Sarah Rayne
1) Death notes
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English
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Phineas Fox has mixed feelings when he's asked to research the infamous 19th-century violinist Roman Volf for a TV documentary. Hanged for his part in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, Volf was a notorious criminal and womaniser, whose glittering talent was undermined by his scandalous private life. However, on uncovering evidence which suggests that Volf could not have been involved in the Tsar's murder, Phin's investigations lead him...
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Pub. Date
2021.
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English
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"Having unexpectedly inherited an Elizabethan manor house in rural Norfolk, the new owner Quentin Rivers has asked Phineas Fox to investigate the house's history. Phin soon becomes immersed in The Tabor's dark and mysterious past, and in the course of his research uncovers tales of a curious dance, the Cwellan Daunsen: a dance that has not been performed for centuries but whose strange legend still lingers. The dance has a dark side; whenever it took...
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English
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"Music researcher Phineas Fox has been enjoying his latest commission, gathering background material for a biography of Franz Liszt. But although he has - as anticipated - uncovered plenty of scandal in the 19th century composer's past, matters take a decidedly unexpected turn when his investigations lead to Linklighters, a newly-opened Soho restaurant built on the site of an old Victorian music hall, and unearth evidence of a possible murder involving...
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Pub. Date
2014.
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English
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Fosse House, home of the reclusive Luisa Gilmore, harbours curious secrets -- secrets that stretch back almost a century, to the ill-fated Palestrina Choir in its remote Belgian convent. When Oxford don Michael Flint travels to the house to trace the origins of the long-dead Choir, he is at once aware of the house's eerie menace. Who is the shadowy young man who lurks in the grounds, and why does his exact likeness appear in a sketch from 1917? What...
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English
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When Benedict Doyle finds himself the owner of his great-grandfather's north London house, he's dismayed: it was in that house that a sinister darkness of his family's past was revealed. Through that darkness runs the grisly thread of an old legend about a chess set: 32 carved figures believed to possess a dark power, but shut away in the forgotten library of a tumbledown Irish castle for many decades. And when Nell West begins to compile an inventory...
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"London, 1908. The Fitzglens are proud of their reputation as one of London's leading theatre families. They are, however, equally proud of another profession which they pursue very discreetly . . . When not on stage, they are thieves. Jack Fitzglen's latest plan is to seek out the infamous Talisman Chalice, steal it and create a dazzling piece of theatre around it. He travels to Vallow Hall in Northumberland to find the mysterious Maude - the last...
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Pub. Date
2018.
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English
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"When Phineas Fox is asked to help with the music for bicentenary celebrations at Cresacre Abbey School, he does not expect to find fragments of a sinister medieval ritual within a locally-written opera. As Phin follows the threads of the past, he discovers that curious legends about the school's history still linger, including the fate of a group of nuns who disappeared without trace more than 200 years before"--Provide by publisher.
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Pub. Date
2017.
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English
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A mysterious 1940s' portrait leads researcher Phineas Fox to uncover a devastating wartime secret in this chilling novel of suspense. Phineas Fox finds it impossible to refuse when his sport-loving neighbour Toby begs for his help in finding out what's happened to his cousin Arabella, who seems to have disappeared without trace. The only clue to her whereabouts is an obscure 1940s' portrait left in her flat, a gift from her godfather, Stefan. The...
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The discovery of an old scrapbook in a Warsaw library leads researcher Phineas Fox to uncover evidence of a devastating wartime atrocity. "We had no choice. But it was a bad way for them to die." When music researcher Phineas Fox is asked to verify the contents of an old scrapbook, rescued from the site of the historic Chopin Library in Warsaw, he is initially sceptical. But he soon discovers an intriguing link between the Library and an infamous...
10) Deadlight Hall
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English
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When Michael Flint is asked by a colleague to investigate a reputedly haunted house, he is intrigued. Leo Rosendale's childhood was blighted by a macabre tragedy in the grim Deadlight Hall--a tragedy that occurred towards the end of World War II, involving twins who vanished. The fate of Sophie and Susannah Reiss was never discovered, and Leo has never been able to forget them. When Michael, together with his fiancee Nell, begins to explore Deadlight...
11) The bell tower
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English
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When Nell West starts extending her Oxford antiques shop, she is not expecting to uncover strange fragments of its past: fragments that include a frightened message scribbled on old plasterwork, dated 1850 and referring to someone called Thaisa.She also uncovers a mysterious link with a village on the Dorset coast - a village with an ancient bell tower and dark memories of a piece of music known locally as Thaisa's Song. The sea is gradually encroaching...
12) The silence
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English
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Soon after arriving at her late husband's childhood home, a home that is said to be haunted and built on the grounds where the notorious Isobel Acton committed a vicious crime, Nell West starts hearing soft piano music even though the piano is locked and the key is missing. As events begin to spiral out of control, Nell comes to realize that the music is tangled with Isobel Acton's macabre fate.
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English
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Alison Weir, bestselling author of The Captive Queen
When the village of Priors Bramley was shut off in the 1950s so that the area could be used for chemical weapons-testing during the Cold War, a long history of dark secrets was also closed off to the outside world. Now, sixty years later, the village has been declared safe again, but there are those living in nearby Bramley who would much rather that the past remain hidden.
When the village is...
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English
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A house with a sinister past – and a grisly power - When Michael Flint is asked by American friends to look over an old Shropshire house they have unexpectedly inherited, he is reluctant to leave the quiet of his Oxford study. But when he sees Charect House, its uncanny echoes from the past fascinate him – even though it has such a sinister reputation that no one has lived there for almost a century. But it's not until Michael meets the young...
15) Devil's Piper
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English
Description
On inheriting his grandfather's tumbledown Irish cottage, adjoining the grounds of an old monastery, Isarel West discovers some old sheet music composed by his grandfather entitled the Devil's Piper Suite, and starts to play it. But little can he realize the evil that the music conjures up.
16) Thorn
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English
Description
For several hundred years the Ingram family has lived under a curse - the taint of homicidal madness which manifests itself in the females every 80 or 90 years - and it appears the madness has struck again in the beautiful Imogen. But Dan Tudor, a writer commissioned to produce a feature on the family, is not convinced. His investigations are about to lead him to a horror beyond imagining.
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English
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The brutal history of an abandoned English prison comes to life in this gothic novel of superstition, criminality, and capital punishment.
In the northwest of England, Calvary Gaol was a fearsome house of correction where many prisoners were put to death before it was shut down. With its grim façade and terrifying past, it remains as foreboding as ever. Especially on a chilly night, when its ghosts can all but be heard chattering: from the...
18) Burning Altar
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English
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Patrick Chance was a notorious Victorian rake whose memoirs of his travels through Tibet caused a sensation at the time. But, having retraced his ancestor's footsteps, Sir Lewis Chance is the only one who knows the truth. For he has also stumbled on the strange, secret tribe who guard the sinister Stone Tablets in remote Tibet. A group whose perverted beliefs, blood rituals and horrific customs have torturous, hellish consequences.
19) Changeling
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English
Description
Secretly aware of his own shortcomings as a writer, Tod Miller appeals to his daughter, Fael, to help him construct a full stage musical. One evening Fael is accosted by a mysterious young man who claims he can help her write the show. However, there's a sinister condition attached to his offer.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
A mysterious 1940s' portrait leads researcher Phineas Fox to uncover a devastating wartime secret in this chilling novel of suspense. Phineas Fox finds it impossible to refuse when his sport-loving neighbor Toby begs for his help in finding out what's happened to his cousin Arabella, who seems to have disappeared without trace. The only clue to her whereabouts is an obscure 1940s' portrait left in her flat, a gift from her godfather, Stefan. The painting...