Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Historical

The darkly atmospheric and gruesome tale of Jack the Ripper unfolds against the backdrop of a Victorian London reform school, as a young inmate sets out to find the identity of the elusive serial killer in a riveting new book perfect for fans of The Woman in the Window and Enola Holmes. London...

As twilight descends on the third century AD, the Roman Empire is but a shadow of its former self. Decades of usurping emperors, splinter kingdoms and savage wars have left the people beleaguered, the armies weary and the future uncertain. And into this chaos Emperor Diocletian steps, reforming the succession to allow for not one emperor to rule the world, but four. Meanwhile, two boys share a chance meeting in the great city of Treverorum as Diocletian's dream is announced to the imperial court. 

AD 312 is a year of horrific and brutal warfare. Constantine's northern army is a small force, plagued by religious rivalries, but seemingly unstoppable as they invade Maxentius' Italian heartlands. These relentless clashes, incidents of treachery and twists of fortune see Maxentius' armies driven back to Rome.

Their rivalry will change the world forever. As competition for the imperial throne intensifies, Constantine and Maxentius realise their childhood friendship cannot last. Each man struggles to control their respective quadrant of empire, battered by currents of politics, religion and personal...

AD 838. Deep in the forests of Wessex, Dunston's solitary existence is shattered when he stumbles on a mutilated corpse. Accused of the murder, Dunston must clear his name and keep the dead man's daughter alive in the face of savage pursuers desperate to prevent a terrible secret from being revealed. Rushing through Wessex, Dunston will need to use all the skills of survival garnered from a lifetime in the wilderness.

When a mysterious puppet show arrives in Bishop's Lacey, death is not far behind... a grisly murder during a performance of Jack and the Beanstalk in the village hall reaches back to an earlier crime that has cast a shadow over the village for years. Flavia's investigations test her powers of deduction to the limit - and provide a shocking insight into the darker corners of the adult world.

By chance, two men—one English, the other French—meet in a provincial railway station. Their resemblance is uncanny, and they spend the evening talking and drinking. It is not until John wakes the next morning that he realises his French companion has stolen his identity and disappeared. So John steps into the Frenchman's shoes, and faces a variety of perplexing roles—as owner of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a fractious family, and master of nothing.

Yashim is no ordinary detective. It's not that he's particularly brave. Or that he cooks so well, or reads French novels. Not even that his best friend is the Ambassador from Poland, whose country has vanished from the map. Yashim is a eunuch. As the Sultan plans a series of radical reforms to...

London, England, 1887: At the abandoned apartment of a missing young woman, a dossier of evidence is collected and sent to the Chief Inspector of the London Police for review. It contains a curious correspondence between an inquisitive journalist, Miss Emily Gibson, and the woman Gibson thinks may be the infamous Mrs. Lovett—Sweeney Todd’s accomplice, who baked men into pies and sold them in her pie shop on Fleet Street.

Flavia is enjoying the summer, spending her days punting along the river with her reluctant family. Languishing in boredom, she drags a slack hand in the water - and catches her fingers in the open mouth of a drowned corpse. Flavia needs to put her super-sleuthing skills to the test to investigate the murder of three gossips in the local church and to keep her sisters out of danger.

When Flavia de Luce is banished to Miss Bodycote's Female Academy in Canada, she’s soon on familiar ground when, on her first night, a mummified body is dislodged from a chimney, and she is presented with a gruesome puzzle to solve. Girls have been disappearing with alarming regularity, leading Flavia to wonder not only how and why but what exactly is the academy's true purpose? Flavia must enter a shadowy world where truth and lies seem interchangeable and no one can be trusted.

Florence, 1429. Giovanni de Medici, the family patriarch, has been poisoned. In their quest for political power, the Medici have made bitter enemies in every corner of the republic. And now Giovanni's sons, Cosimo and Lorenzo, have become the hereditary dukes of a city where loyalty can always be bought. While Lorenzo hunts for their father's killer, Cosimo petitions their remaining allies as Italy heads towards civil war. But the Medici will need more than alliances to survive, otherwise their beloved Florence – and their dynasty – will drown in blood....

Charles Krogh thought he had left the intelligence world for good, but before long finds himself immersed back in the vast invisible game without rules, the game of deception and bluff...the game without which the world can never be safe...or at peace. Nicholas Reed, brutally murdered by a stone-cold KGB killer - what did he know? Marshal T. K. Golovanov, hero of the Soviet Union and one of the most powerful men in the world - why is he jeopardising the future of his country with a female agent?

Kent, May 1941. The towns and countryside south of London continue to take a battering from German bombers. Canterbury, with the focal point of its distinctive cathedral, is among the hardest hit. The landmark and holy site is the scene of further tragedy when Canon Walter de la Coeur is found...

The body of a teenage boy is found weighted down in a lake. Karin Müller, newly appointed Major of the People's Police, is called to investigate. But her power will stretch only so far, when every move she makes is under the watchful eye of the Stasi. Then, when the son of Müller's team member goes missing, it quickly becomes clear that there is a terrifying conspiracy at the heart of this case.

Twelve-year-old Flavia de Luce is back at Buckshaw at last, but her homecoming is overshadowed by news of her father's illness. Forbidden from visiting him in hospital, Flavia busies herself in the village, but she soon makes a macabre discovery: the corpse of a reclusive woodcarver in an empty house, except for a curiously uncurious cat. Curiosity may not kill this cat, but Flavia is energized at the prospect of a new investigation. However, what awaits Flavia will shake her to the core.

In 1953, Dr. Charles Wilson, a government scientist, died when he 'jumped or fell' from the ninth floor of a Washington hotel. As his wife and children grieve, the details of the incident remain buried for 22 years. With the release of the Rockefeller Commission report on illegal CIA activities in 1975, the Wilson case suddenly becomes news again. Wilson's family and the public are demanding answers, especially as some come to suspect the CIA of foul play and agents in the CIA, FBI and White House will do anything to make sure the truth doesn't get out. Enter agent Jack Gabriel.

In 1978 East Germany, nothing is at it seems. The state's power is absolute, history is rewritten and the 'truth' is whatever the Stasi say it is. So when a woman's murder is officially labelled 'accidental death', Major Karin Müller of the People's Police is faced with a dilemma. To solve the crime, she must disregard the official version of events. But defying the Stasi means putting her own life - and the lives of her young family - in danger.

Assyria, in the reign of Ashurbanipal. For Aurya and her daydreaming brother, Sharo, every day is a struggle for survival, as they dodge the beatings of their drunken father and scrabble for scraps of food. One violent evening, everything changes. Soon, they are on the barge of King Ashurbanipal, bound for the beautiful, near-mythical city of Nineveh.  

Grey Hutchins is in pursuit of an obsession. She is searching for a piece of film taken during the infamous Nanking massacre of 1937. Some say it never existed. Grey is certain that it does, and that it lies hidden—somewhere in Tokyo. Alone in an alien city, Grey becomes a hostess in an exclusive club catering for Japanese businessmen—and gangsters. One gangster dominates—an old man in a wheelchair surrounded by a terrifying entourage—who is rumoured to rely on a powerful elixir for his continued health. It is an elixir that others want—at any price ...