Murderous secrets are lurking in the City of Canals! 1923. Lottie Sprigg is a lowly maid. But when she's hired by a wealthy heiress, she embarks on a thrilling journey across Europe and beyond. Lottie's expecting exciting exploits and spectacular sights. But she's not expecting murder... In Venice, Lottie befriends a famous opera singer after reuniting him with his lost dog. Early the next morning, the singer's corpse is found floating in the Grand...

Why do we love to swear so much? Why do we get so offended when others do it? In this lively and amusing exploration of the various puzzles that surround swearing, philosopher Rebecca Roache argues that what makes swearing offensive is not really the words at all: the offensiveness lies in what we don't say. The unspoken-and usually unconscious-inferences that speakers and listeners make about each other are key to explaining swearwords' capacity...

Alice Miller's sweeping debut novel charts the love story of two of literatures most fascinating characters: Georgie Hyde-Lees and her husband, W. B. Yeats. On the eve of World War I, twenty-one-year-old Georgie Hyde-Leeson her own for the first time is introduced to the acclaimed poet W. B. Yeats at a soirée in London. Although Yeats is famously eccentric and many years her senior, Georgie is drawn to him, and when he extends a cryptic invitation...

He sends you the clues...and leaves his victims in pieces. When forensic psychologist Harriet Quinn receives the random pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, she knows they hold the key to identifying a sadistic killer's next victim. A victim who hasn't yet been taken. Racing to identify the intended target, she realizes that she has been chosen as Puzzle Master in a deadly game concocted by a twisted serial killer. Teaming up with DI Drew Haskell, she must...

Five lessons in pleasure. One lesson in love. Fraser MacGregor, thirteenth Duke Molineux, seizes the opportunity to use the title he unexpectedly inherited, to further his whisky business. He leaves his Highland home and heads for London where he's accosted by a feisty lass, who smashes a vase over his head. Delilah Hart should be relishing her first London season. But she'd rather be a writer than a bland society wife. Her secret occupation of...

Though her path to the throne was long and paved with treachery, Jane Seymour would win the heart of her king - and heal her own. Jane Seymour of Wiltshire is not meant to go to Court. Not a child like her, with her lack of beauty and no title. But family connections are enough to have her named to the bridal retinue of Mary Tudor. At the French Court, the plain and docile Jane meets the girl who will grow into her rival in years to come: the already...

He's in your home...and you don't even know it. Not everything is as it seems in this sleepy Yorkshire village. DI Drew Haskell is a no-nonsense detective recovering from a devastating personal loss. When a number of young people are found dead in a sleepy Yorkshire village, Haskell believes a murderer is on the loose. But his boss isn't so sure and won't authorize an investigation. Breaking the rules is Haskell's only chance at solving this case. Teaming...

Life's a gamble on the risky Riviera! Lottie Sprigg and her employer arrive in glitzy Monaco where Lottie finds a mysterious note which threatens murder. Before she can act on it, a body is found in a private room at the Monte Carlo Casino. Who wrote the note? Lottie takes a gamble on discovering their identity. But as she and her dog Rosie navigate a web of lies, new dangers emerge. Lottie has her work cut out in a place where money means power....

Beware of the Pharaoh's Curse! Young sleuth, Lottie Sprigg, accompanies her employer to Cairo-a city flushed with excitement after the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. But a shadow looms after the untimely death of Lord Carnarvon-could the Pharaoh's Curse be real? Fears are confirmed when a wealthy hotel guest is poisoned. While some blame the long-dead pharaoh, Lottie's suspicions fall on her fellow guests. They're all up to no good, but can she...

Jean Serjeant, the heroine of Julian Barnes's wonderfully provocative novel, seems ordinary, but has an extraordinary disdain for wisdom. And as Barnes-winner of the Man Booker Prize for The Sense of an Ending-follows her from her childhood in the 1920s to her flight into the sun in the year 2021, he confronts readers with the fruits of her relentless curiosity: pilgrimages to China and the Grand Canyon; a catalogue of 1940s sexual euphemisms; and...