Robin Bailey

There were two things wrong when someone found Mr Meredith in the library of Ornum House and greeted him with a 'good morning'. For one thing, it was five o'clock in the afternoon and for another, the greeting took the form of a murderous blow.

Decades ago Germans bombed the village at Lamb Lane, but now redevelopment is under way. During the excavation, the skeleton of a girl is found with a bullet lodged in her spine. The trail is stone cold when Inspector Sloan takes on the case.

Two years after his death Jack Argyle is acquitted of the murder of his mother. This revelation of innocence now casts doubt upon the whole Argyle household.

Detective Inspector Sloan knew there would be trouble when he was called in to the student sit-in at Calleshire University. The dons were nervous, the students excited - a clash of some kind seemed inevitable. But what did happen was totally unexpected, with the discovery of a man found bleeding slowly to death and able with his parting breath only to utter one enigmatic phrase. But what significance can 'Twenty-six minutes' really have?

When Jean Paget comes into an inheritance she is able to return to Malaya. This visit changes her life when she discovers that the soldier she thought had died is still alive.