The Missing Corpse

"Roll over Maigret. Commissaire Dupin has arrived." —M.C. Beaton on Death in Brittany "Very satisfying...along the lines of Martin Walker’s novels set in Dordogne, or M.L. Longworth’s Aix-en-Provence mysteries." —Booklist on Murder on Brittany Shores The Missing Corpse is internationally bestselling author, Jean-Luc Bannalec’s fourth novel in the Commissaire Dupin series. It’s picturesque, suspenseful, and the next best thing to a trip to Brittany. Along the picturesque Belon River, home of the world famous oyster beds, between steep cliffs, ominous forests and the Atlantic Ocean, a stubborn elderly film actress discovers a corpse. By the time Commissaire Dupin arrives at the scene, the body has disappeared. A little while later, he receives a phone call from the mystical hills of Monts d'Arree, where legends of fairies and the devil abound: another unidentified body has turned up. Dupin quickly realizes this may be his most difficult and confounding case yet, with links to celtic myths, a sand theft operation, and mysterious ancient druid cults.

Some years ago New York Supreme Court Justice Joseph Crater walked out of his office, turned south along Broadway, and disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again.. There were headlines, public clamor and widespread excitement, but the true-life case was never solved. Something of that same breathless mystery is aroused in this story when Stephen P. Wyndham, internationally known sportsman and last in a line of a rich and respected New York family, vanishes into the gloom of a drizzly Havana night. What is behind the grim crime in that fashionable hotel room? Why would a popular young sporting idol drop blankly from existence? Follow in the steps of the ambitious young newspaperman, as he pieces together a set of mocking clues that lead through murder and violence, all the way from a sedate Murray Hill mansion to a lonely tropical waterfront. As he works to solve The Case of the Missing Corpse he encounters a varied cast of characters: an erratic spinster, a beautiful dancer, a prominent judge, a movie director, fisherfolk, and gangsters. To get to the bottom of it all, our newspaper must sift the treacherous characters from the sincere, hoping beyond hope that he will be able to solve the riddle of Stephen Wyndham’s disappearance and write the story of a lifetime.

Susan Becker keeps finding herself mixed up in mysteries when she should be busy cooking up something sweet in her bakery in the small tourist town of Lakeside, Missouri. Her best feline friend, Mr. Giles, is one of those curious cats who can't keep away from a fresh crime scene. Detective Kip Fletcher has the unpleasant job of finding out who dug up and stole the corpse of one of the town's leading citizens. A missing body. A mysterious skeleton key. Unexplained lights that could be the town's first ghost... Mr. Giles already knows the truth. But can he guide Susan and Kip to the body snatchers before they vanish along with the corpse?

“It’s Downton Abbey meets The Addams Family in [this] delightfully offbeat history.”—Library Journal At the close of the Victorian era, as now, privacy was power. The extraordinarily wealthy 5th Duke of Portland had a mania for it, hiding in his carriage and building tunnels between buildings to avoid being seen. In 1897, an elderly widow asked the court to exhume the grave of her late father-in-law, T. C. Druce, under the suspicion that he’d led a double life as the 5th Duke. The eccentric duke, Anna Maria contended, had faked his death as Druce, and her son should inherit the Portland millions. Revealing a dark underbelly of Victorian society, Piu Marie Eatwell evokes an era when the rise of sensationalist media blurred every fact into fiction and when family secrets and fluid identities pushed class anxieties to new heights.

The most comprehensive collection of letters by Rosa Luxemburg ever published in English, this book includes 190 letters written to leading figures in the European and international labor and socialist movements––Leo Jogiches, Karl Kautsky, Clara Zetkin and Karl Liebknecht––who were among her closest friends, lovers and colleagues. Much of this correspondence appears for the first time in English translation; all of it helps to illuminate the inner life of this iconic revolutionary, who was at once an economic and social theorist, a political activist and a lyrical stylist. Her political concerns are revealed alongside her personal struggles within a socialist movement that was often hostile to independently minded women. This collection will provide readers with a newer and deeper appreciation of Luxemburg as a writer and historical figure.

THE SECRET You're a hard-working casual labourer digging a hole somewhere in rural Botswana. You find a human skeleton at the bottom of the hole. The skeleton brings back memories that you had long since forgotten about and would rather keep to yourself. THE BLACKMAIL But there are people who already know about the secret. And these people are out to blackmail you: you do as they say, or else they tell everyone about your secret. And they want more than you can afford.They turn you into a murderer. STUCK You can't run because these people always find you no matter where you go. But you're desperate because you want to feed your wife and children, who don't know where you are. And anyone you turn to for help could be working with these people...