Death On The Rocks

Lucy Trimble is retained by Greta Golden to find the identity of the man Greta is certain is following her.

Since leaving the army, Peter Blair has embraced a quiet life of solitude and sailing off the Salcombe coast. So it's an unpleasant shock when he stumbles across a body on the rocks off Prawle Point. The case seems simple, if sad - the woman is identified as Edna Brown, a mousy London secretary whose hotel room contains a suicide note. But all is not as it seems. Someone is very keen to keep Peter quiet, and before long he realises that if he wants to stay safe, it is up to him to solve the mystery of Edna's real identity - and who would kill to keep her quiet. In this first Peter Blair mystery, master of 1970s crime J.R.L. Anderson spins an exhilarating yarn. Disguises and codes, drug smuggling and murder: Peter must use all his wits to make sure his first investigation is not also his last.

Hired to investigate a seemingly accidental death, a PI discovers a perverse secret Denver oilman Phillip Townsend is alone in his Jaguar when he drives off the cliff. The police call it an accident, but his widow, half mad with grief, insists it was murder. Her husband was quiet, cautious, boring—so what was he doing on the outskirts of Denver, driving drunk down a lonely mountain road? The Townsends’ lawyer hires Jacob Lomax to look into the matter, letting him know that it would be best if the official version of the story were quietly confirmed. An ex-cop who became a detective in the wake of his wife’s murder, Lomax is too dedicated to his work to simply parrot a police report. Digging through the dead man’s office, he finds a tape that shows Townsend and an accomplice binding, gagging, and raping a teenage girl. The most boring millionaire in Denver, it seems, had a secret that was worth killing for.

Trading in Texas heat for Maine's tangy salt air, Natalie Barnes risked it all to buy the Gray Whale Inn, a quaint bed and breakfast on Cranberry Island. She adores whipping up buttery muffins and other rich breakfast treats for her guests until Bernard Katz checks in. The overbearing land developer plans to build a resort next door where an endangered colony of black-chinned terns is nesting. Worried about the birds, the inevitable transformation of the sleepy fishing community, and her livelihood, Natalie takes a public stand against the project. But the town board sides with Katz. Just when it seems like things can't get any worse, Natalie finds Katz dead. Now the police and much of the town think she's guilty. Can Natalie track down the true killer before she's hauled off to jail...or becomes the next victim? Murder on the Rocks is an Agatha Award nominee.

Apothecary John Rawlings is intrigued when a letter arrives asking him to investigate an impostor claiming to be the long-lost step-son of a wealthy Bristol merchant in possession of his dead wife's diamond inheritance. John Rawlings' father, Sir Gabriel Kent joins him on the trip to take the healing waters at Hotwell where they socialize with the crème of Bristol society. But Rawlings is compelled to try and solve the mystery and so he must trawl through the underbelly of eighteenth-century society to unearth the sordid secrets at the heart of the investigation.