Showing results by narrator "Patricia Gallimore" in All Categories

Wind, rain and hail lashed the cottage. And Bun had just run out of knitting wool. What to do? Far too wet for walking up to the shops, she decided to have a poke at their drawing-room walls. Surely there must be alcoves hidden either side of that huge fireplace? Digging revealed a woman’s body…getting rid of it should have been easy, but for a young detective and a scoop-happy newspaper reporter. But when Bun’s younger sister has afternoon tea with their murder suspect, Bun is worried for her safety.

On a bright spring morning, John Hyde opens the gates to the grounds of Moreton Corbet Castle, a local medieval ruin, and discovers the body of a homeless man with his throat slashed. Detective Inspector Alex Randall and his team soon face some disturbing questions: was this a random attack, or does someone have a vendetta against the homeless? For coroner Martha Gunn, establishing the man's identity is essential, but there are no clues.

Virginia Woolley is a determined lady, focussed on improving her lot in life by taking on the airs and graces of the middle classes. By doing so, she manages to snare herself a rich husband. But why stop there? A husband gained can easily be lost. Once a wealthy widow, she would be free to marry again, for even more money. But when two rich husbands die in suspicious circumstances, Virginia becomes the focus of a police investigation.

Newly retired, ex-chief superintendent Fran Harman and her partner, Mark, have volunteered to assist West Mercia police in reinvestigating an unsolved crime. Twenty years ago a car was found abandoned on an isolated forest road running, its hazard lights still flashing, the passenger door open. In the back were two child seats. One was empty; in the other lay a desperately ill baby. Neither the baby's mother nor the elder child were ever seen again.

When several shots are fired into the bistro where husband and wife crime-fighting duo Patrick Gillard and Ingrid Langley are meeting their boss, they discuss the shooting with their friend, Detective Chief Inspector James Carrick. Several years previously Carrick was also targeted by a criminal, Benny Cooper, who was eventually convicted of involvement in child pornography. Benny and his accomplice are now out of prison, and soon the intimidation of Carrick and his family returns.

It's a busy weekend for Lina: she wins a dance competition, annoys a valuable client and has to play gooseberry when Griff, her business partner, meets an old flame. Killing time, she drives across Dartmoor only to find two men robbing a medieval church. Outraged, she manages to stop them - only to discover that it's not just in Devon that they are working. Safely back in Kent, she makes some new friends.

After a tragic miscarriage, Beth Tresaile returns to Owles House, the place of her miserable childhood, accompanied by her best friend, Kitty Copeland. Beth feels she can no longer go on unless she gets revenge on her estranged mother, Christina, who abandoned her on a cold winter’s night. But there are many shocks in store for Beth, who discovers that much of her childhood was built on deception. Kitty is captivated with Cornwall and Beth reluctantly - but later gladly - becomes involved with the locals.

Free-spirited Clemency Kivell is proud of achieving ownership of a music shop in the industrial village of Meryen. The village’s young squire Matthew Faraday, who’s in love with Clemency, decides to hold a May Day festival. However, the event is spoiled – first for Clemency, when her cousin Jowan proposes to her and takes offence at her rejection, and next for Matthew himself, when he and Clemency argue.

When a local lad that vicar's wife Jodie Welsh employed to help in her garden disappears, along with Jodie's expensive camera, nearly everyone assumes the worst. But Burble's disappearance marks the start of a series of increasingly disturbing incidents - until the body shows up, and Jodie must use all her skills to unmask a ruthless killer.

Currently on leave, Patrick Gillard is considering whether to carry on in his hazardous job as "adviser" to the National Crime Agency when his father, the local rector, asks for his help. A parishioner, Mrs Anne Peters, has paid him a visit, convinced that the wrong body was cremated at her late husband’s recent funeral. Patrick promises to investigate with the help of his wife and working partner, Ingrid Langley.

To decide to holiday in Bath, when you live not ten miles down the road, might be regarded as eccentric – but Ingrid Langley and her husband and colleague Patrick Gillard, badly need a break. Patrick is recovering from being seriously ill, and Ingrid is getting over having a baby. Although the holiday proceeds sedately enough, trouble, their old friend, is never far away.

London, 1647. Lucy Wentnor, having been attacked by soldiers during the Civil War and rejected by her sweetheart, hopes to start afresh with her aunt and uncle in the capital. London, however, is in chaos and her uncle, once a well-to-do mercer, is now almost bankrupt. Lucy, unwilling to go home, finds a job in one of the few businesses that’s booming: publishing. She is soon assisting in printing pamphlets, an industry which the breakdown of the licensing system and censorship has left free as never before.

Ingrid Langley’s career as a crime author provides great cover when she is asked by the Serious Organised Crime Agency, for whom she works part-tim alongside her husband Patrick, formerly of MI5, to attend an international writers’ festival in Cannes to investigate fellow author, Clement Hamlyn, who is suspected of using the event to meet with a wanted criminal.

Santo Innis is developing a revolutionary engine to counter the effects of high-pressure steam. His backer is Richard Vaughan, heir to Frederick Tregarron, owner of the Gillyvean estate. His world is turned upside down by the unexpected arrival at Gillyvean of Melanie Tregarron, Frederick's illegitimate youngest daughter. Desperate to prove the viability of his invention, Santo persuades Richard to let him fit one at Gillyvean's brewhouse.

Johnny Harvey is disillusioned and restless – injured in the war, older than the pilots he trained and disturbed at the changing of society, he watches his friends marry as life seems to pass him by. Sixteen-year-old Tess Viant, crippled with polio and abandoned by her heartless family, is befriended by Jill Harvey. Jill is delighted to be pregnant after four years of marriage to Tom – but when complications arise, it’s Tess who has to help

The village of Mere Barton is facing a time of upheaval, with traditional lifestyles being forced out by newcomers. When local author Sheila Malory is asked to research the history of the village, she has her reservations; 'The Book' is one of the many projects of Annie Roberts. Miserly and controlling, Annie is at the heart of everything that goes on in Mere Barton, much to the resentment of her fellow villagers. When Annie suffers a fatal bout of self-inflicted food poisoning, there is more relief than grief around the village.

Something peculiar is going on at the Group Medical Practice in Taviscombe and old Dr MacDonald seems very uneasy. Sheila Malory can’t help but feel that it may have something to do with the unexpected arrival from London of a new GP, Dr Morrison, an arrogant, cold-mannered man, whose alleged misdiagnosis of a local patient has made him the focus of the village rumour mill.

Mrs Abbott is flustered at the thought of putting up a lady from the Red Cross, but is happily surprised when she turns out to be an old friend from her previous life as Miss Buncle, infamous writer. Of course, she’s now far too busy with her children to write, not to mention helping out in the lives of the villagers. And with a possible spy in their midst, evacuated families, potential love matches and a visit from a famous writer, she’s got her work cut out for her.

For twelve-year-old Mary Ann Clark life has always been tough. The pretty daughter of a wife-beating drunk, it is no surprise that she has grown up afraid of her own shadow. That is until 'Battling Bessie Ruddick' takes the young girl under her wing and into the heart of her bustling family. Growing into an attractive young woman, Mary Ann yearns to be loved and when her affection for Bessie's son, Dan, is finally returned and she becomes a skipper's wife.

Dorset, 1917: If it’s not enough that a girl from a good background is forced to work as a maid, Livia Carr is then violated by the master of the house and becomes pregnant. Her only course is to marry the son of the house, Richard Sangster, a World War One hero who has returned home an invalid. He is not expected to live, and he offers Livia and the child legitimacy, as well as his name and estate. Livia grows to love Richard, and his death comes as a great blow to her. Into the breach steps Livia’s frist love, and Richard’s friend, Denton Elliot. But will he desert her when the secret of the child’s parentage is revealed to him?