Mystery England

Once he was called the Sphinx, a man so inscrutable that neither his adversaries nor fellow intelligence operatives could predict his next move. Now a contract agent with a secret mission, Jonathan Wyatt has gone rogue. For eight years he's been scheming to kill two Federal agents, whom he blames for the loss of his career. But as Wyatt prepares for a final confrontation, he makes a discovery that stretches back to the horrors of World War II, to Martin Bormann and Eva Braun and to a fortune in lost gold.

In the quiet seaside town of Weston-super-Mare, a man is found unconscious on the beach with a strange symbol carved into his skin. The victim - a local drug addict - has no recollection of who attacked him or how he got there. The sleepy coastal community is sent into shock. And when another victim branded with the same vicious mark dies from his wounds, DI Louise Blackwell realizes she is dealing with a sadistic serial killer. But why is the twisted attacker targeting Weston’s most vulnerable people? And what is the meaning behind the mysterious symbol?

The Loch Ness monster: a creature that should have died out with the dinosaurs or a legend built on hoaxes and wishful thinking? Sir Peter Scott, internationally renowned naturalist and president of the World Wildlife Fund, was convinced that the monster existed. So were senior scientists at London's Natural History Museum and Chicago University; they lost their jobs because they refused to renounce their belief in the creature.

International number-one best seller Ken Follett returns with The Evening and the Morning, a thrilling and addictive novel from the master of historical fiction. It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages, and in England one man's ambition to make his abbey a centre of learning will take the listener on an epic journey into a historical past rich with ambition and rivalry, death and birth, love and hate. Thirty years ago, Ken Follett published his most popular novel, The Pillars of the Earth, which has sold more than 27 million copies worldwide.

It's the grand opening of Daybreak Island's cat cafe, where customers can get cozy with an assortment of friendly felines - and maybe even take one or a few home. Co-owner Maddie James is purring with excitement over her new warm-and-fuzzy venture, until she becomes entangled in a petty drama between one of her volunteers and a wealthy woman who insists on adopting a calico kitty. The catfight that ensues is bad enough for business. But when the snubbed socialite is found dead with a tell-tale catnip toy on the scene, suspicion lands squarely on Maddie's staffer.

Victorian England is a country of sharp divides between rich and poor, but James Lionel Falconer, who spends his days working at his father’s market stall, is determined to become a merchant prince. James quickly rises through the ranks, proving himself both hardworking and trustworthy and catching the eye of Henry Malvern, head of the most prestigious shipping company in London. But when threats against his reputation - and his life - begin to emerge, James will have to prove he truly is the master of his fate.

Hayley Powell, food and cocktails columnist for Bar Harbor's Island Times, is...well, kind of broke. So when she's selected for that extreme coupon-clipping reality game show coming to town...she's thrilled, especially when her competition is nasty nurse Candace Culpepper. But when Haley stumbles across a face-down-in-the-snow Candace - scissors gleaming between her shoulders - she knows the next thing she'll be selected for will probably be a police line-up.

When Calder Pillay travels with his father to a remote village in England, he finds a mix of mazes and mystery - including an unexpected Alexander Calder sculpture in the town square. Calder is strangely drawn to the sculpture, while others in the village have less-than-friendly feelings toward it. Both the boy and the sculpture seem out of place...and then they dissapear!

The year is 1803 and England and France remain at odds. Hoping to break the English once and for all, Napoleon backs a ring of Irish rebels in uprisings against England and sends the Black Tulip, France's most deadly spy, to the Emerald Isle to help. Meanwhile, not to be outdone by her husband, Letty Alsworthy steals away on a ship bound for Ireland, armed and ready to fight for her spouse and to learn a thing or two about spying for England.

When Evie Parker, Countess of Woodridge, decides to spend a day in London unaccompanied she has no idea she will encounter the one person she has hoped to spend the rest of her life avoiding. There's no escaping Isabel Fitzpatrick's exuberant energy and desire to show off her new husband. However, the encounter sets off a series of events and brings trouble right to Evie's doorstep.

After torrential summer rains uncover a bizarrely tattooed body on a Lake District hillside, a long-disregarded old wives' tale takes on a chilling new plausibility. For centuries, Lakelanders have whispered that Fletcher Christian, made infamous by Mutiny on the Bounty, staged the massacre on Pitcairn so that he could return home. And once there, what if he could tell his story to an old friend and schoolmate, William Wordsworth, who turned it into a long narrative poem—a poem that remained hidden lest it expose Wordsworth to the gallows for harboring a fugitive?

Evangeline "Evie" Parker, Countess of Woodridge, has trekked out to her country estate, Halton House. It's time to pick up the reins and re-establish herself in the district. No easy task when one of her afternoon tea guests is poisoned. Is it a coincidence when another guest is found dead from poison? Scotland Yard steps in. While Evie trusts they will find the killer, she takes exception when the finger of suspicion is pointed at her.

Everyone says Poppy jumped. My beautiful, creative sister, with her paint-splattered dresses and sunshine smile, took her own life. And I think they’re right. Until the day I get a call from a man with a very similar story. Everyone says his sister jumped too. But he has proof that she was pushed. And if she was, I have to ask myself: could the same thing have happened to Poppy?

Published after his death, Dickens brilliantly brings to life a broad cast of colorful characters in the never solved mysterious disappearance of one Edwin Drood, all set in the rural hamlet of Cloisterham around the Cathedral close. Against a background of opium dens, nocturnal graveyard visits, and moldering monastic crypts, Dickens weaves a tightly knit plot centered on the ominous disappearance of young Edwin Drood.

Deciphered from a recently acquired manuscript, this previously unpublished novel of Sherlock Holmes by his chronicler, John H. Watson, M.D., is sure to delight fans of the first "consulting detective." The curate of Wenlock Edge and his wife are embarrassed to ask for help from Sherlock Holmes. They are aware that their problem appears trival, but ask they do. Fortunately for them, there is an unusual item in their story that piques Holmes's interest, and he accepts their case. Anticipating that the solution shouldn't be too difficult, dangerous, or unusually time consuming, Holmes ...

Along the border in Texas, a deadly firefight claims the lives of two Border Patrol agents. On a highway in suburban Virginia, a bomb blast targets the director of the CIA. From the halls of power in D.C., secrets reach out, signing the death warrants of those who uncover them. For CIA paramilitary Harry Nichols, deceit has become a way of life. Fifteen years in the Clandestine Service have left him weary, recovering from a devastating betrayal. Little does he know the betrayals have only begun. With CIA Director David Lay missing and presumed dead, Nichols finds himself tasked with protecting Lay's estranged daughter and hunted by an ex-Spetsnaz kill team. His only mission is to keep her safe. Her only desire is to find the man who ordered her father's murder.

The Peculiar Crimes Unit has solved many extraordinary cases over the years, but some were hushed up and hidden away. Until now. Arthur Bryant remembers these lost cases as if they were yesterday. Here, then, is the truth about the Covent Garden opera diva and the 17th reindeer, the body that falls from the Tate Gallery, the ordinary London street corner where strange accidents keep occurring, the consul’s son discovered buried in the unit’s basement, the corpse pulled from a swamp of Chinese dinners....

It is June in the Year of Our Lord 1143 when Elave, young clerk to William of Lythwood, returns from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with his elderly master's body. His mission is twofold, to bury William in his home abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, and to deliver a dowry to William's adopted daughter Fortunata. But Elave, suspected of harboring views inimical to church doctrine, is held for ecclesiastical trial. And when Aldwin, the Lythwood family clerk hired in Elave's absence, is stabbed to death, Elave is incarcerated not only for heresy, but for murder. Fortunata's dowry, an intricately carved box with mysterious contents, holds the key to the mysteries that spring up around Elave and the Lythwood family. Shrewd and patient, Brother Cadfael is at his best here. Performed by Tony Award-winning actor Derek Jacobi, this sixteenth chronicle of Brother Cadfael is sure to delight old friends and new fans.

Six weeks. Just forty-two short days. That’s all it takes to rip the heart out of a city and change the lives of those who live there. Forever. One such life belongs to Ryan Jarrod. In the early hours of a wet winter’s morning on Tyneside, Ryan Jarrod approaches the end of his second shift as a Special Constable when he stumbles across the body of a savagely beaten Teddy McGuffie, a down-at-heel taxi driver. On the same night, an explosion rips through the heart of Newcastle upon Tyne’s student community. Casualties are high; the city brought to a standstill. And the University blast ...

A gothic horror novel set in London and Egypt during the early 20th century, this book embarks on a chilling journey into the arcane. From the smoky streets of London, reaching into the depths of ancient Egyptian mysteries, the novel bridges across time and space to unveil a tale that's frighteningly immersive and compellingly cryptic. Unfolding the MysteryThe story unfolds with a chilling nocturnal encounter in the heart of London's Victorian mansions. Trail the steps of Steven Strausberg—a tenacious barrister—as he is unwittingly drawn into a spiraling vortex of cryptic riddles and ...