Search Results for: brothers

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 long years of struggle, the fight for acceptance and equality is over. The mutant clans have fit themselves and their extraordinary talents into the mainstream of human society. But when peculiar phenomena begin in the New Mexican desert – “miracle” cures, supernatural rescues – the issue of mutancy rises once more to the forefront of human affairs. At the center of the conflict are three strong and vastly different personalities, three men who will guide the tides of human destiny – and ultimately the tides of evolutionary destiny as well:

Joachim Metzger – Leader of the mutant clans, desperate to keep the hard-won peace and prosperity his people have finally achieved.

Julian Akimura – The brilliant therapist who banished his twin brother, Rick, in the hopes of saving humanity from his unsurpassed mutant talents.

Rick Akimura – The long-sought supermutant, the promise of whose power has been the building force of mutant society for centuries – and whose coming is nothing that anyone could have foretold.

For hundreds of years the mutants walked among us, concealing their dazzling psychic abilities, living in fear. With the coming of the 1990s, the mutants took their rightful place in normal human society in a storm of political upheaval. Now, as summer ripens for the mutant clans, the long struggle for equality nears its end. But the mutants’ awesome talents – and their belief in the coming of a mutant messiah – still set them apart. The clans can join together in hope…but for how long?

Alanna, talented in her own right, but overshadowed by the brilliance of her mother, the world-renowned artist Narlydda.

Julian, he gifted graduate student, hoping to forge a link between medicine and mutant healing – and between himself and the beautiful researcher, Eva Seguy.

Rick, Julian’s mercurial twin brother, whose lack of mutant talents is his burden…and his freedom.

Strange currents are flowing, and the entire world is about to change. Unthinkable and unspeakable powers are about to be released, powers that not even the massed mutants can control.

In the unfettered freedom of Russia’s new-found venture-capital frenzy, Max Borodin can organise anything – so long as the readies are ready. That’s why he’s Moscow’s most successful businessman.

But Max’s life has its downside: his wife, Tanya, nags him, his mistress, Sonya, exhausts him; his brother Evgeny needs him – to help extricate him from yet another shady business fiasco. Then there are always the country’s friendly mafia, keen to lend a helping hand with the profits of Max’s Universal Manufacturing Company – producer of documents, historical and otherwise, to suit every conceivable occasion.

Satire rarely comes more sulphuric than this. Let’s Put the Future Behind Us is the wittiest job of fictional surgery on New Russia since its iron curtain was amputated.

A great safari had come to Africa to make a movie. It had struggled across the veldt and through the jungle in great ten-ton trucks, equipped with all the advantages of civilization. But now it was halted, almost destroyed by the poisoned arrows of the savage Bansuto tribe. There was no way to return. And ahead lay the strange valley of diamonds, where hairy gorillas lived in their town of London on the Thames, ruled by King Henry the Eighth. Behind them came Tarzan of the Apes with the Golden Lion, seeking the man who might have been his twin brother in looks – though hardly in courage!

It seemed like a good idea; even a noble experiment. But the outcome was sheer hell.

When the Balduin brothers escaped from the tedium of the human hive of Atlanta, Georgia, they had a mission. They were to voyage to the planet Trope, contact a tribe there known as the Ouemartsee, and transport it to Glaparca for a useful purpose.

But suddenly the Balduin brothers discovered that they were in the slave trade, and that the Ouemartsee had made one of them a God . . .

On the gold-symbol world of Beresford’s Planet, Richard Kirby lived in total luxury. As a member of “The Set” his life was a never-ending round of planetary party-hopping. The only restriction imposed on him – that he never put down on any world marked with a red or black symbol – was something that he had always accepted without question.

That is, until his brother Alec was murdered in cold blood! Alec had been an undercover agent to those forbidden planets, and in order to avenge him, Kirby had to find out for himself what was really happening there.

But with the start of his investigation, Kirby found out quickly that the authorities meant business when they said “Hands off!” The secret they were protecting was of vital importance, and it now became a matter of life and death, not only to Kirby, but to all the inhabitants of THE CHANGELING WORLDS.

The North shall rise again!
When Avram became King of Detina, he announced his plan to liberate the blond serfs – and immediately plunged the kingdom into a long and bloody civil war, setting brother against brother. The northern provinces, dependent on the labour of their serfs, seceded, choosing Avram’s cousin, Grand Duke Geoffrey, as their king. To save the kingdom, Avram sent armies clad in grey against the north, battling Geoffrey’s army, arrayed in blue.
Though King Avram held more land and wealth than Geoffrey, Geoffrey’s men were better soldiers and the north had more powerful wizards. Still, as the war raged on, the greater population and the superior organisation of the South began to tell and the tide turned against the north.
Even so, the war is far from over. The armies of the sough must now battle the north on its own ground – ground which will prove treacherous and deadly…

Krispos had seized the throne of Videssos as scarcely more than a peasant youth. With wit, luck, and magic, he had held it through a generation of turmoil. But now came his greatest challenge, as he struggled to save his empire from tearing itself asunder.

For a strange heresy had taken root in the land, spreading secretly among peasants and zealots, among the poor and among the traitors. And all too soon, hidden dissent flared into open revolt.

When Krispos led his legions against the rebels, his three sons rode at his side. Phostis, eldest of the princes, was expected to follow Krispos to the throne. But it was Phostis who had given the heretics a hearing, and now it was Phostis who disappeared into the rebel ranks. As the renegades seized their day, Krispos waged ever more desperate war against and implacable foe that would not scruple to set brother against brother, father against son…

This collection assembles in one volume five works by Kate Wilhelm, masterful fantasist and one of science fiction’s premier storytellers:

In ‘Children of the Wind’, identical twins J-1 and J-2 play subtle games with their parents’ lives. Are the boys just precocious, or are they far more strange – and powerful? ‘The Gorgon Field’ finds Charlie and Constance caught in a mystery of mystical proportions in the Arizona desert. ‘A Brother to Dragons, a Companion of Owls’ depicts a future in which survival may not be merely enough – it may be too much, whilst ‘The Blue Ladies’ studies a disabled woman’s abilities to share his vision. ‘The Girl Who Fell Into the Sky’, winner of the Nebula Award for best novelette, weaves a dreamy tale of love, death and an old piano amid the Kansas plains.


These five tales present luminous, absorbing visions of the world as it could be and as it is.

“My lover, my protector, my friend, my doctor, my brother – they’re all killing me.”
Peter Roos cannot help knowing the thoughts of those around him. A rare physical condition has given him that power. Now he has “heard” about the government’s secret plan to give up control of America to the military – to build an underground city for themselves in the event of a nuclear attack. Unfortunately for Roos, the government knows he knows. And the project’s sponsors – including his senator brother – have no choice.
They must get him out of the way – permanently!

When Brother Thomas tries sky-fishing from the monastery roof he knows he is breaking the law, but the few risks seem a small price to escape the stifling boredom of his cloistered life.

What he doesn’t understand is why his insignificant brush with the law makes him the object of a massive manhunt and triggers off such a dramatic chain of events. Certainly he achieves his aim and finds the excitement he craves – but in the process the lives of everyone around him change as well.

Karen White can open ‘doors’ between universes. This power, which she shares with her brother and sister, has been suppressed since childhood. But now it appears in her teenage son, Michael, who is approached by a mysterious figure known only as the Grey Man, a figure who has haunted Karen’s dreams for decades.

Fleeing to her sister Laura’s reality, Karen and Michael undertake a terrifying and painful journey into the past, to discover the secret of their power – and the truth about the Grey Man and his masters.

Humankind has arrived on Moss to discover if any intelligent native life exists there, and to assess the planet, recently discovered by the Derac, a nomadic space-faring race, for development – and profit. Multi-coloured shapes of dancing light have been spotted; strange sounds are heard in the night; the researchers name them the Mossen and send for a linquist to ascertain if it is evidence of intelligent life.

Jewel Delis has accompanied her half-brother Paul to this verdant paradise. Her task is to help Paul decipher the strange language of the Mossen – but she has a secret mission too. A new law on Earth means the imminent massacre of all beasts great and small, so Jewel must discover if Moss holds the promise of sanctuary for the doomed animals – once humankind’s beloved companions.

Time is running out for Jewel’s creatures, but it might be running out for Humanity too: the Planet Moss, itself a living entity, is not sure it cares for any of the species currently living on its surface . . .

For Mavin, coming of age as a shape-shifter is both exhilarating and terrifying. Recklessly headstrong, she is to become notorious in the lands of the True Game. With her brother, she leaves their home – a place of slavery and fear – only to have the boy’s powers of beguilement lead them into danger. Rescued by the Wizard Himaggery, the shape-shift and man of magic make a vow. When twenty years have come and gone, they will meet again.

But Himmagery has vanished, leaving only a letter of love behind for Mavin to find. If he were dead, she would know it: sorcerers could trace the scent of his trail, necromancers raise his bones from the dust. But he has disappeared – beyond the power of wizardy.
And so the search of Mavin Manyshaped begins.

This is the final volume of Sheri S. Tepper’s acclaimed The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped

For Mavin, coming of age as a shape-shifter is both exhilarating and terrifying. Recklessly headstrong, she is to become notorious in the lands of the True Game. With her brother, she leaves their home – a place of slavery and fear – only to have the boy’s powers of beguilement lead them into danger. Rescued by the Wizard Himaggery, the shape-shift and man of magic make a vow. When twenty years have come and gone, they will meet again.

But Himmagery has vanished, leaving only a letter of love behind for Mavin to find. If he were dead, she would know it: sorcerers could trace the scent of his trail, necromancers raise his bones from the dust. But he has disappeared – beyond the power of wizardy.

And so the search of Mavin Manyshaped begins.

This is the second volume of Sheri S. Tepper’s acclaimed The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped.

For Mavin, coming of age as a shape-shifter is both exhilarating and terrifying. Recklessly headstrong, she is to become notorious in the lands of the True Game. With her brother, she leaves their home – a place of slavery and fear – only to have the boy’s powers of beguilement lead them into danger. Rescued by the Wizard Himaggery, the shape-shift and man of magic make a vow. When twenty years have come and gone, they will meet again.

But Himmagery has vanished, leaving only a letter of love behind for Mavin to find. If he were dead, she would know it: sorcerers could trace the scent of his trail, necromancers raise his bones from the dust. But he has disappeared – beyond the power of wizardy.
And so the search of Mavin Manyshaped begins.

This is the first volume of Sheri S. Tepper’s acclaimed The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped

When Marianne’s parents died, leaving control of their fortune to her feared older brother, she struggled to make her way as a student in America – and her old home began to seem as unreal as a fairy tale, her childhood there as distant as a dream . . .

Until the Magus came to claim her, and the Black Madame to destroy her, and the Manticore to hunt her down through the streets of another world – for there is magic in Marianne’s blood, and magic in her soul.

And in a battle fought in an everchanging world of warped time and wicked magic, it is the souls of Marianne and her family that are the ultimate prizes.

Marianne, the Matchbox and the Malachite Mouse is the final volume of Sheri S. Tepper’s acclaimed Marianne Trilogy.

When Marianne’s parents died, leaving control of their fortune to her feared older brother, she struggled to make her way as a student in America – and her old home began to seem as unreal as a fairy tale, her childhood there as distant as a dream . . .

Until the Magus came to claim her, and the Black Madame to destroy her, and the Manticore to hunt her down through the streets of another world – for there is magic in Marianne’s blood, and magic in her soul.

And in a battle fought in an everchanging world of warped time and wicked magic, it is the souls of Marianne and her family that are the ultimate prizes.

Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods is the second volume of Sheri S. Tepper’s acclaimed Marianne Trilogy.

When Marianne’s parents died, leaving control of their fortune to her feared older brother, she struggled to make her way as a student in America – and her old home began to seem as unreal as a fairy tale, her childhood there as distant as a dream . . .

Until the Magus came to claim her, and the Black Madame to destroy her, and the Manticore to hunt her down through the streets of another world – for there is magic in Marianne’s blood, and magic in her soul.

And in a battle fought in an everchanging world of warped time and wicked magic, it is the souls of Marianne and her family that are the ultimate prizes.

Marianne, the Magus and the Manticore is the first volume of Sheri S. Tepper’s acclaimed Marianne Trilogy.