hill'.

Winston Churchill is at the lowest point of his career. He has spent a decade in the wilderness, ignored, reviled, branded a warmonger. The next morning, a despondent Churchill receives a visitor at Chartwell, a BBC journalist named Guy Burgess, and the course of Churchill's career turns.