When the notorious investigative journalist, Rhoda Gradwyn, books into Mr Chandler-Powell's private clinic in Dorset for the removal of a disfiguring and long-standing scar, she has every prospect of a successful operation and the beginning of a new life. But the Manor holds a secret and deadly enemy.

Dealing with the craft of detective writing and sharing her personal thoughts and observations on one of the most popular and enduring forms of literature, the author examines the challenges, achievements, and potential of this genre.

Combe Island off the Cornish coast offers rest and seclusion to over-stressed professionals who have paid the price of getting to the top. But when one of these distinguished visitors is found hanging from the top of the island's lighthouse, murder - not suicide - is suspected.

Two men lie in a welter of blood in the vestry of St Matthew's Church, Paddington, their throats brutally slashed. One is Sir Paul Berowne, a baronet and recently resigned Minister of the Crown, the other an alcoholic vagrant. Dalgliesh and his team are faced with a case of great sensitivity and complexity.

The year is 2021. No child has been born for 25 years. The human race faces extinction. Under the despotic rule of the Warden of England, the old are despairing and the young cruel. Theo Faren, a cousin of the Warden encounters a young woman that leads him into contact with dissenters. And he faces agonising choices.

The Peverell Press, a two-hundred-year-old publishing firm housed in a dramatic mock-Venetian palace on the Thames, is certainly ripe for change. But the proposals of its ruthlessly ambitious managing director, Gerard Etienne, have made him dangerous enemies - a discarded mistress, a neglected and humiliated author, and rebellious colleagues.

When Mrs. Maxie Martingale was busy in organizing St Cedd's Church fete, she gets the news of her son's sudden engagement to her new parlour maid, the sly single mother, Sally Jupp. On the following morning Martingale and the whole village are shocked by the discovery of Sally Jupp's body.

A serial killer known as the Whistler is terrorising the neighbourhood and Commander Dalgliesh is drawn into the lives of the headlanders when it quickly becomes apparent that the Whistler isn't the only murderer at work under the sinister shadow of the power station.

Notorious investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn books into a private clinic in Dorset for the removal of a disfiguring facial scar. She was never to leave there alive. Dalgliesh and his team are called in to investigate the murder, and later a second death, which are to raise even more complicated problems than the question of innocence or guilt.

Cordelia Gray is the inheritor of the Pryde Detective Agency. Her first assignment finds her hired by Sir Ronald Callender to investigate the death of his son Mark, found hanged in mysterious circumstances. Required to delve into the hidden secrets of the family, she soon realizes it is not a case of suicide, and that the truth is more sinister.

Contains the investigations and adventures of the world's most popular detective, Sherlock Holmes from The Adventure of the Gloria Scott to His Last Bow . This title follows the illustrious career of this quintessential British hero from his university days to his final case.

A piercing scream brings Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh hurrying from his literary party to the Steen Psychiatric Clinic, where he discovers the body of a woman and a chisel thrust through her heart. As he probes beneath the unruffled calm of the clinic, he discovers that many an intrigue lies hidden behind the Georgian terrace's unassuming facade.

The proposals of The Peverell Press's ambitious new managing director, Gerard Etienne, have made him dangerous enemies. When Gerard's body is discovered bizarrely desecrated, there is no shortage of suspects and Dalgliesh and his team are confronted with a puzzle of extraordinary complexity and a murderer who is prepared to strike again.

Venetia Aldridge QC is a distinguished barrister. When she agrees to defend Garry Ashe, accused of the brutal murder of his aunt, it is one more opportunity to triumph in her career as a criminal lawyer. But just four weeks later, Miss Aldridge is found dead. Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called in to investigate.

Commander Adam Dalgliesh is already acquainted with the Dupayne Museum in Hampstead, and with its sinister murder room celebrating notorious crimes committed in the interwar years, when he is called to investigate the killing of one of the trustees.

Philippa Palfrey, adopted as a child, believes herself to be the illegitimate daughter of an aristocratic father. At 18, she exercises her right to find out the truth. What she discovers will change her life forever. She enters a new and terrifying world and soon comes to realize that she is not the only one interested in her parents' whereabouts.

When a young girl is found murdered in a field, the scientific examination of the exhibits is just a routine job for the staff of Hoggatt's forensic science laboratory. But nothing could have prepared them for the brutal death of one of their own when the senior biologist is found dead in his laboratory.

Hired to protect a beautiful but neurotic actress, Cordelia Gray is soon embroiled in a mysterious case. Clarissa Lisle hopes to make a spectacular comeback. Trapped within the walls of the Gothic Castle, the treacherous past of the island re-emerges, and everyone seems to have a motive for sending Clarissa 'down, down the hell'.

When the notorious investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn booked into Mr Chandler-Powell's private clinic in Dorset for the removal of a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar, she had every prospect of a successful operation, a week's peaceful convalescence in one of Dorset's most beautiful manor houses and the beginning of a new life.