Pauline Phillips

When Stella Reeve is found drowned in a stream it seems like an accident, but Inspector Finch has to investigate all possibilities as it seems that many people had reasons to wish her dead. A book where the crime is in many ways subordinate to the analysis of rural snobbery and insularity.

Not long after the telephone call, Miss Faintley was murdered. It seemed at first unlikely that she, a prim, quiet schoolmistress, could have anything to do with crime. Yet Mrs Bradley's investigations led to some exciting discoveries.

James is fed up. His family has moved to a new cottage – with grounds that are great for excavations, and trees that are perfect for climbing – and stuff is happening. Stuff that is normally the kind of thing he does. But it's not him who's writing strange things on shopping lists and fences. It's not him who smashes bottles and pours tea in the Vicar's lap. It's a ghost – honestly. Thomas Kempe the 17th century apothecary has returned and he wants James to be his apprentice. No one else believes in ghosts. It's up to James to get rid of him. Or he'll have no pocket money or pudding ever again.

Moll Swayne is a magical creature to her children - the Queen of the Pharisees, who dances in the fairy ring. The family lead a gypsy like existence in the forest until Sim is accussed of vagrancy. It is young Will who feels the force of the change that befalls the Queen of the Pharisees' children.

The classic adventure story of a gang of childhood friends who one summer holiday set up The Green Door Theatre Company, and the struggles and triumph of presenting their very first production to family and friends.

When Constance Lawley becomes housekeeper for Colonel and Mrs Dorothea Barrows she meets their grandson, Colin, supposedly orphaned at birth. This is disproved when their daughter Margot arrives and claims Colin is her son. The whole family is later shot and it seems that Colin is the murderer, angry at the deceit of his grandparents.

Clopinet longs for the sea, and dreams of one day becoming a sailor. But Clopinet is lame and his bully of a father sneers at his dreams, sending him away to work as a tailor's apprentice. Miserable and desperate, Clopinet escapes his cruel master to find the sea.