Showing results by publisher "Two Roads" in Literature & Fiction

For fans of Elementary, Ripper Street and Sherlock Holmes - meet Jean Brash, a feisty, self-made woman turned sleuth in murky Victorian Edinburgh where crime and high society meet. After Mistress of the Just Land, the second adventure in David Ashton's Jean Brash series.... A theatre company arrives in Leith to perform King Lear. A robbery is planned, a gruesome murder committed, both of which set Inspector James McLevy on the prowl....

In 1627 Barbary pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted some 400 of its people, including 250 from a tiny island off the mainland. Among the captives sold into slavery in Algiers were the island pastor, his wife and their three children. Although the raid itself is well documented, little is known about what happened to the women and children afterwards. It was a time when women everywhere were largely silent.

New Year's Day - and through the misty streets of Victorian Edinburgh, an elegant female figure walks the cobblestones with a certain vengeful purpose. Jean Brash, the mistress of the Just Land, brings her cool intelligence to solving a murder, a murder that took place in her own bawdy house (the best in Edinburgh and her pride and joy). A prominent judge, strangled and left dangling, could bring her whole life to ruin, and she didn't haul herself off the streets, up through low, dirty houses of pleasure and violent vicious men, to let that come to pass.

London had Sherlock Holmes. The dark alleys of Edinburgh had Inspector McLevy. Known as the father of forensics and a likely influence on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, real-life police inspector James McLevy is here reinvented by David Ashton in a thrilling mystery - the first in a series - set in dark, violent Victorian Edinburgh.

At Waverley Station late at night, the body of a man is discovered in the corner of a train compartment. Inspector McLevy's investigations into the murder of the mysterious Count Borromeo, lead him to the Just Land, the best bawdy-hoose in Edinburgh and the pride and joy of Jean Brash.

In these uncertain times we all need a coping mechanism. And Laura Lexx has found the obvious one - imagining life married to the sensible, no-nonsense man of our dreams, Jürgen Klopp. She thinks maybe he has something to do with football? More importantly, he definitely knows how to efficiently stack a dishwasher and would tell you honestly if you were being unreasonable about a colleague.

58-year-old Jackie Douglas thinks she has everything she wants—kids, grandchildren and a comfortable retirement with her husband, Steve. Until one afternoon she comes home to find Steve packing a bag and her comfortable life suddenly moves out of bounds. Her best friend, Ros, a law firm boss with an appetite for life, laughter and (just the right amount of) wine, immediately leaps in to help Jackie back to her feet but soon finds herself feeling second best to Jackie's other priorities.

London had Sherlock Holmes. The dark alleys of Edinburgh had Inspector McLevy. Known as the father of forensics and a likely influence on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, real-life police inspector James McLevy is here reinvented by David Ashton in a thrilling mystery - the fourth in a series - set in dark, violent Victorian Edinburgh. It's 1887. The streets of Edinburgh seethe with anarchy as two gangs of students rival each other in wild exploits.

Known as the father of forensics and a likely influence on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, real-life police inspector James McLevy is here reinvented by David Ashton in a thrilling mystery - the second in a series - set in dark, violent Victorian Edinburgh. A burglary and murder at the home of Sir Thomas Bouch, the enigmatic architect of the ill-fated Tay Bridge, sets Inspector James McLevy off on a train of brutal killings, lethal liaisons, and double suicide which leads to a violent encounter with an old enemy, Hercules Dunbar.

The Words in my Hand is the reimagined true story of Helena, a 17th-century Dutch maid desperate to educate herself and use her mind in an era when women were kept firmly in their place. Helena works in the Amsterdam lodging house of an English bookseller who rents out a room to the mysterious 'Monsieur', who turns out to be René Descartes. Always trying to keep one step ahead of the authorities desperate to suppress his free thinking, Descartes and Helena form an unlikely bond which turns from teaching into an affair.

A thrilling short story featuring Inspector James McLevy and Jean Brash, available exclusively in audio. Suspected of poisoning her husband, a prominent judge, Judith Pearson writes to Inspector James McLevy begging for his help. With the evidence pointing overwhelmingly to the victim's wife and investigating Inspector Adam Dunsmore ready to make an arrest, McLevy is in a race against time to uncover the truth. You can enjoy more from the world of James McLevy with the Inspector McLevy series and the Jean Brash Mysteries, narrated by David Ashton and Siobhan Redmond.

1815, Sumbawa Island, Indonesia Mount Tambora explodes in a cataclysmic eruption, killing thousands. Sent to investigate, ship surgeon Henry Hogg can barely believe his eyes. Once a paradise, the island is now solid ash, the surrounding sea turned to stone. But worse is yet to come: as the ash cloud rises and covers the sun, the seasons will fail. 1816. In Switzerland, Mary Shelley finds dark inspiration. Confined inside by the unseasonable weather, thousands of famine refugees stream past her door.

At the Old Ship in Edinburgh, New Year's Day celebrations are well underway. Nobody pays attention when Dutchman Isaac Caspar enters the tavern - until he collapses in the doorway, dead. Newly arrived in Leith on the good ship St Elmo, Caspar is a stranger in town. A search of his cabin reveals a curious item: a picture of the famous Hartjammer pearl, stolen in Amsterdam some months before. Is there a connection between the robbery and the murder? Inspector McLevy is determined to find out.

It's 1978. Ponte, a small community in Northern Italy: peaceful woods, discarded rubbish, a closed-down factory. An unbearably hot summer like many others, wilted flowers and trips to the waterfalls. Elia Furenti is 16, living in a secluded house with his parents, a life so unremarkable that even its moderate unhappiness has been accepted as normal. That is until the day the beautiful, damaged Anna returns to Ponte and firmly propels Elia to the edge of adulthood. But then everything starts to unravel.