Showing results by narrator "Hilary Neville" in All Categories

For philosophically minded Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, getting through life with a clear conscience requires careful thought. And with the arrival of baby Charlie, not to mention a passionate relationship with his father Jamie, 14 years her junior, Isabel enters deeper and rougher waters.

When the body of a retired sheriff is discovered in his grand house in the New Town of Edinburgh, Detective Sergeant Alice Rice finds herself hunting his killer. The search leads her to an unfamiliar world where wind-farm developers - with millions of pounds at stake - and protesters face each other with daggers drawn.

Oz Blackstone, enormously wealthy screen hero and sleuth, dies of a ruptured aorta. Her mind still filled with thoughts of her dead ex-husband, Primavera Blackstone is in Spain with their son Tom when their peace is breached again with the arrival of her formidable aunt, Adrienne McGowan, whose son, Frank, has disappeared.

Margaret Collyer's beautifully written autobiography describes her life as an artist and pioneer farmer in Kenya during the first half of the 20th century.

When Shona MacInnes qualifies to train as a vet, she meets prejudice not only from her father and brother, but also from handsome Ross MacMaster, a fellow islander who is to become a vet himself. Shona is determined to succeed, doing so well that Ross offers her a job in his Edinburgh practice, where their fiery professional relationship develops into love. A wonderful future seems to beckon until, on a trip home, things go wrong. Ross returns to his lucrative practice, and Shona starts working for the local vet.

Primavera is enjoying the quiet life in an idyllic village on the Catalan coast of Spain. The attractive single mother and eight-year-old Tom, son of the late and still lamented Oz Blackstone, are popular figures in the tiny community. But her close friendship with the parish priest has eyebrows rising and tongues wagging. Then a dispute explodes with a powerful councillor who refuses to allow the village wine fair to go ahead. When his body is found, head caved in, some ominous questions are asked.

When the circus arrives in Edinburgh, Rose McQuinn is delighted. However, the festivities are overshadowed by the murder of a clerk during a bank robbery and the suicides of two young women. Are these deaths straightforward or could they all be linked to one killer? Rose’s ex-fiancé, Inspector Jack Macmerry, believes that Rose can help with his inquiries and she finds suspicious links with the circus and the behaviour of a sinister scar-faced clown.

DJ Smith is sent to Tenerife to infiltrate a money-laundering organisation run by Ambrose Vanheusen. DJ knows she is in danger but luckily he has an Achilles heel: his obsession with his Persian cat. DJ’s passport into Vanheusen’s empire comes in the form of Gorgonzola, a moth-eaten ginger Persian and sniffer cat extraordinaire, acting under an alias pedigree.

When Lady Helen Hardingham’s parents say she will never find a better husband than Richard, she agrees to marry him. But all too soon Richard returns to war, and Helen begins to wonder just who she has married. Then she meets Oliver Donovan. As the war continues, Oliver has to return to his regiment – and is never seen again. But Helen is left with more than just her memories: she is with child. Twenty years later and a second war is ravaging Europe.

When one Edinburgh citizen after another is murdered in the same bloody manner, the newspapers buzz with talk of a serial killer. Smart and capable, but battling disillusionment and loneliness, DS Alice Rice races against time and an implacable killer to solve this series of grisly murders among the professional elite in the city's well-to-do New Town.

Rose McQuinn makes a long anticipated journey to her childhood home on Orkney, but does not find the peace and relaxation she anticipates. An archaeological team stumbles across a body, causing great excitement: could it be the preserved corpse of a 13th-century princess? When the body is identified as the corpse of a local woman, brutally murdered and then thrown into the bog, the calm pleasure of Rose's holiday is shattered.

Charlotte Fairlie is a successful, elegant career woman. Still in her 20s, she has landed a job as headmistress of her old school. She is admired and liked by both staff and pupils - but she begins to feel there is something missing in her well-organised life. Then one summer she goes to stay with a young pupil on the remote Scottish Isle of Targ. In the romantic atmosphere of the Highlands, anything can happen - and even the cool, efficient Charlotte surprises herself.

On a beautiful spring day, Julia Harburn sat on a seat in Kensington Gardens enjoying the sunshine. She was wearing a white frock and a large straw hat with a sapphire-blue ribbon which exactly matched her eyes - a strange coincidence, as it turned out, for the blue sapphire was to have a far-reaching influence upon her life. So far, her life had been somewhat dull and circumscribed; but quite suddenly her horizons were enlarged. She began to make new friends.

When Dinah was 19, Gilbert was a sort of fairy prince. She had loved him madly but gradually she had begun to realise that he was not quite so wonderful. Despite keeping her eyes firmly shut, her heart had known there was something wrong. When Gilbert is killed in a flying accident, she is left with four children to raise. Life is hard, fighting back loneliness and eking out a meagre pension. But when her brother, Dan, newly demobbed from the Navy, arrives to whisk them away to the seaside, Dinah can at last find peace.

Mrs Tim goes to the Highlands of Scotland and is involved in a plot to rescue a naval officer from the toils of a siren; but, alas, the best laid plans "gang aft agley". The characters are skilfully drawn, from the fierce Mrs London, with her heart of gold, to the garrulous Mrs Falconer, whose muddled stories of her girlhood make excruciatingly funny reading.

Recently married to Charles, Sarah is furnishing a cottage in Scotland and starting on a life in sharp contrast to their wartime experiences. Their full entrance into village life is helped by Sarah's delightful grandparents, who have given them the land on which they have built their cottage.

When out walking on Arthur's Seat, high above the city of Edinburgh, Rose McQuinn discovers the body of a woman in the ruins of St Anthony's Chapel. But she is astonished that on returning to the scene, there is no evidence of either the victim or the local constable who had taken down Rose's story. Even Rose's would-be lover, Detective Sergeant Jack Macmerry, is doubtful. Edinburgh City Police have no record of a dead woman or of PC Smith.

A heart-stopping emotional thriller with a breathtaking twist from the bestselling author of THE HAPPY COUPLE Samantha Hayes January 1992. A baby girl is left alone for a moment. Long enough for a mother to dash into a shop. Long enough for a child to be taken. Thirteen years later, solicitor...

Isabel's niece Cat is still worshipped by the young musician, Jamie, but Cat has a new and unsuitable love-interest. Meanwhile Isabel's Texan cousins have arrived in Edinburgh and are provoking a quite separate set of dilemmas. In between these events and complications, Edinburgh life continues, calmly sailed through by Isabel, her housekeeper, Grace, and, of course, that cautious resident of Isabel's garden, brother Fox. His alone is the uncomplicated existence.

Isabel Dalhousie, Edinburgh philosopher and curious observer of the behaviour of her fellow man, is approached by a friend at a local boarding school that is planning to appoint a new headmaster; an anonymous letter has arrived suggesting that one of the shortlisted candidates has a compromising past. But which one is it? Isabel is once again drawn into an investigation, and finds herself exploring dilemmas of human weakness and forgiveness.