Shortly after 12.30pm on 2 November 2007 Italian police were called to the Perugia home of 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher. They found her body on the floor under a beige quilt. Her throat had been cut. Four days later the prosecutor jailed Meredith's flatmate American student Amanda Knox & Raffaele Sollecito her Italian boyfriend. He also jailed Rudy Guede an Ivory Coast drifter. Four years later Knox & Sollecito were acquitted amid chaotic scenes in front of the world's media. Uniquely based on four years of reporting & access to the complete case files Death In Perugia takes readers on a riveting journey behind the scenes of the investigation as John Follain shares the drama of the trials & appeal hearings he lived through. Including exclusive interviews with Meredith's friends & other key sources Death in Perugia reveals how the Italian dream turned into a nightmare. ...

Florence 1965. A man is found murdered a pair of scissors stuck through his throat. Only one thing is known about him
- he was
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It is Holy Week in Seville & the heat is rising. A murderer is on the loose & visiting academic Maria Gutierrez can see something in his ways that the police are missing. But her insight does nothing to help her popularity in the force
- & draws her to the attention of the killer. The Angel Brothers two controversial modern artists are found dead in a killing that emulates a famous painting & an old lady remembers the atrocities of the Civil War. Maria was supposed to be an observer to the police investigation. But her own past in the city soon puts her one step ahead of the cops.. .and in the killers sights. First published as Semana Santa in 1996 by Harper Collins.
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Five years after Charles II's triumphant return to London there is growing mistrust of his extravagant court & of corruption among his officials
- & when a cart laden with gunpowder explodes outside the General Letter Office it is immediately clear that such an act is more than an expression of outrage at the inefficiency of the postal service. As intelligencer to the Lord Chamberlain Thomas Chaloner cannot understand why a man of known incompetence is put in charge of investigating the attack while he is diverted to make enquiries about the poisoning of birds in the King's aviary in St James's Park. He becomes even more suspicious of his employer's motives when he discovers that the witnesses he needs to interview have close links to the business conducted in the General Letter Office activities more firmly centred on intercepting people's mail than delivering it. Then human rather than avian victims are poisoned & Chaloner knows he has to ignore his master's instructions & use his own considerable wits to defeat an enemy whose deadly tentacles reach into the very heart of the government: an enemy who has the power & expertise to destroy anyone who stands in the way.. .
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Now a major TV series: Quirke starring Gabriel Byrne. When newspaper magnate Richard Jewell is found dead at his country estate clutching a shotgun in his lifeless hands few see his demise as cause for sorrow. But before long Doctor Quirke & Inspector Hackett realise that rather than the suspected suicide ' Diamond Dick' has in fact been murdered. Suspicion soon falls on one of Jewell's biggest rivals. But as Quirke & his assistant Sinclair get to know Jewell's beautiful enigmatic wife Francoise d' Aubigny & his fragile sister Dannie as well as those who work for the family it gradually becomes clear that all is not as it seems.. . Against the backdrop of 1950's Dublin Benjamin Black conjures another atmospheric beguiling mystery. ...

In late January of 1945 with the Allied victory imminent nearly 10 000 German refugees attempted to flee the advancing Red Army aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff a cruise liner-turned-escape ship. As the ship set sail in the dark of night three torpedoes from a Soviet submarine struck the boat causing catastrophic damage & throwing women children the elderly & wounded soldiers into the frigid waters of the Baltic Sea. When a few hours later first light broke over 9 000 people had drowned in one of the worst maritime disasters of all time. For 65 years both East & West kept this story hidden. The drowned were citizens of the future East Germany & part of the Soviet Bloc. & the German victims inspired little sympathy in the West. In Death in the Baltic award winning author Cathryn Prince reconstructs the story of unimaginable horror by drawing on original interviews with ten remaining survivors & newly declassified records. Weaving the personal narratives into the broader history she finally gives this WWII tragedy its place in history. ...

THE MOST AMAZING TRUE STORY SINCE AGENT ZIGZAG OCCUPIED PARIS 1944. A swastika crowns the Eiffel Tower. Nazis march through the streets. & in the dark heart of the city a madman is at work.. . At a chic Right Bank address a horrific pile of dismembered bodies is discovered. The propertys owner well-to-do Dr Petiot immediately becomes the prime suspect but he has vanished without a trace. As the police delve into the doctors past a disturbing history of violence & corruption is uncovered. It seems like a cut-&-dried case but the investigation soon takes a surprising turn. Is Petiot a sadistic serial killer or a hero of the Resistance? Who are his victims? In this fascinating true account of a case that gripped wartime Paris David King draws extensively on new sources to paint a chilling portrait of a murderer whose crimes devastated a city already in the grip of evil. ...

A woman is killed by a poisoned dart in the enclosed confines of a commercial passeneger plane! From seat No.9 Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead in seat No.13 sat a Countess with a poorly-concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No.8 a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp. What Poirot did not yet realize was that behind him in seat No.2 sat the slumped lifeless body of a woman. ...

A full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of an Agatha Christie story. On a flight from Le Bourget to Croydon on which Hercule Poirot is an apprehensive passenger a woman is found dead. A doctor on board is inclined to put it down to a wasp-sting but Poirot suspects that a poisoned dart is the real cause
- & perhaps rather too conveniently a blow pipe is dicovered stuffed down the back of his seat. Clearly the murder can only have been committed by one of the passengers or crew on the plane. But which one? Poirot Japp & M. Fournier of the Surete will make their way through shoals of red herrings before reaching an utterly unexpected conclusion.
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Thea Osbourne is thanking her lucky stars. After two disastrous housesitting incidents in which she has unwittingly become embroiled in murder & mayhem she is only too happy to have a bit of peace & quiet. The only positive thing that has come out of her experiences she thinks is her blossoming relationship with DI Phil Hollis & she relishes the thought of their spending some quality time together while she helps him clear out his late aunts cottage in the small village in which he grew up. Even meeting Phils childhood acquaintance the eccentric Ariadne with her abrupt manner & queer habits cannot detract from Theas happiness. But the bad luck that plagues the hapless Thea & her beloved spaniel Hepzibah is never far away. With autumn drawing in preparations for Samhain or Halloween are well underway when Ariadne discovers a very tangible reminder of the season of death on Notgrove Barrow: a body laid out like a sacrificial victim. Unlikely companions Thea & Ariadne find themselves thrown together as they try to uncover the events that led to the fatality. It soon becomes apparent that the cosy village has more than its share of secrets. But just how far will some go to keep them hidden... ...