It is spring in the year of 118, and Hadrian has been Emperor of Rome for less than a year. After getting involved with the murders of local prostitutes in the town of Deva, Doctor Gaius Petreius Ruso needs to get out of town, so has volunteered for a posting with the Army on the volatile border where the Roman-controlled half of Britannia meets the independent tribes of the North. Not only is he going to the hinterlands of the hinterlands, but it his slave Tilla’s homeland and she has some scores to settle there. Soon they find that Tilla’s tribespeople are being encouraged to rebel against Roman control by a mysterious leader known as the Stag Man,
read more
England, 1923. A gentleman critic named Leslie Shepherd tells the macabre story of a gifted young composer, Charles Jessold. On the eve of his revolutionary new opera’s premiere, Jessold murders his wife and her lover, and then commits suicide in a scenario that strangely echoes the plot of his opera—which Shepherd has helped to write. The opera will never be performed.
Shepherd first shares his police testimony, then recalls his relationship with Jessold in his role as critic, biographer, and friend. And with each retelling of the story, significant new details cast light on the identity of the real victim in Jessold’s tragedy.
read more
It is 1176 and the King of England’s daughter is to marry the King of Sicily. As war and plague run rampant across the continent, King Henry II entrusts the life of his princess on a journey bound for Palermo to medieval forensic pathologist Adelia Aguilar, his mistress of the art of death. She is initially unwilling to accept until the Plantagenet uses Adelia’s daughter as a bartering tool, holding the child hostage until she completes the mission. A caravan is assembled including Adelia’s most treasured confidant, the Arab eunuch Mansur, her lover Rowley, and an Irish admiral, O’Donnell.
read more
In the tradition of Robert Ludlum, with a witty twist, Thomson’s second novel featuring a former spy and his son once again poses the question: What happens when a former CIA agent can no longer trust his own mind? Charlie and Drummond Clark are now in Switzerland, hiding out from criminal charges in America and using the time to experiment with treatments to retrieve Drummond’s memory. When NSA operative Alice Rutherford, with whom Charlie has fallen in love, is kidnapped, the Clarks must dodge a formidable CIA case officer and his team to get her back.
read more
Bandy Dorner, home from Vietnam, awakes with his car mired in a canal, his cabin reduced to ashes, and his pregnant wife preparing to leave town with her lover. Within moments, a cop lies bleeding in the road. Eighteen years later, Bandy’s son — a stranger bearing his name — returns to the town, where the memory of his father’s crime still hangs thick. When an accident brings the family — paroled father, widowed mother, injured son — back together, the three must confront their past, and struggle against their fate.
Like a traditional Greek tragedy,
read more
31 Bond Street, an unforgettable literary debut from Ellen Horan, is based on the true story of a brutal murder, a desperate mother and mistress, and the vicious constraints of 19th century society. Fans of Caleb Carr’s The Alienist, Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, and John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil will love the stunning prose and beautiful imagery of 31 Bond Street.
In the twenty-first century, the moral and legal issues surrounding the Bond Street murder still reverberate within today’s society.
read more
