The ladies of Clerkenwell Central Hall are none too pleased at having their Temperance meetings disrupted by the rowdy Communists next door, but for Miss Olive Stapleton in particular, the uneasy coexistence proves fatal when she is found stabbed through the heart with a paper-knife. Enter Freddy Pilkington-Soames, who’s been recruited by British Intelligence to investigate a suspected Communist plot to stir up a general strike. Freddy thinks there’s more to Miss Stapleton’s death than meets the eye, but as he delves more deeply into the mystery it only becomes more puzzling. What is the connection between the murder and the coded newspaper advertisements? Is a Welsh firebrand politician really as harmless as he seems? And what does the beautiful wife of an Austrian revolutionary philosopher want from him? It all points to one thing: danger ahead. But time is running out, and Freddy must act fast to stop the conspirators, or risk becoming the unwitting pawn in a deadly game that threatens to bring the country to its knees.

When Hollywood star Dorothy Dacres plummets six floors from her hotel terrace on the night of her greatest triumph, it initially looks like a tragic accident. But her death is so very convenient to her many enemies that press-man Freddy Pilkington-Soames, who was there on the night she died, begins to suspect foul play. And when cocaine is found in her room, it only complicates matters further. Soon Freddy is chasing across London on the trail of drug dealers, in reluctant company with his deadly rival Corky Beckwith, the most unscrupulous reporter in Fleet Street, who will do anything for a story. With the future of a film studio at stake, can Freddy find the culprit—and get one up on Corky—before he becomes the killer's next victim?

It's 1929, and Ticky Maltravers is the toast of London high society, adored by everyone—or so it seems, until somebody poisons him over dinner. Now it turns out that numerous people with secrets to hide had every reason to wish him dead. But which of them murdered him? For Freddy Pilkington-Soames, newspaper reporter and man-about-town, the question hits a little too close to home, thanks to an unfortunate drunken encounter with Ticky's corpse which he'd much rather the police didn't find out about—and thanks also to his exasperating mother Cynthia's seeming determination to get herself arrested by tampering with the evidence. But a pretty girl with big blue eyes is demanding his help in solving the mystery, so what can he do but agree? Now all he has to do is hide the wrong clues, find the right ones, and unmask the murderer before the police discover what's really been going on. That ought to be easy enough. If only people didn't keep getting killed...

When the Grand Duke of Morania learns of a plot to assassinate him, he sends his daughter Princess Irina to school in England, out of harm’s way. British Intelligence scent trouble and ask Angela Marchmont to investigate. But dark forces are at work, and when the Princess disappears in mysterious circumstances Angela must race against time to find her, before the throne falls and Morania is plunged into revolution—or war.

When the Duke of Purbeck throws a house party to celebrate his daughter's twenty-first birthday and present her with a family heirloom, nobody expects that the weekend will end in murder. The fabled Belsingham pearls have a history steeped in blood and slaughter dating back more than a century—and now it seems they've claimed another life, when the interfering and opinionated Professor Coddington is found dead in the library with the pearls clutched in his hand. It looks like a robbery gone wrong, but then why didn't the thief take the necklace? And how did he escape unnoticed, given that half the guests were seemingly wandering around the house at the time of the murder? House guest Freddy Pilkington-Soames has enough on his plate already, with a lecherous nuisance of a grandfather to keep an eye on, a girlfriend his mother disapproves of, and an ex-girlfriend who's engaged to another man but shows signs of changing her mind. But with a killer on the loose in the house, it's time to forget his own troubles and rise to the occasion—or risk a scandal that could destroy the reputation of his whole family.

"It's absolutely delightful, and I would recommend it to anyone who's a fan of Sarah Caudwell, or Agatha Christie, or anyone who loves really clever British murder mysteries set in the '20s." - Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl. On his return from South Africa, Charles Knox is invited to spend the weekend at the country home of Sir Neville Strickland, whose beautiful wife Rosamund was once Knox's fiancee. But in the dead of night Sir Neville is murdered. Who did it? As suspicion falls on each of the house guests in turn, Knox finds himself faced with deception and betrayal on all sides, and only the enigmatic Angela Marchmont seems to offer a solution to the mystery. This 1920s whodunit will delight all fans of traditional country house murder stories.

‘Oh, something is bound to go wrong, but one might as well start out from a position of optimism, don’t you think?’ said Angela. It's fair to say that Freddy Pilkington-Soames is not having a good day. His grandmother is threatening to marry a lounge lizard, his old friend has lost her lover, a racehorse has been kidnapped, a priceless diamond has gone missing, and everybody seems to think he should sort it all out. (Oh, and there's a dead body on the terrace.) Now Freddy's on the sunny French Riviera, caught in the crossfire of a feud between an audacious thief he's locked horns with before and a murderous gang who will stop at nothing to get what they want. He'd keep his head down if he could, but there are questions that need answering. Who took the diamond? Who is double-crossing whom? And is his grandmother's intended quite all he seems? (And where did that dead body go?) A political scandal at the highest level is looming and the future of an international conference hangs in the balance, and once again it's up to Freddy to save the day—in more ways than one.

When an unwelcome figure from her past turns up unexpectedly, Angela Marchmont has no idea that she is about to become the most notorious woman in Britain. Forced to reveal secrets she has kept to herself for many years and which she had thought were safely buried, Angela faces a fight for her very life which she looks almost certain to lose without the help of the man she loves. But what hope does she have when the one man who can save her is the one man who has every reason to abandon her to her fate?

West End theatre impresario Septimus Gooch is a man with many enemies, but when he's found dead in his leading lady's dressing-room the police put it down to an accident. The cast of Septimus's latest musical production at the Jollity Theatre are having none of it, however—this is the second mysterious death in two months, and they're convinced Septimus died after being frightened out of his wits by the ghost that's haunted the theatre ever since it burned to the ground many years ago. A malevolent spirit is on the loose, striking them down one by one. Which of them will be next? Press-man Freddy Pilkington-Soames was backstage at the Jollity on the night Septimus died. He doesn't believe in ghosts, but he knows a suspicious death when he sees one—and when a third person dies there's no doubt this time that a human hand was behind it. Freddy's fending off the attentions of several chorus-girls at once, so has his own distractions to contend with. But murder's no joke, and he'll do anything he can to catch the killer before the whole production falls apart. After all, the show must go on.

From the foremost contemporary chronicler of London’s history, a suspenseful novel that ingeniously draws on Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales to recreate the city’s 14th century religious and political intrigues. London, 1399. Sister Clarice, a nun born below Clerkenwell convent, is predicting the death of King Richard II and the demise of the Church. Her visions can be dismissed as madness, until she accurately foretells a series of terrorist explosions. What is the role of the apocalyptic Predestined Men? And the clandestine Dominus? And what powers, ultimately, will prevail?In Peter Ackroyd’s deft and suprising narrative, The Miller, the Prioress, the Wife of Bath and other characters from Canterbury Tales pursue these mysteries through a pungently vivid medieval London.