Search Results for: brothers

Suicide – or murder? The tiniest clue holds the answer.
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club

When Florence Penny’s body is found hanging from a beam in the bedsit she has been renting, it looks to Inspector Field like a case of suicide. Soon, though, he realises murder is the motive, and the discovery of a single pink bead among the disordered bedclothes leads him to prime suspect Charles Hobart.

It’s now up to Scott Egerton, Hobart’s prospective brother-in-law, and an astute private inquiry agent named Gordon to establish Hobart’s innocence . . .

Philip Castleford was more than worried. Were all those years he had spent attending to Winifred’s whims, enduring her habits, to count for nothing? He hadn’t minded it too much for he thought that his daughter Hilary would have security – but now he found her shabbily treated and his own position undermined by his wife’s grasping brothers.

Such were the affairs at Carron Hill one fine morning when Winifred was discovered murdered in the deserted summer house …

‘A really first-rate detective story’ T. S. Eliot

When twin brothers Roger and Neville Shandon are murdered by poisoned darts in Whistlefield’s famous hedge maze, Sir Clinton Driffield arrives to restore order. He finds two terrified witnesses – visitors to the estate – and clues aplenty in this brilliantly conceived and meticulously realized country-house mystery.

Matthew Damon was a loving father and a figure of moral rectitude. Why, then, has a rumour of scandal followed him, denying him the knighthood he thought he had earned? Why had he, long ago, repeatedly and alone visited the cells of condemned young women?

Behind the discreetly drawn curtains at High Chimneys something sinister lurked. Black-haired Kate and demure Celia were suspect. Brother Victor was distraught. The second Mrs Damon was indiscreet. And murder was done.


‘Faultless puzzle in detection’ New York Times Book Review

When Kirstie Macfarlane’s younger brother is framed for stealing a Van Eyck portrait, she puts the case in the able hands of ex-Scotland Yard Inspector John Raven.

Seduced away from his quiet life on the Thames, Raven dives back into the seamy London underworld filled with police corruption and high-handed swindles. Kirstie and Raven soon realise they have more than one opponent and their lives are perilously on the line.

‘Donald MacKenzie is a born storyteller’ Guardian

When schoolboy Jason Cutler is killed late one night in a hit-and-run, the police are puzzled by the presence of a letter in his locker, to which is attached a five-pound note. They are unable to identify its author, nor can they ascertain why the boy was out so late at night.

Solicitor Rosa Epton has followed the case with interest, but when a client she has recently defended on a drugs charge turns up dead in the grounds of the school, her involvement becomes professional. It seems unlikely that the two cases are connected, but why does Jason’s brother deny having seen him in the days leading up to his death? And who was the girl seated opposite Rosa on the train and behaving erratically on the day news of the accident came out?

In the fourth Rosa Epton mystery, Underwood’s protagonist, whom Mystery Magazine declared ‘one of mystery fiction’s most talented attorneys’, is called upon to defend the scapegrace younger brother of an acquaintance.

Then the acquaintance himself is murdered, his skull crushed with a statuette of the Indian goddess Lakshmi, and Rosa must divide her time between manipulating a magistrate smitten with her charms and divining the culprit’s identity.

Ian MacKellar seeks out Julia. He discovers her on a farm she runs, where she maintains her younger brother and sister. But his obsessive pursuit of Julia becomes stymied by members of her dysfunctional family.

The action unfolds in a West Country English village by a dark pond in the secluded woods near Julia’s family home. And it is below the surface of that pond that tragedy awaits …

Mark Hawkins is an engineer and a loner, who has always resented his adventurer-archaeologist brother, Dick. But when Dick vanishes, allegedly dead in a climbing accident, Mark starts investigating the site his brother was excavating, a Cistercian monastery, and meets three strange souls who were the last to see his brother alive.

Among them is Dr Merrion, a specialist in medieval archaeology. As Mark pokes around the woods surrounding Merrion’s home, he begins to feel that sinister forces are at play in Dick’s death.

‘Beautifully put together with an atmosphere that literally chills you’ San Francisco Chronicle

After a meteor explosion, Rikardon wakes in a new body-and in a strange desert land named Gandalara, where a sacred gem known as the Ra’ira grants its owner the power to rule-or to destroy…

Victory is sweet-but for Rikardon and Tarani, it is all too brief. Although they have retrieved the sword of the Kings from the lost city of Kä, a savage battle with the vineh mars their journey back to Raithskar. These ape-like creatures were once controlled through the power of the Ra’ira. Now they pose a threat both to the cat-like sha’um and humanoid Gandalarans.

To restore order, Rikardon and Tarani must travel to Eddarta, where Tarani can use the Ra’ira against the increasingly vicious vineh. First she must face her treacherous brother, Indomel, and convince the Council to name her High Lord in his place. Indomel will not take such betrayal lightly, but another danger is about to reveal itself-a sinister and ambitious traitor who has been hiding in plain sight all along.

When a yacht explodes in the Bahamas, apparently killing six people, Sam Boyleston, an attorney from Texas and the brother of one of the victims, is compelled to investigate the circumstances, as does Raoul Kelly, a newspaper reporter.

After the disaster the yacht’s burned captain was temporarily marooned on a small island, and soon it becomes apparent that one person is ruthlessly manipulating events. But for Boyleston and Kelly proving guilt appears impossible …

‘A major suspense novel’ New York Times

On the surface, they seem like three very different people: Danny Bronson, a cunning ex-con struggling to go straight; his brother, Lee, a former Gridiron star turned college professor; and Johnny Keefler, a crooked parole officer who lives for revenge. But they all grew up in the same corner of town, a grim little slum known as ‘The Sink’, where life is cheap and might makes right.

And a story that’s just as dark unfolds when their paths cross as men – at the intersection of brutal violence, illicit liaisons, a ‘foolproof’ scam and the intoxicating allure of cold, hard cash.

Four years ago Gevan Dean found his fiancée Niki Webb in his brother Ken’s arms and fled his hometown for a peaceful life in the Florida sun. But now Ken is dead – murdered by a thief, the police say – and Gevan is desperately needed to keep their company, Dean Products, from falling apart.

Everywhere Dean turns he finds only questions and confusion. But he doesn’t suspect the truth behind Ken’s murder or the real goings-on at Dean Products until the stakes get too high to ignore – and the truth explodes violently in his face …

Tamison is a flightless falcon: a worthless man who cannot even work to feed his family. Once a miner like the rest of his family, he lost his nerve after a cave-in trapped him and killed his father and brother. Discovering his wife and children have vanished, stolen away by the Brotherhood, he renames himself in their image: Sueldan. A ratty stray dog joins him, then a fortune teller with a magical ability, a guard whose own sister was lost to the Brotherhood and a mysterious conman who knows more than he¿s letting on. But if Tamison/Sueldan is to rescue them from slavery, he must discover his own wings and take flight.
A man with nothing left to lose must discover his own hidden strengths if he is to save all those he holds dear

A powerful fantasy novel in its own right, set in an expansive and complex fantasy universe, The Price of Blood and Honor brings to a grand climax the tale, begun in The Well-Favored Man and A Sorcerer and a Gentleman, of the kingdoms of Landuc, Noroison, and Phesaotois. The bitter, centuries-old feud between Emperor Avril and his wizardly brother, Prospero, has broken into open warfare, and events and armies are unstoppably on the move. In the midst of all this, Prospero’s two grown children – staunch, unworldly Freia, and her urbanely sorcerous half-brother, Dewar – find themselves thrust into the very heart of the action.

The Price of Blood and Honor is a rich, complex, and splendidly high-handed work, full of epic tragedies and comedies of manners, wars and romances, primal acts of creation, gritty military details, intricate espionage capers, talking animals, mythic beasts, ducks, and a great deal more besides, in the story that is the climax and completion of this series.

That first visit to Mars had been a mistake. A miraculous journey out through the myriad miles of space and back, back through the millennia to a time before Man existed, it had been the chance result of a small-scale malfunction in an experimental matter transfer machine.
But Michael Kane’s first great adventure in a world where great mythic armies battled, where hugely bizarre creatures roamed and deeds of high heroism and dark treachery resounded, was but the start. For as he learned to control and use the machinery, he was to return to Mars again and again.
The second volume of the Martian adventures of Michael Kane, of the proud Princess Shizala, her warrior brother and the darkly beautiful but evil Horguhl, as book two of the Warrior of Mars series is available in ebook for the first time!

In the far future Earth is dying. Society has reverted to a more primitive life, much like the Middle Ages. Two men, Matthew and his brother John, who calls himself “Firefly,” set out to find the time traveller, the one person who can give purpose to their existence, the one individual who can still access past technology. The Firefly, he who lights his own way, seeks the age of Man’s greatness, the time when the human race once owned the stars, when great cities stood in places that have now become rust-bowls.

Hidden away from the world by his mother, the powerful sorceress Heloise Oliver, Pierce has grown up working in her restaurant in Desolation Point. One day, unexpectedly, strangers pass through town on the way to the legendary capital city. Look for us, they tell Pierce, if you come to Severluna. You might find a place for yourself in King Arden s court.

Lured by a future far away from the bleak northern coast, Pierce makes his choice. Heloise, bereft and furious, tells her son the truth: about his father, a knight in King Arden s court; about an older brother he never knew existed; about his father s destructive love for King Arden s queen, and Heloise s decision to raise her younger son alone.

As Pierce journeys to Severluna, his path twists and turns through other lives and mysteries: an inn where ancient rites are celebrated, though no one will speak of them; a legendary local chef whose delicacies leave diners slowly withering from hunger; his mysterious wife, who steals Pierce s heart; a young woman whose need to escape is even greater than Pierce s; and finally, in Severluna, King Arden’s youngest son, who is urged by strange and lovely forces to sacrifice his father s kingdom.
Things are changing in that kingdom. Oldmagic is on the rise. The immensely powerful artifact of an ancient god has come to light, and the king is gathering his knights to quest for this profound mystery, which may restore the kingdom to its former glory or destroy it…”

Xylara is a Daughter of Xy, brought up to do her duty to her country, her king and her people. Her father, the Warrior King Xyron, is dead and her incompetent half-brother Xymund is on the throne; she has chosen to serve her people as a healer, until she is needed to make a marriage of alliance.
But the once-great kingdom of Xy is threatened by the Warlord and his barbarian Firelanders, and her brother Xymund is forced to surrender. The terms are fair: the kingdom will remain under Xymund’s control, and the taxes and tithes are reasonable. All prisoners and wounded are to be exchanged unharmed.
There is just one thing more: to ensure a true peace – no pillaging, no looting, no rapine – the Warlord has claimed tribute.
He claims Xylara, Daughter of Xy, to be his Warprize . . .

Before the dawn of man . . .

. . . there was a covenant between the land and the sea people – a covenant long forgotten by those who stayed on shore, but indelibly etched in the minds of others – the dolphins of Altair.

Now the covenant had been broken. Dolphins were being wantonly sacrificed in the name of scientific research, their waters increasingly polluted, their number dangerously diminished. They had to find allies and strike back. Allies willing to sever their own earthly bonds for the sake of their sea brothers – willing, if necessary, to execute the destruction of the whole human race . . .

After the Gorgorian barbarians conquer the civilized kingdom of Hydrangea, their leader Gudge makes himself king, marries Hydrangean Princess Artemisia and settles down to a highly satisfactory life of drinking and debauchery.

Royal triplets, separated at birth because of a Gorgorian superstition that multiple births suggest the mother’s infidelity, receive very different upbringings. The only girl, Avena, is brought up in the palace as Prince Arbol, heir to the throne and a fearsome swordsman. One brother, Wulfrith, is raised by a shepherd; although a young ewe is his favorite companion, his size makes him a fearsome battler. The other brother, Dunwin, reared by the outlawed wizard Clootie, develops into a talented magician.

War and wizardry, dark deeds and derring-do, matters of state and matters of the heart, and a dragon who thinks she’s a sheep. . . . This modern fantasy is the ultimate saga of flashing swords, high magic, and hopeless dynamic confusion – an event fans of the genre will not want to miss.

Young Ishta found it in the forest, buried beneath dead leaves: a rounded, flattened stone as black as onyx. One side held a golden oval that glowed with a unnatural light. Of course, it had to be magic.

But what did farmers know of magic? It could be dangerous, or it could be some harmless toy. They had to find out.

Since Ishta was too young to bring her discovery to the Baron of Varag’s stronghold, her older brother, Garander, went instead. Once there, Azlia, a beautiful wizard, recognized the stone immediately as Northern sorcery. She had to call Sammel, the local sorcerer, to find out its nature . . . a relic of the last great war.

When the Baron takes the stone for himself, that should have ended things. But it was just the beginning for Garander. Because that magical stone wasn’t the only relic left in the woods…

Sixteen stories about secret places and mean men, containing:

About a Secret Crocodile
Mad Man
Nor Limestone Islands
The Man Underneath
Boomer Flats
This Grand Carcass Yet
In the Garden
Groaning Hinges of the World
Golden Trabant
How They Gave It Back
Maybe Jones and the City
Seven Story Dream
Adam Had Three Brothers
Pig in a Pokey
The Weirdest World
The Ultimate Creature

Harry Keogh is moving on. Though the search for his missing wife and child continues, his heart now lies in Edinburgh with Bonnie Jean-a beautiful Scottish werewolf whose friendly pack and flourishing pub have given him a place he can almost call home.

But from the rocky heights of Sicily, the diabolical Francezci brothers plot the wolf-pack’s destruction; and down in the terrible Pit beneath Le Manse Madonie, an ancient evil schemes.

The vampires conspire. They reach a decision. They choose a vector. Mafia thug Mike Milazzo is no good to anyone, anytime, anywhere . . . which makes him perfect. Disposable.

The brothers infect him with a deadly poison-an engineered plague that even a werewolf could never survive-and they offer him a terrible bargain: successfully contaminate the wolf-pack, and receive the antidote. Fail, and die!

Mike has everything to lose. So does Harry Keogh. But the Necroscope lost everything once before, and he isn’t about to do it again…