Steven Pacey

In 1964, an Australian girl is eager to find the wreckage of the bomber in which her father died when it crashed in Italy in 1944. She employs Jack Kirby who also served in Italy. He is keen to find Francesca, the Partisan leader he fell in love with. What they uncover is more complex and dangerous than they imagined.

On the face of it DCS Simon Serrailler has had time to recuperate after the violent incident that cost him his arm, and nearly his life. Lafferton is apparently going through a quiet patch, so far as crime is concerned, until one night two local men open their front door to a distressing scene.

Simon makes a serious error of judgment when handling the incident. The stress of this, combined with the fact that he refused all offers of counselling after the loss of his arm, takes its toll.

In her new role as a private GP, Simon's sister Cat's medical and counselling skills are tested by terrible and unexpected events at the homes of two very different Lafferton women. Their unreliable father, Richard, has returned to live nearby, and t's not long before he's up to his old tricks.

Book 10 in the Simon Serrailler series.

War may be hell but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso's employ, it's a damn good way of making money too. Her victories have made her popular - a shade too popular for her employer's taste. Betrayed, thrown down a mountain and left for dead, Murcatto's reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die.

Her allies include Styria's least reliable drunkard, Styria's most treacherous poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a Northman who just wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the nation. And that's all before the most dangerous man in the world is dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started...

Book 1 in the World of the First Law series.

Half of Lafferton is afloat after freak floods and a landslip on the Moor has closed the bypass. As the rain slowly drains away, a shallow grave and a skeleton are exposed; the remains of missing teenager, Harriet Lowther, last seen 16 years ago. Another case for Simon Serrailler.

The discovery of an ancient coffin in the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey leads the local monks to believe they have found the remains of King Arthur and his queen. When the relics are stolen Gwyneth and Hereward set out to find them.

Meet Charles Boxer - ex-army, ex-police and now a high-stakes kidnap recovery specialist. When the beautiful Alyshia D'Cruz, daughter of Indian tycoon Francisco 'Frank' D'Cruz is abducted, Boxer is the only man Frank will trust to go down into the criminal underworld to retrieve her.

DCS Simon Serrailler has long regarded drugs ops in Lafferton as a waste of time. Small-time dealers are picked up outside the local secondary school, they don't have any information about those higher up the chain, they're given a fine or a suspended and away they go. And rinse and repeat. But when the body of a 22-year-old drug addict is found in neighbouring Starley, the case pulls Simon into a whole new way of running drugs. The foot soldiers? Vulnerable local kids like Brookie and Olivia, who will give Simon a bitter taste of this new landscape. It is a harsh winter at home as well as work. Simon's GP sister Cat and her husband Kieron (also Simon's boss) are struggling with medical dramas big and small. A trip to Bevham General on her rounds sets off alarm bells for Dr Cat, and a visit from her son Sam as he tries to work out if his midwifery course is right for him coincides with a threat to their beloved family dog. Simon is working hard, but he's restless, wondering what next. There's nothing new going on for him in Lafferton, but sometimes the familiar holds surprises, too . . .

MGB officer Leo, a man who never questions the Party line, arrests whoever he is told to arrest. He dismisses the horrific death of a young boy because he is told to, because he believes the Party stance that there can be no murder in Communist Russia. Richard & Judy Bookclub

Robert is alone in a strange jungle, and can't understand how he got there. With no food or shelter he has to get out, so begins his adventure, and his perilous journey home.

Four days after his funeral Albert Wilkes comes home for his tea. Before his death he worked at the British Museum. Why was he the first of many employees to die?

In response to the White Guardian's warning of great danger, the TARDIS materialises on the heaving deck of an Edwardian racing yacht. But the Doctor soon discovers that this is no ordinary yacht - and no ordinary race.  Captain Striker is competing for an unusual prize: 'Enlightenment'. The crew will be lucky to reach port safely. But with such a prize, would they be lucky to win?

Residing on the threshold of E-Space with the Tharil Laszlo, Romana is on the trail of a terrible enemy. Allies of the enslaved, the duo ride the Time Winds in search of the desperate Sluagh. Meanwhile, on a bloody American Civil War battlefield, young soldier Joshua is haunted by spectres: pale, vicious-looking aliens who prey upon the dead to raise an army of living corpses. With the fabled Kairos Ring they can carve portals into other dimensions - and, by accident, Joshua is blown through one of them. United with Romana and Laszlo against the dreadful Sluagh, Joshua finds himself catapulted into a strange new world of learning. But one secret is waiting to catch up with him...

Laura McGill is in Piccadilly with a colt .32 in her handbag. She is desperate to find out what happened to her sister Diana, who was flown into occupied France in 1944 and never returned. Not knowing if she is alive Laura sets out looking for her despite security service attempts to stop her.

Fergus Crane is transported on a winged mechanical horse to his long lost uncle Theo. When Fergus finds out that the teachers on his school ship are pirates he sets off to rescue his schoolmates from Fire Island.

They say Black Dow's killed more men than winter, and clawed his way to the throne of the North up a hill of skulls. The King of the Union, ever a jealous neighbour, is not about to stand smiling by while he claws his way any higher. The orders have been given and the armies are toiling through the northern mud. Thousands of men are converging on a forgotten ring of stones, on a worthless hill, in an unimportant valley, and they've brought a lot of sharpened metal with them.

Over three bloody days of battle, the fate of the North will be decided. But with both sides riddled by intrigues, follies, feuds and petty jealousies, it is unlikely to be the noblest hearts or even the strongest arms that prevail.

Book 2 in the World of the First Law series.

In 1946 the war has ended but times are still difficult for civilians and returning servicemen. In Somerset a young Polish soldier finds work on Billy Snape's farm. Just as the community starts to accept Wladislaw he falls in love with the fiancéof a returning war hero.

Oskar is a 12 year old boy living on a dreary housing estate and is bullied at school. Eli is the young girl who moves in next door. She is also a 200 year old vampire, forever frozen in childhood, and condemned to live on a diet of fresh blood. Against the odds, they became friends and come to depend on one another, for life itself.

On the battlefields of the North, the next generation of would-be heroes rushes to make the same bloody mistakes as the last.

While the age of the machine dawns, the age of magic refuses to die. One might glimpse the future, through the curse of the Long Eye, but changing it is another matter altogether.

The chimneys of industry rise, the cities seethe with opportunity, and even kings must kneel before the new power of the banks. But in the slums, anger is brewing, and soon it will boil over with a rage that all the money in the world cannot control... 

Book 1 in the Age of Madness series.

At St Oswalds, a long established school, unwelcome change is about to happen. Beneath the usual school rivalries there are darker undercurrents as a bitter hidden but carefully nurtured grudge is about to erupt.

This is the story of John Self, consumer extraordinaire. Rolling around New York and London, he makes deals, spends wildly and does reckless movie-world business, while grabbing everything he can to sate his massive appetites: alcohol, tobacco, pills, pornography, a mountain of junk food and more. Ceaselessly inventive and thrillingly savage, this is a tale of life lived without restraint; of money, the terrible things it can do and the disasters it can precipitate.

When troubled artist Rachel Kelly dies in her attic studio in Penzance, her husband and adult children have more than the usual mess to clear up. She leaves behind an extraordinary and acclaimed body of work, but also a legacy of secrets and emotional damage that will take months to unravel. Richard & Judy Bookclub. X rated, contains offensive language and explicit sex.

Engineer Marcus Attilius is placed in charge of the aqueduct that serves the area around the Bay of Naples, and must undertake repairs near Pompeii. Although Marcus has several problems in his life he will soon face an event that makes all other concerns seem trivial!

The tremendous climax of the Bartimaeus sequence. Three years on from the events in The Golem's Eye, the magicians' rule in London is teetering on a knife-edge, with strikes, riots and general unrest. The Prime Minister is largely controlled by two advisers, one of whom is 17-year-old Nathaniel. Meanwhile, living under a false identity, Kitty has been researching djinn; she has come to believe that the only way to destroy the magicians is with an alliance between djinn and ordinary people.

Kitty seeks out Bartimaeus and embarks on a terrifying journey into the djinn's chaotic domain - the Other Place - which no human being has ever survived. But even as she does so, Makepeace engineers a dramatic coup d'etat. The outcome is a shattering of the magicians' control and all magical laws are turned upside down. Can Bartimaeus, Nathaniel and Kitty settle old scores to prevent the earth's destruction?

A schoolboy is kidnapped as he waits for his lift to school. A handicapped young woman dies, but has someone helped her to her death? An ex-con finds it impossible to stay straight. They all inhabit a small community with terror and evil in their midst. Simon Serrailler investigates.

The Soviet Union in 1939 is unprepared to face the onslaught of Nazi Germany. For the coming battles, Stalin has placed his hopes on the T-34 tank, a 30-ton steel monster. But its design is not yet complete. And when Colonel Nagorski, the weapon's eccentric architect, is found murdered, Stalin sends for his most trusted investigator, Pekkala.

Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she'll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she's not a woman to flinch from what needs doing. She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old stepfather Lamb for company. But it turns out Lamb's buried a bloody past of his own, and out in the lawless Far Country, the past never stays buried.

Their journey will take them across the barren plains to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feud, duel and massacre, high into the unmapped mountains to a reckoning with the Ghosts. Even worse, it will force them into alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, and his feckless lawyer Temple, two men no one should ever have to trust...

The past never stays buried...

Book 3 in the World of the First Law series.

In the third Simon Serrailler novel, the DCI finds love at last in the form of a feisty red haired priest. The plot hinges on a grieving husband who descends into obsession and violence.

Lev is on his way to Britain to seek work, so he can send money back to Eastern Europe to support his mother and daughter. He struggles with the mysterious rituals of 'Englishness', and the fads of the London scene. We see the road Lev travels through his eyes and share his dilemmas. Orange/Baileys Prize.

Simon Serrailler is recalled from a sabbatical to investigate the murders of two local prostitutes. The toll of missing women gradually increases and includes one of the Cathedral wives but the investigations all lead to dead ends.

Fifteen hundred soldiers died at Slapton Sands during training for the D-Day landings, but no one seems to want to know why. Thirty-two years later, an American student arrives determined to discover the true story of their tragic sacrifice, but her presence is unwelcome.

Henry Chester, a domineering and puritanical Victorian artist, discovers the perfect model in nine-year- old Ellie. Ten years later they marry, but Ellie is being drawn into a dangerous underground world where she discovers Henry's secret past.

In the space of 32 hours, the children of six billionaires are taken off the streets in a well-planned kidnapping. When your child goes missing, you need Charles Boxer. A man who will stop at nothing. The wealthy parents of the missing children know that Boxer will do more than the police can, but soon the investigation goes beyond the corridors of power and into even darker corners. Nobody knows what this mysterious kidnap gang ultimately want - and, if they have a cause, what is it?

Unrest worms into every layer of society.

The Breakers lurk in the shadows, plotting to free the common man from his shackles, while yesterday's heroes nurse grievances and noblemen bicker for their own advantage.

The King of the Union struggles to find a safe path through the maze of knives that is politics, only to see his enemies, and his debts, multiply.

The old ways are being swept aside, but those who would seize the reins of power will find no alliance, no friendship, and no peace, lasts forever.

Book 2 in the Age of Madness series.

When a woman disappears on 'the Hill', the police are not alarmed., but when a young girl, an old man and even a dog also disappear there is growing concern in the quiet cathedral town. Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler and constable Freya Graffham have to solve the mystery behind a gruesome sequence of events.

Simon Serrailler has to deal with with a number of apparently motiveless murders. Could the link be love and marriage?

The Breakers and Burners have seized the levers of power, the smoke of riots has replaced the smog of industry, and all must submit to the wisdom of crowds.

With nothing left to lose, Citizen Brock is determined to become a new hero for the new age, while Citizeness Savine must turn her talents from profit to survival before she can claw her way to redemption. Orso will find that when the world is turned upside down, no one is lower than a monarch. And in the bloody North, Rikke and her fragile Protectorate are running out of allies... while Black Calder gathers his forces and plots his vengeance.

The banks have fallen, the sun of the Union has been torn down, and in the darkness behind the scenes, the threads of the Weaver's ruthless plan are slowly being drawn together...

Book 3 in the Age of Madness series.