Railway To The Grave
In his seventh outing, Inspector Robert Colbeck faces his most daunting case yet. A retired colonel, whose wife has gone missing, commits suicide under the wheels of a train. Common opinion is that he murdered his wife and sought to escape justice.
Superintendent Tallis, who knew the man well from his days in the army, refuses to believe that his old friend was a killer. He travels to Yorkshire with Colbeck to find out what really happened to the missing wife and why the bereaved husband took his own life.
The detectives meet with great hostility, not least from the local vicar who refuses to have the body of a suicide victim buried in consecrated ground. When the corpse of the missing wife is found, the investigation takes a different turn altogether and the Railway Detective has to wade through a mass of conflicting evidence.
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Under Siege
The fourth Captain Daniel Rawson adventure finds him involved in the siege of Lille, fittingly described as the Pearl Among Fortresses. His assignment is to get inside the town to secure the plans of its complex fortifications. While he eventually succeeds in doing this, he loses his female accomplice in the process and has to get back into Lille once more to rescue her from gaol.
Escaping from the town when the siege guns start to boom presents another problem for him. Dogged by the machinations of politicians back in England, the Duke of Marlborough is also under siege and his health is badly affected.
Daniel's beloved, Amalia Janssen, faces a siege of a different kind. She travels to England with her father to visit Blenheim Palace where Janssen's tapestry of the battle of Ramillies will hang. They are the guests of a neighbouring peer but their attentive host harbours sinister desires. Amalia unwittingly inspires such lust in him that he even hires an assassin to cross the Channel in order to kill Daniel Rawson.
The Silver Locomotive Mystery
Inspector Colbeck's sixth outing takes him to South Wales to investigate a murder at the Railway Hotel and the theft of a silver coffee pot in the shape of a locomotive. Key witnesses are members of a touring theatre company performing Macbeth at the Theatre Royal in Cardiff. When the leading lady suddenly vanishes, it seems as if the Scottish play has brought disaster to yet another troupe. As the crimes multiply, Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming have to dash to and fro on the railway system. Even though they have the assistance of Jeremiah Stockdale, the town's chief constable, their efforts are nevertheless hampered at every turn. When they finally run the villains to ground, they are in for a great shock.
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Fire and Sword
This is the third exciting novel of Captain Daniel Rawson's adventures during the War of the Spanish Succession. After returning from a dangerous solo mission behind enemy lines, Daniel is pursued by a French patrol. His life is saved by a farmer who hides him then lends him a horse. When Daniel later returns the horse, however, he finds the farm ablaze. The dying farmer insists that British soldiers were responsible.
Back in England, there is political upheaval as Queen's Anne's favour shifts, causing the Duke of Marlborough to resign as commander-in-chief of the allied forces fighting the French.
When the campaign season resumes in 1708, other cases of arson are reported, apparently the work of British redcoats. Daniel and his friend, Sergeant Henry Welbeck, have to find the culprits then get inside the French camp to retrieve a treasured sword. When Daniel is captured, he comes face to face with the scheming French commander, the Duc de Vendome. He manages to escape and later gets his revenge when he and Vendome meet on the bloody battlefield of Oudenarde.
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Reprints
The first three novels in the Restoration series will be reprinted by Allison and Busby this summer.
The King's Evil
In the wake of the Great Fire of London in 1666, young architect Christopher Redmayne gets a commission to build a London house for a wealthy man. When the man is found dead on the premises, Christopher teams up with local constable, Jonathan Bale, to solve the murder.
Bale, a dour Puritan, is horrified at the antics of Christopher's rakish brother, Henry, but is grateful for the evidence that Henry is able to dig out for them because of his connections.
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The Amorous Nightingale
The amorous nightingale is a beautiful young actress who sang her way into a royal bed. When she disappears, Charles II assigns Christopher Redmayne and Jonathan Bale the task of finding her. The architect is eager to help but Bale - who fought as a Cromwellian at the battle of Worcester - is revolted by the notion of going to such trouble to find a king's mistress. When a brutal murder occurs, however, he realises that more is at stake than royal pleasure.
Christopher takes the lead and is both helped and hindered by his brother, Henry, whose life of excess is taking on a new intensity.
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The Repentant Rake
Christopher Redmayne is delighted with a commission to build a house in London for Sir Julius Cheever M.P., not least because he is drawn to Susan Cheever, the man's daughter. What he does not know is that Sir Julius has disowned his son, Gabriel, because he is a notorious rakehell.
When Gabriel's dead body is discovered, Christopher and Jonathan Bale seek out his killer and, in doing so, learn that Gabriel was, in fact, a repentant rake. The investigation, uncovering a complex trail of blackmail, brings Christopher and Susan closer together. It also takes Bale into some of the darker corners of a city he regards as the capital of debauchery, as exemplified in the person of Henry Redmayne.
Two more titles in the Domesday Book series will be published by Ostara this summer.
The Serpents of Harbledown
Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret are royal commissioners appointed to investigate irregularities that come to light during the compilation of the Domesday Book in the reign of William the Conqueror. They arrive in Canterbury to be met by the news that the body of a young girl has been found, apparently killed by a poisonous snake.
Their investigation takes them to the leper hospital in Harbledown where the girl used to take herbs. Once they establish that she was murdered by human agency, they begin to uncover all sorts of hidden secrets in the town. A second murder sends them off in a different direction altogether and they encounter a surprising twist.
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The Stallions of Woodstock
Three powerful Norman lords and a Saxon thegn watch their horses competing in a race near Woodstock. When one of the riders is murdered during the race, suspicion falls on the Saxon.
Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret are guests at Oxford Castle while they deliberate on land disputes in the area. Caught up in the murder investigation, they feel that a man has been wrongly accused and, in trying to save him from execution, get themselves immersed in a sea of malice, treachery, lust and simmering hostility.
The novels
| Buy from Amazon |
| The series: |
| Domesday |
| Nicholas Bracewell |
| Redmayne |
| Inspector Colbeck |
| Daniel Rawson |
| Dillman and Masefield Writing as Conrad Allen |
| Alan Saxon Writing as Keith Miles |
| Merlin Richards Writing as Keith Miles |
| Miscellaneous publications |
About the author |
| Links |
| About this website |
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