The man who had died was Ismay's stepfather, Guy. Nine years on, she and her sister, Heather, still live in the same house in Clapham. But it has been divided into two self-contained flats. Their mother lives upstairs with her sister, Pamela. And the bathroom, where Guy drowned, has disappeared. Ismay works in public relations, and Heather in catering. They get on well. They always have. They never discuss the changes to the house, still less what happened that August day.

Two damaged children: Teddy Brex, whom no-one loved, and so found it easier to relate to objects or things which never let him down; and Francine Hill, who was discovered sitting by the body of her mother, her skirt red with blood. She couldn’t tell the police or her father anything to help track down the killer.... Children grow up in different ways. Teddy became a handsome young man, Francine was beautiful - a sight for sore eyes. But it was death that brought them together.

Like most families, they had their secrets...and they hid them under a genteelly respectable veneer. No onlooker would guess that prim Vera Hillyard and her beautiful, adored younger sister, Eden, were locked in a dark and bitter combat over one of those secrets. England in the '50s was not kind to women who erred, so they had to use every means necessary to keep the truth hidden behind closed doors - even murder.

Innocent Blood is a standalone thriller and chilling mystery from P.D. James, the best-selling author of Death Comes to Pemberley and Children of Men. Philippa Palfrey, adopted as a child, believes herself to be the motherless, illegitimate daughter of an aristocratic father. At eighteen she exercises her right to find out the truth. What she discovers will change her life forever.

Meet Cordelia Gray: 22, tough, intelligent, and now sole inheritor of the Pryde Detective Agency. Her first assignment finds her hired by Sir Ronald Callender to investigate the death of his son Mark, a young Cambridge student found hanged in mysterious circumstances. Required to delve into the hidden secrets of the Callender family, Cordelia soon realizes it is not a case of suicide, and that the truth is entirely more sinister.

An Adam Dalgliesh mystery. Cover Her Face is P. D. James' debut novel, the first Adam Dalgliesh mystery, and a thrilling work of crime fiction set in the English countryside, from the best-selling author of Death Comes to Pemberley and Children of Men. From P. D. James, one of the masters of British crime fiction, comes the debut novel that introduced Scotland Yard detective Adam Dalgliesh.

Barfield Prison is one of the toughest high-security prisons in England, housing the country's most dangerous criminals. And when an inmate is found dead in his cell, a riot breaks out, forcing the authorities to investigate a potential murder. Despite being Barfield's youngest ever female Governor, Helen Hewitt is seen as the best woman for the job. But with a prison full of corrupt and suspicious officers, restless inmates and a broken system, Helen has her work cut out - and no allies to help her....

Four members of the Coverdale family - George, Jacqueline, Melinda and Giles - died in the space of fifteen minutes on the 14th February, St Valentine's Day. Eunice Parchman, the housekeeper, shot them down on a Sunday evening while they were watching opera on television. Two weeks later she was arrested for the crime. But the tragedy neither began nor ended there...

Accused of grassing up a fellow officer and driven brutally out of home and job, DI Grace Fisher is thankful to survive some dark times and find haven with the Major Investigation Team in Essex. Any hopes of a quiet start to her new life are dashed by the discovery of the body of a female student, last seen at a popular bar in Colchester. Grace has her first case. When a second student, also out drinking, is murdered and left grotesquely posed, the case becomes headline news. Someone is leaking disturbing details to a tabloid crime reporter. Is it the killer? Or a detective close to the case?

Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. As a literature teacher specialising in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland, she teaches a short course on it every year. Then Clare's life and work collide tragically when one of her colleagues is found dead, a line from an R. M. Holland story by her body. The investigating police detective is convinced the writer's works somehow hold the key to the case.s....  

When Abby's doctor tells her she's two months pregnant, she doesn't believe him. She can't be - she hasn't had sex for over a year. But to her astonishment and dismay, multiple tests confirm it's true. Desperately searching for an explanation, Abby recalls New Year's Day - the terrible hangover, the hole in her memory where the night before should have been and the inexplicable sense of unease - and realises that this baby must have been conceived at her best friend Danny's NYE party.

The first girl had a bite mark on her neck, but they traced the DNA to her boyfriend. But the tabloids got hold of the story and called the killer 'The Rottweiler' and the name stuck. The latest murder takes place very near Inez Ferry's antique shop in Marylebone. When the Rottweiler’s trinkets start showing up in the shop, suddenly, everyone Inez knows is a suspect, and the killer feels all too close.

Marion Sharpe and her mother seem an unlikely duo to be found on the wrong side of the law. Quiet and ordinary, they have led a peaceful and unremarkable life at their country home, The Franchise. Unremarkable that is, until the police turn up with a demure young woman on their doorstep.Not only does Betty Kane accuse them of kidnap and abuse, she can back up her claim with a detailed description of the attic room in which she was kept, right down to the crack in its round window.

A collection of four short stories from P. D. James, published together for the first time. As the acknowledged "Queen of Crime", P. D. James was frequently commissioned by newspapers and magazines to write special short stories for Christmas. Four of the very best of these have been rescued from the archives and are published together. P .D. James' prose illuminates each of these perfectly formed stories, making them ideal listening for the darkest days of the year.

It is November 1890 and London is gripped by a merciless winter. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are enjoying tea by the fire when an agitated gentleman arrives unannounced at 221b Baker Street. He begs Holmes for help, telling the unnerving story of a scar-faced man with piercing eyes who has stalked him in recent weeks.