The village of South Mardian always observes the winter solstice with an ancient, mystical sword dance--complete with costumed performers. This year, however, the celebration turns into an execution when one of the dancers is murdered. Now Inspector Alleyn has to perform some nimble steps of his own to solve the case. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Folkways turn fatal in a very old-fashioned English village, in this witty mystery filled with “ingenious” detective work (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). The village of South Mardian likes the old ways. The very old ways. This may be 1957, but South Mardian still features a blacksmith, a village idiot, and an elaborate fertility ritual performed at the winter solstice. There’s squabbling, of course, and worse—like when one of the ritual’s main players is found beheaded, everything north of his neck having been neatly lopped off by a ritual sword. Inspector Alleyn does have to contain a certain incredulous amusement at the village’s fetishistic embrace of the eighteenth century—he does not, for example, have a real passion for morris dancing—but he’ll try to keep a straight face long enough to find the killer and let South Mardian return to the warm embrace of pre-Industrial Britain. “A peerless practitioner of the slightly surreal, English-village comedy-mystery.” —Kirkus Reviews “The doyenne of traditional mystery writers.” —The New York Times

Pagan revelry and morris dancing in the middle of a very cold winter set the scene for one of Ngaio Marsh’s most fascinating murder mysteries.

We live forever, barring accidents. Just like everyone else in the universe. The Doctor travels back to the Ancient Days, an era where life flourishes and death is barely known... Then come the Kotturuh – creatures who spread through the cosmos dispensing mortality. They judge each and every species and decree its allotted time to live. For the first time, living things know the fear of ending. And they will go to any lengths to escape this grim new spectre, death. The Doctor is an old hand at cheating death. Now, at last, he can stop it at source. He is coming for the Kotturuh, ready to change everything so that Life wins from the start. Not just the last of the Time Lords. The Time Lord Victorious.

Someone is playing a rather nasty April Fool's prank on mystery bookstore owner Annie Darling. A felonious forger on the idyllic -- if rarely tranquil -- South Carolina island of Broward's Rock has made it appear as if Annie is accusing some of her neighbors of murder. In the wink of a bloodshot eye, the Darling name is mud . . . and then the Broward's Rock body count starts mysteriously increasing. And now it's up to Annie to follow the well-hidden trail of the vicious trickster -- or a secret slayer's next lethal "joke" may very well be on her!

“Complex . . . an atmosphere-filled adventure . . . with a fair quota of surprises . . . a winning combination of strong characters and colorful societies.”—Kirkus Reviews In the final book in the Tawny Man Trilogy, Fitz and the Fool are tested more severely than ever in a book the Monroe News-Star calls “a breathtaking ride from beginning to end.” FitzChivalry Farseer has become firmly ensconced in the queen’s court. Along with his mentor, Chade, and the simpleminded yet strongly skilled Thick, Fitz strives to aid Prince Dutiful on a quest that could secure peace with the Out Islands—and win Dutiful the hand of the Narcheska Elliania. The Narcheska has set the prince an unfathomable task: to behead a dragon trapped in ice on the isle of Aslevjal. Yet not all the clans of the Out Islands support their effort. Are there darker forces at work behind Elliania’s demand? Knowing that the Fool has foretold he will die on the island of ice, Fitz plots to leave his dearest friend behind. But fate cannot so easily be defied.

Set in present day Manhattan, The Fool of New York City is the tale of two souls who are considered to be "fools" and "idiots" in the eyes of most people they encounter. One is a literal giant, the other an amnesiac who believes he is the seventeenth-century Spanish painter Francisco de Goya, hundreds of years old, aging more slowly than the rest of the human race. Billy the giant briefly suffered from amnesia years ago, and he understands the anguish of those who have lost their identity. He is an apparently simple person, a failed basketball player with an enormous good heart, who takes Francisco under his wing after they meet through a seeming coincidence. Together they undertake the search to discover Francisco's true past. The quest leads them on numerous adventures and into the shrouded realm of hidden memories and the mysterious dimensions of the mind. It is a journey into the ironies and the complexities of human character and destiny.

A senseless murder sets in motion a deadly act of revenge as Megan O'Connor, drawn into a kidnapping plot three years ago, finally finds happiness with her recent engagement to a wonderful man, a pillar of the community.