The Singing Sands

On sick leave from Scotland Yard, Inspector Alan Grant is planning a quiet holiday with an old school chum to recover from overwork and mental fatigue. Traveling on the night train to Scotland, however, Grant stumbles upon a dead man and a cryptic poem about “the stones that walk” and “the singing sand,” which send him off on a fascinating search into the verse’s meaning and the identity of the deceased. Grant needs just this sort of casual inquiry to quiet his jangling nerves, despite his doctor’s orders. But what begins as a leisurely pastime eventually turns into a full-blown investigation that leads Grant to discover not only the key to the poem but the truth about a most diabolical murder.

A FUTURISTIC COVER - COMES WITH 3D GLASSES! Welcome to Vermilion Sands, the fully automated desert-resort ready to fulfil your most exotic whims. Home to the idle rich it now languishes in uneasy decay, populated only by forgotten movie queens, solitary impresarios and the remittance men of the artistic and literary world. Discover prima donna plants programmed to sing operatic arias, dial-a-poem computers and psychosensitive houses capable of murder. These quintessentially Ballardian short stories of dystopian modernity are Ballard’s ‘guess at what the future will actually be like’.

A NYT Book Review Best Historical Fiction Book of the Year "The Singing Forest blends thought-provoking reflections on the moral reckoning of war crimes with ... a young woman’s attempts to decode her eccentric professional and personal families."—Alida Becker, New York Times In attempting to bring a suspected war criminal to justice, a lawyer wrestles with power, accountability, and her Jewish identity. In a quiet forest in Belarus, two boys stumble across a long-kept secret: the mass grave where Stalin’s police secretly murdered thousands in the 1930s. The results of the subsequent investigation have far-reaching effects, and across the Atlantic in Toronto, Leah Jarvis, a lively, curious young lawyer, finds herself tasked with an impossible case: the deportation of elderly Stefan Drozd, who fled his crimes in Kurapaty for a new identity in Canada. Leah is convinced of Drozd’s guilt, but she needs hard facts. She travels to Belarus in search of witnesses only to find herself asking increasingly complex questions. What is the relationship between chance, inheritance, and justice? Between her own history—her mother’s death, her father’s absence, the shadows of her Jewish heritage—and the challenges that now confront her? Beautiful and wrenching by turns, The Singing Forest is a profound investigation of truth and memory—and the moving story of one man’s past and one woman’s determination to reckon with it.

Presents illustrated versions of the title poem and seven others, including "Fiddle-Dee-Dee" and "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod."

A witty and sophisticated mystery featuring bestselling author Josephine Tey's popular Inspector Alan Grant, a beloved character created by a woman considered to be one of the greatest mystery writers of all time.Literary sherry parties were not Alan Grant's cup of tea. But when the Scotland Yard Inspector arrived to pick up actress Marta Hallard for dinner, he was struck by the handsome young American photographer, Leslie Searle. Author Lavinia Fitch was sure her guest "must have been something very wicked in ancient Greece," and the art colony at Salcott St. Mary would have agreed. Yet Grant heard nothing more of Searle until the news of his disappearance. Had Searle drowned by accident or could he have been murdered by one of his young women admirers? Was it a possible case of suicide or had the photographer simply vanished for reasons of his own?

'A detective story with a very considerable difference. Ingenious, stimulating and very enjoyable' SUNDAY TIMES 'As interesting and enjoyable a book as they will meet in a month of Sundays' OBSERVER Scotland Yard inspector Alan Grant, recovering from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III, believed to have brutally killed his brother's children - the Princes in the Tower - to make his crown secure. But is the hunchback with such a sensitive, noble face really one of the world's most heinous villains? Or was he the victim of one of the most insidious plots in history? 'One of the best mysteries of all time' NEW YORK TIMES 'Suspense is achieved by unexpected twists and extremely competent storytelling . . . credible and convincing' SPECTATOR

The body of a woman, Christine Clay (née Christina Gotobed) is discovered at the edge of the surf on a beach in Kent... A Shilling for Candles is a 1936 mystery novel by Josephine Tey (Elizabeth MacKintosh) about the investigation of the drowning of a film actress, known as Christine Clay. It is the second of Tey's five mysteries starring Inspector Alan Grant. The plot draws extensively on Tey's experience in working with actors in her play Richard of Bordeaux.