Maisie Dobbs takes on her most personal case yet, a twisting investigation into the brutal killing of a street peddler that will take her from the working-class neighborhoods of her childhood into London's highest circles of power. Set in London between the two world wars.

London, September 1666. The Great Fire rages through the city, consuming everything in its path. Even the impregnable cathedral of St. Paul's is engulfed in flames and reduced to ruins. Among the crowds watching its destruction is Richard Marwood, son of a disgraced printer, and reluctant government informer. In the aftermath of the fire, a semi-mummified body is discovered in the ashes of St. Paul's, in a tomb that should have been empty. The man's...

"November, 1853. Inspector Field has summoned his friends Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins to examine a body found in an attic studio, its throat cut. Around the body lie the lacerated fragments of canvas of a painting titled A Winter of Despair. On closer examination, Wilkie realizes he recognizes the victim, for he had been due to dine with him that very evening. The dead man is Edwin Milton-Hayes, one of Wilkie's brother Charley's artist friends....

A note discovered in a wall cavity of a London hotel leads Detective Inspector Harry Vicary and his team to a burial site containing the charred bones of two men. Their investigation quickly pulls them into a dark and brutal world, but who were the dead men? And how did they meet their fate? To solve the case, Vicary must uncover what happened at the notorious gangland garden party from which two men never returned.

"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...

"Gaby Mortimer is the woman who has it all. But everything changes when she finds a body on the common near her home. She's shaken and haunted by the image of the lifeless young woman, and frightened that the killer, still at large, could strike again. Before long, the police have a lead. The evidence points to a very clear suspect. One Gaby never saw coming . . . Full of twists and turns, this is a dark and suspenseful psychological thriller that...

"Meet London police detective Max Wolfe. Insomniac. Dog lover. Coffee addict. Boxer. Single parent. And every murderer's worst nightmare. There's a serial killer on the loose. He cuts throats. And he is good at it. Twenty years ago seven students became best friends at their exclusive private school, Potter's Field, founded five hundred years ago by King Henry VIII. Suddenly they have started dying in the most violent way imaginable... Detective Max...

"A band of vigilante executioners roam the hot summer nights, abducting evil men who they judge unworthy of living and hanging them by the neck until dead. As the bodies pile up and violence explodes all over the sweltering city, DC Max Wolfe--dog lover, single parent, defender of the weak--embarks on his most dangerous investigation yet, hunting a righteous gang of vigilante killers who many believe to be heroes. But before The Hanging Club is confronted,...

Whan a horse trainer is found dead at a racetrack, Doyle and Acton begin interviewing witnesses and the victim's associates, but the killer continues to strike and they're left with more questions than answers. Their investigation is further muddled by their colleagues at CID Headquarters, whose career-driven jelousies and workplace blunders could jeopardize the case--and their nosing into the nature of Doyle and Acton's after hours relationship...

"Desperate to find a case to justify the team's existence, with budget cuts and a police strike on the horizon, Quill thinks he's struck gold when a cabinet minister is murdered by an assailant who wasn't seen getting in or out of his limo. A second murder, that of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, presents a crime scene with a message...identical to that left by the original Jack the Ripper. The new Ripper seems to have changed the MO...