Laura has made her name as a serious writer of historical crime fiction, but her latest is a different animal. It’s still set in the Georgian period she so vividly evokes, but this is a playful and immersive novel with a wicked sense of humour bubbling just under the surface. From Hannah, a strong but repressed woman, though to powerful men like Henry Fielding with the law on their side, it’s down to the reader to unravel everyone’s hidden motives, as the pursuit of a financial legacy threatens to drag everyone down into London’s murky sewers. A book I didn’t want to end.
'Astonishing. A rare and wonderful story' - Chris Whitaker, author of All the Colours of the Dark
'Fiendishly clever and completely gripping' - Jennie Godfrey, bestselling author of The List of Suspicious Things
'Laura Shepherd-Robinson takes delight in pulling the rug out from under her readers' feet . . . in this cleverly structured and consistently enjoyable novel' - The Times
London, 1749.
Hannah Cole's world shatters with her husband's brutal murder. Her confectionery shop, the Punchbowl and Pineapple, teeters on the brink of ruin.
Just as she uncovers a hidden fortune - money her…
It’s 1992 and Detective Sean Duffy is almost out of the game, ready for retirement and a fresh start in Scotland. But when an IRA hitman is himself hit, he’s dragged back to Northern Ireland, and a case which threatens the fragile peace process. A novel with a serious message, it’s the way it’s balanced with humour and heart via Duffy and his team that holds the attention. Like Abir Mukherjee’s crime novels set in India, I closed the final page feeling that little more informed about UK history and politics. Eight books in, it’s one of the great crime series of recent times.
New York Times bestselling author Adrian McKinty continues the Edgar Award-winning Sean Duffy series with Hang on St. Christopher.
Rain slicked streets, riots, murder, chaos. It's July 1992 and the Troubles in Northern Ireland are still grinding on after twenty-five apocalyptic years. Detective Inspector Sean Duffy got his family safely over the water to Scotland, to "Shortbread Land". Duffy's a part-timer now, only returning to Belfast six days a month to get his pension. It's an easy gig, if he can keep his head down.
But then a murder case falls into his lap while his protege is on holiday…
A rare re-reading of a novel, this was done ahead of an event with the author. It’s proof that although a film can be brilliant, the novel underpinning it does take us that little bit deeper into a given world. Published some twenty-five years ago, the characters within this crime novel still see it stand up. X is a drug dealer with the intelligence to want out of the game, but it won’t be easy. Peppered liberally with humour, it was neatly combines the knockabout playfulness of ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ with the more serious study of crime and its consequences we see in films like ‘Get Carter’. A page-turner you won’t be able to put down, as not everyone is getting out alive…
Layer cake (n): a metaphor for the murky layers of the criminal world.
Smooth-talking drug dealer X has a plan to quietly bankroll enough cash to retire before his thirtieth birthday. Operating under the polished veneer of a legitimate businessman, his mantra is to keep a low profile and run a tight operation until it's time to get out.
When kingpin Jimmy Price asks him to find the wayward daughter of a wealthy socialite who's been running around with a cokehead, he accepts the job with the promise that after this he can leave the criminal world behind with Jimmy's…
Podcaster Yaz Moy has always been obsessed with finding out the truth. She wants to reach the top of her profession, but she's stuck in small town purgatory, with no way out. That is until someone approaches her with a story which could be her key to fulfilling her big city dreams - uncovering the story behind the murder of a corrupt police detective during an illegal rave thirty years ago. Only, there are powerful men desperate to keep the past deeply buried. When the story becomes personal, Yaz is forced to decide what she stands for and if she’s willing to risk it all to reveal the truth.
