Manna From Hades

Eleanor Trewynn is a widow of some years living in Port Mabyn, a small fishing village in Cornwall, England. In her younger days, she traveled the exotic parts of the world with her husband. These days, she's retired and founded the local charity shop. Her niece, Megan Pencarrow, transferred nearby, and was recently promoted to the rank of Detective Sargent. Perhaps the only downside is that she is now working for a DI who doesn't approve of women on the police force and who really doesn't much approve of Megan's aunt Eleanor, as she is something of a thorn in his rather substantial side. All of these factors collide when, the day after collecting donations, Eleanor and the vicar's wife find the dead body of a longhaired, scruffy-looking youth hidden in the stockroom of the charity shop. Then they discover that some donated jewelry thought to be fake is actually very real, very expensive, and the haul from a violent robbery in London. Making matters more complex, the corpse found in the storeroom is apparently not one of the robbers. Carola Dunn's Manna from Hades is a confounding Cornish case of daring theft, doublecross, and a wily older woman confronted by a case of murder most foul.

"Adept at showing character through witty dialogue, Dunn paints an amusing picture of a small town that readers will want to visit again soon." —Publishers Weekly on Manna From Hades Eleanor Trewynn is a recently retired widow who has moved to the small village of Port Mabyn in Cornwall. Neither frail nor retiring, after a lifetime of traveling the world, she's ready for an uneventful life with her dog and friends in this quiet town. Unfortunately, excitement seems to happen around her. Her friend and neighbor, artist Nick Gresham, returns from a trip only to find several of his paintings slashed, reportedly by rival local artist Geoffrey Clarke. When Nick goes to have it out with him, with Eleanor in tow, they find Clarke's body in his studio, fatally stabbed in the back. Accused of the crime, Nick ends up in jail, while Detective Inspector Scumble and DS Megan Pencarrow, Eleanor's niece, investigate. But in A Colourful Death, the second Cornish Mystery from Carola Dunn, Eleanor isn't leaving anything to chance—she starts doing a little investigating of her own, and soon learns that Nick is far from the only one with a compelling motive for murder.

When stolen jewelry turns up in a charity shop & an unconnected body is discovered in the stockroom, you might think the policewould be glad of a little help with their enquiries. After all, Eleanor Trewynn did find the body.

An isolated spot in the Cornish countryside is no safe haven when a determined foe is out for blood... Having worked for an international charity in her days before retiring to Cornwall, Eleanor Trewynn is asked by the Commonwealth Relations Office to assist in secret negotiations about to take place in a hotel just outside Tintagel. Meanwhile her niece DS Megan Pencarrow, as well as investigating the disappearance of Port Mabyn solicitor Alan Freeth, is sent to help provide security for the conference. So is her bete noire, DS Ken Faraday of the Yard. They have to escort to Tintagel two African students, refugees from Ian Smith's Southern Rhodesia. Everyone arrives at the hotel in a raging storm, as do two sinister Londoners who have followed Megan from Launceston. Who are they and why have they turned up in the depths of rural Cornwall? Are they spying for Smith? And what is their connection with the missing solicitor? The answers set the scene for murder, and take Eleanor and Megan on a chase across fog-bound Bodmin Moor in a desperate attempt to prevent further deaths. Praise for Carola Dunn: 'Adept at showing character through witty dialogue, Dunn paints an amusing picture of a small town that readers will want to visit again soon' Publishers Weekly 'Dunn has a knack for writing meatier-than-usual cosies with strong female characters, and she has another charming winner here' Booklist

In March of 1926, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her friend and collaborator Lucy (a.k.a. Lady Gerald) head off for several days at stately home reputed to have the best grotto in the country. Working on a book of follies (architectural), they plan to research and photograph it. Leaving her husband and young twins behind, Daisy is expecting a productive weekend at Appsworth Hall, with the only potential difficulty being keeping Lucy from offending the current owner, a manufacturer of plumbing products. Alas, it's not to be quite so simple. At the home, they find themselves faced with a curious assortment of people including the abominable, tactless Lord Rydal, who is rumored to be having an affair with one of the guests while at the same time in ardent and artless pursuit of the hand in marriage of another. When the grotto explodes with Lord Rydal in it, it's not a question of who would do it—as most who've met him would be sorely tempted—but who actually did do it.

The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.

Out of Control chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the machines and systems that drive our economy are so complex and autonomous as to be indistinguishable from living things.

The Finnish author of Troll: A Love Story delivers a work of “scathing satire . . . that sits somewhere between Margaret Atwood and Kurt Vonnegut” (NPR). The Core of the Sun further cements Finlandia Award–winning author Johanna Sinisalo’s reputation as a master of literary speculative fiction and of her country’s unique take on it, dubbed “Finnish weird.” In an alternative historical present, The Eusistocratic Republic of Finland has bred a new human sub-species of receptive, submissive women, called eloi, for sex and procreation, while intelligent, independent women are relegated to menial labor and sterilized so that they do not carry on their “defective” line. Vanna, raised as an eloi but secretly intelligent, needs money to find her sister, who has disappeared. Vanna forms a friendship with a man named Jare, and they become involved in buying and selling a stimulant known to the Health Authority to be extremely dangerous: chili peppers. Then Jare comes across a strange religious cult in possession of the Core of the Sun, a chili so hot that it is rumored to cause hallucinations—a temptation so enticing that it just might divert the addicted Vanna from her quest . . . “A chilling tale reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale . . . A fascinating story centered on gender politics.” —The Washington Post