The first in the series featuring a madcap pair of amateur sleuths and a delightful outpouring of upper-class English eccentricities - with the odd murder thrown in! Praise for Andrea Frazer's twisty and compelling crime novels: ***** 'Brilliant book, look forward to reading the others in the series. A great story, loved reading it...' Reader Review ***** 'A very nicely written 'tongue in cheek' story with the most unlikely hero and heroine as aged super sleuths... Very enjoyable read' Reader Review ***** 'Loved this story... Look forward to others in the series' Reader Review ***** 'Loved this book... The characters were absolutely brilliant... Well done Andrea Frazer. Highly recommended' Reader Review ***** ' ...I LOVED it... I have read all Andrea Frazer's books and cannot wait for the next one... Buy all Andrea's books - such fun, you won't be disappointed' Reader Review _________ Lady Amanda Golightly of Belchester Towers is a person in complete contrast to the stereotypical image of one of her breeding. She is short, portly, and embarrassingly forthright. If she wasn't calling a spade a shovel, it was only because she was calling it 'trumps'! On a visit to a local nursing home where an old business partner of her father's is residing, she unexpectedly discovers a long-lost friend, Hugo Cholmondley-Crichton-Crump - and stumbles upon murder as well. Installing Hugo in the more civilised and comfortable surroundings of Belchester Towers, the pair turn to sleuthing after Lady Amanda reports her appalling discovery to the local police inspector and is incensed when he treats her as a silly old biddy with an over-active imagination. Her outrage prompts her to teach the impertinent young whipper-snapper a lesson, and she and Hugo (Zimmer frame in tow) embark upon their first investigation, only for murder to become a distressingly frequent occurrence...

Capital punishment for murder was abolished in Britain in 1965. At this time, the way people in Britain perceived and understood the death penalty had changed – it was an issue that had become increasingly controversial, high-profile and fraught with emotion. In order to understand why this was, it is necessary to examine how ordinary people learned about and experienced capital punishment. Drawing on primary research, this book explores the cultural life of the death penalty in Britain in the twentieth century, including an exploration of the role of the popular press and a discussion of portrayals of the death penalty in plays, novels and films. Popular protest against capital punishment and public responses to and understandings of capital cases are also discussed, particularly in relation to conceptualisations of justice. Miscarriages of justice were significant to capital punishment’s increasingly fraught nature in the mid twentieth-century and the book analyses the unsettling power of two such high profile miscarriages of justice. The final chapters consider the continuing relevance of capital punishment in Britain after abolition, including its symbolism and how people negotiate memories of the death penalty. Capital Punishment in Twentieth-Century Britain is groundbreaking in its attention to the death penalty and the effect it had on everyday life and it is the only text on this era to place public and popular discourses about, and reactions to, capital punishment at the centre of the analysis. Interdisciplinary in focus and methodology, it will appeal to historians, criminologists, sociologists and socio-legal scholars.

After their decision to move into the world of sleuthing, Sherman Holmes and John Garden have a tricky time coming to grips with their new roles as private investigators. Things would work out just fine if people didn’t keep getting themselves murdered all the time. The local police aren’t very sympathetic – they even have the audacity to consider that Holmes & Garden aren’t much help at all! This anthology of five stories covers their early cases, as shadowy undercover investigator Joanne puts in some surprising appearances, and Holmes continues on his campaign to woo the lovely Mrs Garden ...

In 1772 Manchester was a fast growing town thanks to the rise in industrialisation. Elizabeth Raffald was a busy entrepreneur involving herself in numerous business ventures. She ran a shop, a cookery school, a coaching inn, a servant's employment register, wrote a cookbook and supported the local newspaper financially, wrote a manuscript on midwifery and so much more. She produced her 1769 cookbook, The Experienced English Housekeeper and saw a need for a directory of traders and notable people. Only 3 years after producing her cookbook she had compiled the first ever directory for Manchester, followed by a second a year later as the town grew and addresses were improved. She produced a third directory in 1781. After she died in 1781 it took another 7 years before anyone else attempted another directory. Elizabeth Raffald was truly a pioneer of her time. For more about Elizabeth see 'The Experienced English Housekeeper of Manchester' by Suze Appleton

Elizabeth Raffald was an amazing woman, achieving a great many things in a short time. She was an author, innovator, benefactor and entrepreneur as well as a mother and a wife. From the age of 15 she was in service as a housekeeper to great families and at the age of 30 began her career in business. She began with catering, included a school and employment office before writing this cookbook which contains her own original, innovative recipes, giving us wedding cake, stock cubes, Eccles cakes and much more that we take for granted. She gained a huge reputation for her confectionery skills, while running shops and a coaching inn, giving financial aid to the only newspaper in Manchester at the time, producing the town's first ever directory in 1772, (only the second after London), supporting several poor widows of the area, collaborating on a book of midwifery, and having 9 children.