"It's Christmastime in Brighton, and the city is abuzz about magician Max Mephisto's star turn in Aladdin. But the holiday cheer is lost on DI Edgar Stephens. He's investigating the murder of two children, Annie and Mark, who were found in the woods alongside a trail of candy--a horrifying scene eerily reminiscent of "Hansel and Gretel." Edgar has plenty of leads. Annie, a dark child, wrote gruesome plays based on the Grimms' fairy tales. Does the...

"In the eleventh installment of the award-winning Ruth Galloway series, she and DCI Nelson are haunted by a ghost from their past, just as their future lands on shaky ground"--

The death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should not be suspicious. Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing out of the ordinary when Peggy's caretaker, Natalka, begins to recount Peggy Smith's passing. But Natalka had a reason to be at the police station: while clearing out Peggy's flat, she noticed an unusual number of crime novels, all dedicated to Peggy. And each psychological thriller included a mysterious postscript:...

"Newly minted PI Emma Holmes and her partner Sam Collins are just settling into their business when they're chosen for a high-profile case: retired music-hall star Verity Malone hires them to find out who poisoned her husband, a theater impresario. Verity herself has been accused of the crime. The only hitch--the Brighton police are already on the case, putting Emma in direct competition with her husband, police superintendent Edgar Stephens. Soon...

"Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. A high school English teacher specializing in the Gothic writer R.M. Holland, she teaches a course on it every year. But when one of Clare's colleagues and closest friends is found dead, with a line from R.M. Holland's most famous story, "The Stranger," left by her body, Clare is horrified to see her life collide with the storylines of her favorite literature. To make matters worse, the police suspect the killer...

"There's nothing Ruth Galloway hates more than amateur archaeologists, but when a group of them stumble upon Bronze Age artifacts alongside a dead body, she finds herself thrust into their midst-and into the crosshairs of a string of murders circling ever closer."--

"When builders discover a human skeleton while renovating a café, they call in archaeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway, who is preoccupied with the threatened closure of her department and by her ever-complicated relationship with DCI Nelson. The bones turn out to be modern--the remains of Emily Pickering, a young archaeology student who went missing in 2002. Suspicion soon falls on Emily's Cambridge tutor and also on another archeology enthusiast who was...

"Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway uncovers the bones of a Victorian murderess while a baby snatcher threatens modern-day Norfolk in this exciting new entry in a beloved series. Every year a ceremony is held in Norwich for the bodies in the paupers' graves: the Service for the Outcast Dead. Ruth has a particular interest in this year's proceedings. Her recent dig at Norwich Castle turned up the body of the notorious Mother Hook, who was hanged...