Book picks similar to
The Hangmen of Sleepy Valley by Brett Halliday
20th-century-lit
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The Cortés Trilogy: Enigma Revenge Revelation
John Paul Davis - 2016
Throughout the land, a strange legend has long told of an ancient people dwelling deep within the jungle whose possessions include a precious set of stones with the potential to bring unlimited power to its owner. As well as wealth beyond their wildest dreams . . .1904: In an old graveyard in a remote part of the Isles of Scilly, a distinguished academic makes a surprising discovery. The inscriptions on the gravestones are unlike any he has ever seen, at least in that part of the world. The clues point to an astounding possibility. A forgotten Spanish legend. And a four-hundred-year-old cover-up!Present Day: History lecturer Dr Ben Maloney is sitting in his office when the phone rings. A call from his cousin is rarely anything out of the ordinary, but today what he has to say is anything but normal. Their great-great-grandfather's body has been discovered in a boat near a deserted island in the Isles of Scilly. With a bullet through his skull!Dropping everything, the cousins' decision to visit the site of their ancestor's demise soon proves to be one that will change their lives forever. With nothing but a hundred-year-old diary and legends from the past to guide them, Ben soon realises their quest to solve the riddle of their ancestor's death will require them to take on an altogether greater mystery that will lead them not only halfway across the world delving deep into humanity's bloodiest past but potentially to their own deaths. An unimaginable treasure remains undiscovered - one with the ability to change the world for better or worse. And some will stop at nothing to find it . . .
The Chocolate Box Holiday (Pentrillick Cornish Mystery Series, #1)
Daphne Neville - 2017
However, unbeknown to Sandra, the inclusion of her husband’s mother and his maiden aunt in the three week holiday meant that not all family members would be happy to just idle away time. For a recent unsolved murder in Pentrillick would intrigue the two not-so-young ladies, and after examining the facts, they would feel duty-bound to see if they could help bring about a satisfactory conclusion to the mystery. The Chocolate Box Holiday is the first in a new light-hearted series of books set in Pentrillick on the south coast of Cornwall.
Mango Crush: A Mango Bob Adventure
Bill H. Myers - 2019
Traveling across Florida in a motorhome, enjoying a laidback lifestyle while trying to stay out of trouble. But trouble never seems to be far. Especially when it involves women. In Mango Crush, Walker gets an early morning call from the mysterious but lovely Abby - aka the Goat Girl - asking him to drive across the state to pick her up in St Augustine. She says they'll be on the road for a week, so he better bring some wine because she's no fun when she's sober. No way he can turn her down, so he loads up his motorhome and heads out. But this is Florida and things rarely go as planned. Soon Walker finds himself in a different kind of hunt. One that will change his life forever. Ride along as Walker and his cat, Mango Bob, travel across Florida in their motorhome, trying to avoid trouble that seems to show up around every curve. A fun read.
North Korean Memoirs
Mark D. Treston - 2004
An American idealist defects to North Korea in the 1970's only to discover the true horrors of this Stalinist state. What happens next would shock even those familiar with authoritarian regimes. The author, an American Foreign Service worker in china, meets a man by the name of "David". David entrusts the author with his diary and makes the author promise him that the diary will be shown to the world as "evidence of what North Korea is really like". Following this encounter, the author never sees David again.The author discovers that within the pages of this diary lies an incredible story of defection, survival, and an eventual escape by the man he knows only as "David". After staying up and reading the entire diary, the author is convinced that David's story must be told to the world.The diary details David's life from his fairly comfortable upbringings, through his rebellious youth, and into his extraordinary decision to defect to North Korea. At first, David enjoys an elevated status in North Korea as a "hero" and a "patriot" of the socialist cause.During two decades as an English professor at the most prestigious North Korean University, David experiences love, seduction, betrayal, and violence.
The Exile
William Kotzwinkle - 1987
During waking fantasies that take him back in time to the horrors of Nazi Berlin, David becomes Felix, the ruthless Gestapo black marketeer. As reality and dream become inextricably merged, David must take control of Felix before Felix takes control of him.
The Amelia Butterworth Mysteries
Anna Katharine Green - 2011
Miss Butterworth is a nosy high-society lady whose wealth and lack of family give her the free time solve several Victorian-era crimes.Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935) was a pioneering American author of detective fiction. Her legally accurate and intricately-plotted works served to inspire later generations of writers, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, who patterned her 'Miss Marple' character after Green's spinster crimefighter Amelia Butterworth. Includes an active table of contents with back-linking for easy navigation.• That Affair Next Door• Lost Man’s Lane• The Circular Study
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.
The Mountain
Elvi Rhodes - 1995
READERS ARE LOVING THE MOUNTAIN!
"Really enjoyed this book. Right from the start, it gripped your interest. Couldn't wait for times to get back to reading it!" - 5 STARS"Couldn't put this book down." - 5 STARS"Excellent story enjoyed reading it the twists and turns of the main characters keeping you entertained and wanting more thank you " - 5 STARS"Another brilliant book by this author based in Yorkshire again. Family saga at its best. Will definitely read more by this author" - 5 STARS****************************************************PASSIONS IGNITE AMIDST THE HARSH AND RUGGED HILLS OF YORKSHIRE...When Jake Tempest hears of jobs going building the new railway lines, he is drawn to Whernside in the Yorkshire countryside, and the mountain through which a tunnel is being carved.Beth Seymour is the one thing that lightens his harsh new life - but she has a husband and is trapped in an increasingly loveless marriage.As the construction of the railway progresses in the shadow of the mountain, complex passions play out...
Depth Charge
Jason Heaton - 2021
The tragedy sets in motion a dangerous quest for truth that pulls Tusker into a sinister plot spanning 75 years, from World War II Ceylon to modern day Sri Lanka. Along the way, he matches wits with a psychopathic mercenary, discovers a long lost ship with an explosive secret, and falls for a beautiful marine biologist who is at least as strong as he is. In the end, Tusker finds that the truth may lie at the bottom of the sea, with only one way back to the surface. Depth Charge is an old school thriller in the tradition of Fleming, Maclean, and Cussler, with an eye for detail, cunning villains, and narrow escapes. The story is full of wartime secrets, the intersection of religion and politics, and the arcane world of deep technical diving. It takes readers from the smoky halls of 1940s London to the volatile, seductive heat of Sri Lanka and sixty fathoms under the Indian Ocean.
Exclusive Chapter Sampler: A Year of Marvellous Ways
Sarah Winman - 2015
From the author of the bestselling WHEN GOD WAS A RABBIT comes this spellbinding new novel.
Marvellous Ways is eighty-nine years old and has lived alone in a remote Cornish creek for nearly all her life. Lately she's taken to spending her days sitting by the river with a telescope. She's waiting for something - she's not sure what, but she'll know it when she sees it. Drake is a young soldier left reeling by the Second World War. When his promise to fulfil a dying man's last wish sees him wash up in Marvellous' creek, broken in body and spirit, the old woman comes to his aid. A Year of Marvellous Ways is a glorious, life-affirming story about the magic in everyday life and the pull of the sea, the healing powers of storytelling and sloe gin, love and death and how we carry on when grief comes snapping at our heels.
The Girl on the Train
Rachel Wagstaff - 2018
Her only escape is the perfect couple she watches through the train window every day, happy and in love. Or so it appears. When Rachel learns that the woman she's been secretly watching has suddenly disappeared, she finds herself as a witness and even a suspect in a thrilling mystery in which she will face bigger revelations than she could ever have anticipated.Adapted from Paula Hawkins' novel - an international phenomenon selling over twenty million copies worldwide - this gripping new play will keep you guessing until the final moment.
The Obstacle Course
J.F. Freedman - 1994
F. Freedman presents The Obstacle Course, a coming-of-age story that recounts the adventures of a colorful, profane, street-smart, and appealing fifteen-year-old boy growing up in 1957 on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Roy Poole has to be smart because he is almost always on his own. His father is a drinker, womanizer, and wife-beater. His mother can't cope with her husband or her children; Roy copes by running with his own gang, whose escapades sometimes border on the criminal. And this young man is eminently available when the girls come after him, which is often. But there is another side to Roy. He builds model ships and regularly hitchhikes to Annapolis to run the Naval Academy's grueling obstacle course. For Roy Poole's one ambition in life, his consuming dream, is to become a midshipman. One day, like a gift from heaven, Roy meets a retired admiral who also builds model ships. The admiral is immediately attracted to the youngster, and he becomes almost a second father to the boy. Admiral Wells arranges for Roy to be admitted to a military prep school that sends most of its graduates to the Naval Academy. And then, suddenly, Roy's innocence brings about an explosion in this exotic world he has entered. Embittered and lost, Roy strikes out blindly for parts unknown. And on that adventure, particularly in an encounter with members of a black church, people that he, a Southerner in the fifties, has never known except as stereotypes, he begins the process of understanding that offers him a chance for his own redemption. This powerful and gritty coming-of-age novel will evoke memories of Holden Caulfield and Huck Finn. It also bears comparison to the novels of Pat Conroy. Best of all, The Obstacle Course confirms Freedman's talent for telling a compelling story in a full and rich original voice that marks him as a novelist with a limitless future.
The Fabric of Murder
William Savage - 2015
So when a leading cloth-manufacturer is found murdered and his business totters on the brink of collapse, everyone fears his fall will ruin hundreds of working families and cause the economy of the whole county to collapse. In near panic, the mayor and aldermen turn to an unlikely person to solve the riddle: Mr. Ashmole Foxe, a man who claims to be a mere bookseller, yet lives in grand style, dresses like a dandy and associates as easily with the demi-monde as the gentry. With few firm clues to go on and every sign the dead man himself had been hiding many secrets, Mr Foxe sets out to do as the City Fathers want. Who benefited from the death? Why had the murdered man been stockpiling cloth for months? Who is the stranger now trying to buy up all this surplus stock and what will he do with it? Follow Mr Foxe through Norwich’s teeming 18th-century streets as he seeks out the answers and tracks down a killer with more than profit on his mind.
A Prodigal Return (An Irish Family Saga, #5)
Jean Reinhardt - 2016
The couple who survived the Great Hunger have had to watch more than half their family leave the parish. The responsibility to care for one another extends beyond blood or marriage ties for the McGrother family in New York, when a young Irishman goes missing in America. Back in Ireland, at a time when James and Mary least expect it, a family member returns - but not everyone is pleased with the reunion.
The Four Faces: A Mystery
William Le Queux - 1914
Overhearing a conversation at his club one day, he becomes interested in a discussion regarding a man named Gastrell. Gastrell is somewhat of a mystery to the club members in spite of his renting a house from one of them. Berrington’s interest in Gastrell intensifies as his fiancé, Dulcie Challoner, befriends a wealthy widow, Mrs. Connie Stapleton who evidently has some type of relationship with Gastrell. As the plot progresses, Berrington finds himself involved with sensational robberies, brutal murders, coded messages, and even mind control! As in many Le Queux books, there are twists and turns as new characters and locations are introduced. When you are sure you know the ending, something new occurs and you wonder how it will affect the conclusion of the book.Excerpt:"I confess I'd like to know somethin' more about him." "Where did you run across him first?" "I didn't run across him; he ran across me, and in rather a curious way. We live in Linden Gardens now, you know. Several of the houses there are almost exactly alike, and about a month ago, at a dinner party we were givin', a young man was shown in. His name was unknown to me, so I supposed that he must be some friend of my wife's. Then I saw that he was a stranger to her too, and then all at once he became very confused, inquired if he were in Sir Harry Dawson's house - Sir Harry lives in the house next to ours - and, findin' he was not, apologized profusely for his mistake, and left hurriedly."