Book picks similar to
Watermark by Michael Hewes
suspense
mystery
historical-fiction
src-libr
Obake Neko (Ghost Cat): A Pacific Tale
David Michael Gillespie - 2018
As the war comes to an end, the Obake Neko sets sail back to Japan with a cargo of unimaginable value. In the chaos of Japanese surrender, the clandestine vessel and its crew vanish in the seas of the South Pacific.Fifty-five years after the war's end, former U.S. Navy pilot, Bud Brennan breaks into Pearl Harbor's submarine museum in Hawaii. Bud's son, Mike, is still raw from the death of his wife and grappling with a new career but still jumps in to help his dad.But when Bud's antics garner the attention of the Navy's JAG, Mike realizes his father may possess knowledge about the near-mythical Obake Neko and its fabled cargo--knowledge that is also of great value to the Japanese Yakuza.Now, Mike must scramble to learn the whole truth of his father's decades-old connection with the legendary Japanese submarine and fight to defend his father from relentless military authorities and deadly Yakuza operatives.Even decades later, the Obake Neko and its legendary cargo are still worth killing over. Can Mike discover the truth and protect his dad before deadly assailants succeed in silencing Bud forever?
The Child Wore Pearls
Morgan Matthews - 2020
While the pair have always maintained a close relationship, the dynamic she shares with her mother has proven much more challenging throughout the years. Now at seventeen years old, June has found herself contemplating life beyond working at her father’s shop. Though it isn’t until she is befriended by a ritzy, older customer that June begins to come out of her shell. The woman’s kindness and infectious energy are a welcome addition to her young life the summer before her senior year of high school. However, secrets from her mother’s past begin to threaten June’s newfound happiness - calling into question all that she has ever known. Confronted with the often-perverse intentions of the human heart, the teen must uncover the truth which has been concealed by years of deceit.
Lady Hartley's Inheritance
Wendy Soliman - 2005
Her godmother's son, Luc Deverill, the Earl of Newbury, suspects fraud. Thrown together during the social whirl of a Regency season in full swing, Luc is increasingly drawn towards Clarissa but she thinks him an idle dissipate and finds little to admire in the ways of high society. Racing against time to foil those seeking to deceive Clarissa, Luc is horrified when she places herself in the path of danger. At last a woman has dented his impenetrable heart and he rides to her rescue. But has he left it too late to tell her how he feels?
Bonds of Courage
Sandy Hill - 2012
Within an hour, the family is torn asunder. While her husband is away, Indians seize her and their sons, carrying them to an unknown fate. Only her teenage daughter escapes. Alone in the world, young Jane fights to make her way, while her father searches frantically for her. Amidst the turmoil of the Revolutionary War, the family struggles to reunite. Soon even greater tragedy erupts. Book club discussion questions included. Also by Sandy Hill: "Tangled Threads," set in a 1890s cotton mill village. The novel tells the story of two strong women whose lives intersect through the years in both painful and joyful ways.
The Drumbeater
Clive Allan - 2013
The task of unravelling the mystery falls to history graduate Neil Strachan, now a career cop, fast tracked into a new role on Northern Scotlands Major Enquiry Unit. When Neil calls upon German naval historian, Matthias Fuchs, to help identify the remains, a name soon emerges, that of a dashing young U-boat ace who mysteriously disappeared in 1941: Korvettenkapitän Max Friedmann. Neil seeks the assistance of Glendaig’s elderly residents, but encounters an impenetrable wall of silence, causing him to suspect that they know far more about the young submariner than they are willing to impart. With more questions than answers, and under mounting pressure from his cynical boss to wrap up the enquiry, Neil embarks on a race against time to discover the truth. He begins to unravel a tale of subterfuge, escape and astounding loyalty. A tale that will ultimately reveal a secret that could have changed the course of World War Two...
Chasseur à Cheval
Griff Hosker - 2013
The fast moving and action packed book follows his progress in the Chasseurs from the capture of the Dutch Fleet on the Texel to the conquest of Malta. He meets Napoleon Bonaparte and serves with him in Italy. A story of the early days of the French Revolution.
Mrs. O'Malley's Midnight Mystery
M. Louisa Locke - 2020
O’Malley, especially when you have seven children and are forced to live in one of the crowded neighborhoods South of Market. Late one night, as she sat at the window of her crowded flat, sewing and worrying, she noticed something strange going on across the street. Her decision to investigate will have unexpected consequences. Mrs. O’Malley’s Midnight Mystery is a short story in the Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, and it comes right after the short story, Dandy’s Discovery, and before Lethal Remedies, the seventh novel in the series.
A Precarious Homecoming: An Arabella Stewart Historical Mystery
D.S. Lang - 2021
An immediate impediment arises when she becomes involved in a murder investigation. Helping solve the crime is crucial, but Bella must work with Constable Jackson Hastings. Once part of her life, Jax turned his back on Bella after her brother, his best friend, died in the trenches. His cold attitude hasn’t softened, but she can’t let that stop her. Both her hometown and family resort, once popular tourist destinations, may not survive if the crime isn’t solved quickly.Jax, a war veteran, faces his own challenges. Wounded in body and spirit, his dreams shattered, he finds himself doing what he said he’d never do—follow in his father’s footsteps as constable. When a wave of crimes hit the town, culminating in murder, his competence is questioned. In a struggle to find the killer and save his job, Jax needs all the help he can get—but he doesn’t want assistance from Bella. Not when he feels responsible for her brother’s death. But more is at stake than his job. He can’t stand by and let Moreley become a ghost town. Nor can he watch while Bella loses Ballantyne.Working together is the only way to solve the crime and offer hope—to their community and for themselves. Will their efforts succeed, or will it be a precarious homecoming?
The Docent
Tom Kenny - 2018
A pair of the city’s most prominent lawyers takes on the task of defending an acerbic tycoon accused of fleecing his niece and nephew of their interest in the family business empire. As the court proceedings take a decided turn against their unforgiving client, defense counsel turn to insidious means in a desperate attempt to avoid a catastrophic judgment. They scheme to besmirch and derail the trial judge through the manipulation of her law clerk. Unknowingly, the clerk provides information that could involve Her Honor in the disappearance of the priceless museum paintings. The story unfolds in both posh and hardscrabble neighborhoods of Boston and its suburbs as its players succumb to greed, power and love, without concern for those left in their backwash.
Soot
Andrew Martin - 2017
Matthew Harvey's death is much discussed in the city. The scissors are among the tools of his trade - for Harvey is a renowned cutter and painter of shades, or silhouettes, the latest fashion in portraiture. It soon becomes clear that the murderer must be one of the artist's last sitters, and the people depicted in the final six shades made by him become the key suspects. But who are they? And where are they to be found?Later, in November, a clever but impoverished young gentleman called Fletcher Rigge languishes in the debtor's prison, until a letter arrives containing a bizarre proposition from the son of the murdered man. Rigge is to be released for one month, but in that time, he must find the killer. If he fails, he will be incarcerated again, possibly for life.And so, with everything at stake, and equipped only with copies of the distinctive silhouettes, Fletcher Rigge begins his search across the snow-covered city, and enters a world of shadows...
Polly's Pride
Freda Lightfoot - 1998
She has a loving husband, two healthy children, a place of their own and a regular wage coming in. But it is the late 1920s, unrest is in the air, employers are putting on the squeeze, and when Matthew loses his job Polly’s life is thrown into turmoil.With no money coming in Polly decides that only drastic action can keep the family from starvation and in a desperate gamble she sells all the family goods and chattels and buys a handcart, from which she sells second-hand rugs and carpets. But struggling to deal with poverty and her husband’s hurt pride are only the start of her problems, for when tragedy strikes Polly has to do battle with the bigotry of a sour brother-in-law to keep herself and her family from falling apart.
Sherlock Holmes and the Unholy Trinity (The Odyssey of Sherlock Holmes #1)
Paul D. Gilbert - 2015
A colourfully dressed Bedouin brandishing a sword interrupts Holmes and Watson at their breakfast table. He brings a cryptic warning: stay out of the affairs of his people, or face the consequences. Just as the detecting duo begin unravelling that mystery, they are summoned to Vatican City. Cardinal Tosca, the Pope’s right-hand man, has been murdered at his desk and his translation of an ancient scroll has been stolen from the Papal palace. The great detective and his faithful Watson find themselves battling a fog of secrecy. Rumours swirl about a lost gospel and mysterious packages from Egypt, and whispers of a clandestine group known only as the ‘Unholy Trinity’ grow louder. What was the Bedouin intruder so desperate to hide? Why was Cardinal Tosca’s scroll worth killing for? To find the answer Holmes and Watson must go further than they have ever gone before to uncover a centuries old conspiracy. Does this mystery run too deep for even the world’s most famous detective to unravel? In the first part of the carefully crafted first of the Odyssey of Sherlock Holmes Trilogy, Paul D. Gilbert sends this beloved British sleuth from his native Baker Street over land and sea to solve new mysteries. DISCOVER THESE NEW ADVENTURES OF HOLMES AND WATSON. PERFECT FOR FANS OF THE ORIGINAL AND LOVERS OF CLASSIC MYSTERIES. ALSO BY PAUL GILBERT THE ODYSSEY OF SHERLOCK HOLMES TRILOGY Book 1: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE UNHOLY TRINITY Book 2: SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE FOUR-HANDED GAME Book 3: THE ILLUMINATION OF SHERLOCK HOLMES THE LOST FILES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES SERIES Book 1: THE LOST FILES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES Book 2: THE CHRONICLES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES Book 3: THE ANNALS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES STANDALONE NOVEL SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA
The Companion
Sarah Dunnakey - 2017
Potter's Pleasure Palace - the best entertainment venue this side of the Pennines, complete with dancing and swing-boats and picnickers and a roller-skating rink. Billy's ma runs the tea rooms and Billy himself looks forward to becoming the assistant to Mr Potter when he grows up. Until, that is, Mr Potter arranges for Billy to go to High Hob, the big house at the top of the valley, to be companion to Jasper Harper. Jasper lives with his mother Edie and his Uncle Charles, brother and sister authors, escaped from London, and some say debt and scandal, in order to write. On his arrival, Billy finds a haphazard household where nothing that's meant is said, and he runs wild with the untamed Jasper, spending all the time they can on the moors trying to catch The Beast. For four years the boys are inseparable, but when Charles and Edie are found dead, ruled a double suicide, Billy has already left the valley to start a new life in London. His time in the Harper household is written out of history. 2015 - Newly-appointed custodian of Ackerdean Mill, formerly the Palace, Anna Sallis begins to sort through the chaotic archives of the Mill, the Palace and the Harper siblings, and finds documents pointing to inconsistencies in the accepted story of Charles and Edie's suicide. Anna becomes curious about what happened to her neighbour Frank's Uncle Billy, absent from the known story. Why did he leave the valley? And what did he know about the events at High Hob?
Leaving Pimlico
P.B. North - 2014
I can never get used to this, Alexi. Having you, that is. How did I deserve you? Deserve me? You don't have to do anything to deserve me. I love you. It's as simple as that. I love you for what you are. All you need to do is love me back. You don't earn love, as a payment in return.Peter Kingsmill's life had run into the sands since the death of his wife. What was a glittering London career had lost its shine. Until, that is, his life is turned upside down by an unexpected collision of events. He inherits the family estate, meets a girl seventeen years his junior and receives an anonymous letter which casts doubt on all the certainties on which he has built his past life.What follows is a journey of discovery which takes him back in time to war-torn Europe. To a story of betrayal in the secret world of spies and double agents, and ultimately to redemption and a bright new life.The narrative moves at speed from the dusty plains of pre-war Poland to the frozen winter landscapes of German-occupied Norway and finally to the gentle pastoral of the north Yorkshire hills. It is a story of a search for the pieces that make up a human life; and of the love that binds those pieces together....Do you remember the Snow Queen story? I can complete the pattern now. I have everything I need.