Edward Peel

Unlucky Bertie has only gone and gambled away the entire family fortune.

It's the last in a long line of disasters, and nobody is going to save the Montgomery family this time. But this is no ordinary family - this is the royal family, and Bertie is the Queen's brother. So it's goodbye to the palace and hello to a little house on King Street for these royals.

Who knew getting jobs and fitting in with the neighbours could be so hard? It's time to sink or swim!

This time Alex Rider is in Australia, working for the Australian Secret Service, having teamed up with Ash, once his father’s best friend. An old enemy has a plan to destabilize half the world and there is no one Alex can trust.

It is Midsummer, 1631. While Alexander Seaton and his fellow masters enjoy the holiday with their students, Robert Sim, librarian of Marischal College, Aberdeen, is murdered in a dark alleyway in town. While the university and town authorities investigate the murder, Seaton is asked by the college principal to look into Sim's private life.

The Alpha Force team is born when five teenagers find themselves marooned on a desert island battling against unbelievable dangers - killer komodo dragons, sharks and modern day pirates.

Detective Superintendent Dickson is to be replaced by DS Baverstock, who has no desire to be loved by his subordinates. It is all par for the course for Detective Inspector Bill Slider as he faces the unhygienic fact of a dismembered corpse in a catering establishment - a case which takes him through Hammersmith and Notting Hill.  Book 3 of series.

A Bill Slider Mystery 

It looks as though Inspector Bill Slider has a serial killer on his hands: 'the Park Killer', as the media so innovatively label him, attacks his victims in London's public parks, and when Chattie Cornfield is murdered while out jogging, the pattern fits.

But as Slider and Atherton investigate, it is Chattie's life rather than the killer's that poses questions. There's a startling anomaly between her ritzy lifestyle and her modest income. There are friends who loved her, a sister who hated her, men who thought they knew her, and a mysterious package that poses more questions than it answers.

Who was the real Chattie? Where was she on the last day of her life? And was it love, hate or avarice that drove the hooded figure to kill her?  Book 10 of series.

From the squash court to the golf links, the football pitch to the swimming pool and the race course to the cricket square, no court, grounds, stadium or stand is safe from skullduggery. Entering the arena where sport clashes with crime, this spirited medley of short stories showcases the greatest deadly plays and criminal gambits of the mystery genre.

At the annual fair of St Peter in Shrewsbury a quarrel breaks out between the local burghers and the monks over who shall benefit from the money raised by the fair. A riot breaks out, after which a merchant is found dead and Brother Cadfael must once more employ his skills as a detective.

December, 1142. A brother of Shrewsbury Abbey suffers a fall that almost kills him. He makes a shocking deathbed confession to Brother Cadfael. When the man recovers Cadfael accompanies him on an arduous journey to redeem his past sins.

Gently wades through a torrent of suspects when a body is found floating face down in the river. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing - that's if you can call having too many potential murderers, 'a good thing'. What Gently has to work out is which of them had the cold blooded nerve to smash the victim's skull and dump him in the river.

Good music, fine dining and comfortable surroundings - that's how the Hotel Continental is advertised. Fraud, blackmail, torture and murder - that's what it becomes famous for.

The popular hotel on the English coast built its reputation on its Viennese cuisine and Austrian style but when one of the guests is found dead at the bottom of the nearby cliffs bearing the wounds of a man who has been systematically tortured, Gently brushes aside the hotel's facade of respectability.

International intrigue and a dark secret that stretches from Nazi-occupied Austria across the Atlantic to the back streets of New York leave Gently juggling with a deadly conundrum.

December, 1194. When Christina, the daughter of an Exeter businessman, is raped, Sir John de Wolfe, the county coroner, must bring the unknown assailant to justice. Then Lady Adele de Courcey dies after an illegal abortion, and John suspects the two events are related. But a final, brutal act of violence will bring a new twist to the investigation ...

Gilbert de Rideford, Knight of the Temple of Solomon, claims to have come into possession of a secret that could shake Christendom to its foundations. He asks for Crowner John's help to escape from the secretive order of warrior monks. Swept into a world of religious intrigue and dangerous politics, Crowner John finds himself undertaking a mission to the Island of Lundy - inhabited by notorious pirates - until finally the awful secret itself is revealed.

Max Gordon, a sporty 15-year-old boy, is a pupil at a private school in Dartmoor. Jogging across the moors, he is attacked by an assassin with a pistol. After escaping him, Max discovers that his explorer father has gone missing. Max is determined to find him whatever dangers he may face.

Inspector Purbright receives a very strange telegram, which leads to the discovery of strange passions lurking under the surface of respectable Flaxborough.

The Blitz has forced the evacuation of various government offices from London and Pettigrew accompanies his ministry to the distant seaside resort of Marsett Bay. In this strange atmosphere, Pettigrew begins to fall in love with his secretary, who is also being courted by a widowed man much older than her. Bored and restless, the ministers start playing a light-hearted game of 'Plan the perfect murder' to pass the time. Pettigrew is detached from the silliness - until a real murder happens, and he is drawn into solving the mystery.

Harry Barnett is leading a contented life in Vancouver with his wife and daughter, but when his mother dies he travels back to England, where he meets up with ex-RAF buddies. Invited to a reunion in Scotland, Harry suddenly finds himself in a battle for survival.

Book 11 of the Hornblower series. 1815, the Napoleonic Wars are over. Yet Horatio Hornblower, Commander-in-chief of His Majesty's ships still needs his courage and leadership to ensure that the lasting peace in Europe reaches the turbulent seas of the West West Indies.  Book 11 of series.

In the Yorkshire Dales, Chief Inspector Alan Banks, helped by psychologist Jenny Fuller, uncovers startling secrets in the town of Eastvale. A peeping Tom is frightening the women, glue-sniffing thugs are breaking into homes and an old woman may or may not have been murdered. As the tension mounts, both Jenny and Banks are drawn deeper into events.  Book 1 of series.

Inspector Mallett's stay at the country house hotel of Pendlebury Old Hall has been a disappointment. Room, food and service have been a letdown and he eagerly anticipates the end of his holiday. His last trial is to sit and listen when an elderly and boorish man, whose family once owned the house, joins his table. The next day the man is dead and Mallett unwittingly finds himself investigating the suspicious 'suicide'. 

The perfect quirky nostalgic crime read - a tale of steam trains, giant squid, missing screenplays, missing mothers and a quest for the truth, from the inimitable Malcolm Pryce It's the winter of 1948. The four great railway companies have just been nationalised and Jack Wenlock - the last of a fabled cadre of railway detectives - is thrown out onto the street. Penniless, with new bride Jenny to support, and hiding from a murderous organisation called Room 42, Jack's prospects look bleak. But then a letter arrives from a mysterious Cornish Countess revealing that Jack's mother - long believed to be dead - may have survived a shipwreck off the coast of Java. Seizing the opportunity to track down his only remaining family member, Jack and Jenny board a boat heading East. The trail takes them to a run-down Siamese hotel where a motley assortment of drifters has washed up. Here a spy, an assassin, a deserter, an old soldier and a fading Hollywood movie star all await the arrival of a missing part for a flying boat and a journey that will take them into the realm of myth. But if Jack is ever to see his mother again, he has to stop them...

Max Iversson has been hired as security at a meeting arranged by Fowler who doesn't trust him. Max and two colleagues accompany Fowler to a deserted industrial estate. A journey which ends in a blood bath with three men dead. X rated, contains offensive language and graphic violence.

A stolen painting becomes a potential weapon of mass destruction.
A gangster is so desperate to own a portrait of an unknown person by a forgotten artist that he kills three men. In this fast-moving crime thriller ex-cop John Kite follows the trail of blood to a gallery full of looted Middle Eastern archaeology then discovers that a renegade spy is planning revolution.
Art detective Kite is a sexy tough guy - an ex-firearms specialist who "looks like a young Bryan Ferry" and runs elite Marathon times. His perky sense of humour brings sparky dialogue but his dead parents are a no-go area and his hidden past makes him a marked man.
Can Kite stop the impending cataclysm before he falls victim to the killer himself?
‘I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed it. A treat. I’m a fan. A hugely entertaining story. Characterisation is superb. A “switch off the phone, park interruptions, sit back and enjoy the ride” type of novel.’ Crime writer E V Seymour

While visiting Spain, Jonathon Payne and David Jones are arrested for crimes they committed during their military careers. Fortunately, the CIA brokers a deal on their behalf: all charges will be dropped if they help catch Dr Charles Boyd, a master thief who has stolen some of the finest treasures in Europe. With little choice, the duo begin their pursuit, but then they make a discovery that threatens to rewrite the basic foundations of Christianity...

Laurence Bartram has become something of a recluse following the Great War and his experiences on the Western Front. Then he is contacted by a young woman he once knew, who persuades him to investigate events which have apparently led her brother to kill himself.

Can Lord Peter Wimsey prove that Harriet Vane is not guilty of murder - or find the real poisoner in time to save her from the gallows? Impossible, it seems. The police are adamant that the right person is on trial. The judge's summing-up is also clear. Harriet Vane is guilty of the killing her lover. And Harriet Vane shall hang... But the jury disagrees.

D.I. Marjory Fleming uncovers some unexpected truths about her late father when she is called in to reopen a case which he had formerly failed to solve during his time in the force.

When the brilliant Maynard Keynes walks out on the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, he seems destined to obscurity. But in the crisis-ridden 1920s, he soon finds himself back on the public stage. A man of fierce intelligence but hidden susceptibilities, he is not afraid to speak the truth or hold the powerful to account, in a world on the brink of collapse.

Ballerina Lydia Lopokova has fled the Russian Revolution and is now seeking her own personal salvation. The last thing she expects is to join her fate to that of a Bohemian economist.

Set in a world where personal and political certainties are crumbling, and where the very future of capitalism is in question, this is a novel about money and power, as well as an unusual love story.

Book 1 in the Mr Keynes series.

1926. Maynard Keynes has long been a thorn in the side of the British Establishment. Rejected for his radical ideas, he has made an unlikely marriage to a Russian ballerina.

While Maynard frets about the ever-growing dole queues and plans his route to power by way of the magnetic Lloyd George, Lydia is tormented by the thought of her family in Leningrad. Exiled by the Russian Revolution, she has found fame and fortune as a dancer. Yet however demanding the role of stage celebrity, it is less challenging than that of the supposedly respectable and fortunate Mrs Keynes.

Then comes the Wall Street Crash, followed by a depression the likes of which the world has never seen. In the turmoil of the 1930s, the intellectual Maynard finds that answers must be sought in the most unlikely places.

Investigative reporter Riley Gavin, abetted by laid-back ex-military cop Frank Palmer, sets out to discover why two ageing, long-forgotten gangland members have been executed on England's south coast. The trail leads to Spain's Costa Del Crime and sparks a chain of grisly murders. Soon Riley and Frank are fighting for their lives, caught in the deadly crossfire of a war to gain control of a criminal empire.

It was meant to be a harmless stag-night prank. But with only three days to the wedding, Michael Harrison has disappeared and his friends are dead. Detective Superintendent Roy Grace discovers that the one man who ought to know Michael's whereabouts is saying nothing - for one man's disaster is another man's fortune.. Book 1 of series.

Nick Breakspear thinks he's opted for the easy life. But acting as nursemaid for the idle rich aboard the luxury yacht Wavebreaker in the Bahamas does have its downside. Especially when you come across a bullet-ridden boat not far from the infamous drug baron's hideaway island of Murder Cay. Most people would turn a blind eye. But Nick Breakspear isn't most people...  Book 3 of series.

When Mike Pannett left The Metropolitan Police and moved back to North Yorkshire he was hoping for a quieter life, but rural Yorkshire wasn't as sleepy as he remembered. With an armed robber and the Sunset Gang operating on his patch life is anything but quiet.

Mike is called in to investigate a series of burglaries in which remote farmhouses are being targeted. Then, as winter sets in, two dogs are found running loose and Mike fears the owner has gone missing.

It’s 1968. James Brittain, undercover MI6 agent, has a mission to meet up with a Czech scientist in Prague and report back on what he has to say. What could be simpler? However James finds himself in the right place at the wrong time. Will he manage to complete his mission? Only time will tell. Sequel to 'The 63 Steppes' (11444)

Nick Morris is your classic struggling artist. He paints pet portraits to pay the bills but is always just one big commission away from a more comfortable life. Which is why he agrees to paint the reluctant, hot-tempered hotelier, Jason Robart. But Nick gets more than he bargained for when he finds Jason dead from a shotgun blast to the head in an apparent suicide.

No one seems upset about his death except for his girlfriend Elizabeth, and Nick, who has lost the income from the commission. It turns out Jason owed money to everyone - including some unsavoury Russians.

When Elizabeth goes missing, Nick is concerned, but so is Jason's unpleasant business partner and those persuasive Russians who threaten Nick to reveal everything he knows… or else!