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Set in a sprawling gothic mansion in a remote coastal location somewhere in the British Isles, volume one begins in the middle of a violent storm and tells of the elderly recluse Lord Alfred Willoughby as he tries to decide what is to become of his vast fortune after his death. After much deliberation, in a last-ditch attempt to try and show to his son the importance of applying himself to a task and staying with it to the end, he devises a series of enigmatic puzzles cunningly concealed within the lines of a poem - the cryptic lines.

When nineteen-year-old university student Emma goes missing, Detective Inspector Gareth Gravel is called in. But what is a simple missing person case soon turns into something much darker as Gravel’s inquiries lead him to the graves of five young women - each of whom looks just like Emma. With a serial killer on the loose and his latest victim already in his control, can the police find Emma in time? Or will Emma have to save herself?

Corrupt senior officers, a murder, a rape, and a flasher. Can DI Terry McGuire's day get any worse? McGuire became a police officer to uphold the law and to protect those who cannot protect themselves. When he discovers a connection between a former friend and colleague, and a body buried on a beach that appears to have been frozen for five years, McGuire knows there is only one course of action he can take.

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was born on the 1st April 1875 in Greenwich, London. Leaving school at 12 because of truancy, by the age of 15 he had experience selling newspapers, as a worker in a rubber factory, as a shoe shop assistant, as a milk delivery boy and as a ship’s cook. By 1894 he was engaged but broke it off to join the infantry; he was posted to South Africa. He also changed his name to Edgar Wallace, which he took from Lew Wallace, the author of Ben-Hur. In Cape Town in 1898 he met Rudyard Kipling and was inspired to begin writing.

As the primal dragons seek the destruction of mankind, five women are united by circumstances to make a final stand to save mankind: Infidel, the swashbuckling rogue; Sorrow, the ruthless witch; Gale Roamer, the pirate captain; the Black Swan, queen of crime; and Cinder, a young woman with the power to walk between the realms of the living and the dead. As dragons entomb the world in ice and darkness, an undead army hunts down the last human survivors.

Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was born on August 5th, 1850 near Dieppe in France. Maupassant’s early life was badly torn when at age 11 (his younger brother Hervé was then five) his mother, Laure, a headstrong and independent-minded woman, risked social disgrace in order to obtain a legal separation from her husband. After the separation, Laure kept custody of her two boys. With the father now forcibly absent, Laure became the most influential and important figure in the young boy's life.

Cinder is the daughter of Infidel and Stagger, a child conceived in the land of the dead by a living mother and a phantom father. Now an adult, Cinder possesses the power to travel freely between the realms of the living and the dead. Due to her unique talent, she’s recruited by the ghost of Father Ver to journey to Hell to rescue Sorrow, Slate, and the Romers, friends of her mother who’ve become trapped in Hell after their escape from Limbo. But when the primal dragons turn their wrath against mankind, will there be a living world left to come home to?

The darkness is spreading. A blanket of thick fog has descended on Strelsau, and the health of the King is failing. While Ruritanian citizens huddle inside to keep warm, discovering the identity of the heir to the throne has become a race against time. Why is the sinister Lord Marek so interested in the outcome of the search? Shadowy forces are at work, seeking to change the course of history. Will any ray of light be able to pierce through this shroud of darkness?

James Elroy Flecker was born on 5th November 1884, in Lewisham, London. Flecker does not seem to have enjoyed academic study and achieved only a Third-Class Honours in Greats in 1906. This did not set him up for a job in either government service or the academic world. After some frustrating forays at school teaching he attempted to join the Levant Consular Service and entered Cambridge to study for two years. After a poor first year he pushed forward in the second and achieved First-Class honours. His reward was a posting to Constantinople at the British consulate.

Benton has always dreamed through the eyes of killers. But recently, his dreams have changed into an unreadable pattern of shapes and screams. Death is coming, he can feel it in his bones, but he can’t tell who’s next in line. In a desperate attempt to organize his thoughts, Benton travels to a sleep center in a neighboring town. It’s a short distance, only a few hours along a deserted highway, but there’s nothing easy about the journey. The lonesome road is plagued with mystery and murder.

A Betrayal of Trust is the fourth book in the Ruritanian Rogues series, a high adventure saga, full of mystery, duplicity, and intrigue.

After the success of his first novel, John Krik has struggled to come up with a follow-up that his fans would eagerly gobble up. On a spur of the moment decision, John leaves his suburban married life to spend six months in an abandoned house in the quiet eerie town of Cafeville, where secrets lurk in every corner. The towns’ biggest source of gossip is the Greens who live right next door. As John attempts to put his finger on what it is about the house that has everyone steering clear, he finds himself captivated by the seductively charming Eva Green.

Robert Laurence Binyon, CH, was born on 10th August 1869 in Lancaster in Lancashire, England, to Quaker parents, Frederick Binyon and Mary Dockray. He studied at St Paul's School, London, before enrolling at Trinity College, Oxford, to read classics. Binyon’s first published work was Persephone in 1890. As a poet, his output was not prodigious, and, in the main, the volumes he did publish were slim, but his reputation was of the highest order. When the Poet Laureate, Alfred Austin, died in 1913, Binyon was considered alongside Thomas Hardy and Rudyard Kipling....

The Cockney Novelists flourished towards the end of the 19th century and spilled over into the next. They included Arthur Morrison, Edwin Pugh, William Pett Ridge and Clarence Rook. Authors being authors, they, of course, dealt with their subject matter in different ways. As a group they moved away from treating the London working classes as comedy cameos or social stereotypes.

Successful novelist Mia is being stalked. Photos of her and her four-year-old daughter arrive in untraceable emails that demand Mia perform various tasks or else... Terrified, Mia tries to escape, but the killer follows her all the way to Italy. In desperation, she returns home, but nowhere is safe. Meanwhile, DI Gravel is investigating the murder of three women. The detective’s last case pushed him to new extremes. Now with his health failing and his career at an end, what lengths will Gravel go to in order to catch a vicious killer?

Thomas Pendleton loves his wife, Ann, and six-year-old son, Seth, more than anything, but his job often makes him an absent husband and father. One day, after Thomas leaves on a business trip, his wife and son are killed in a car accident. When a cosmic storm enters Earth's atmosphere, scientists are baffled by its composition and origins, but not nearly as much as they are by the storm's side effect: Anyone who has died and chosen not to cross over is suddenly visible.

With the thunder and lightning outside increasing in ferocity, Charles read and re-read the words. Like his name on the envelope, the words of the message within had also been typed - this communication contained no actual handwriting whatsoever. At length, Charles allowed his hand to fall to his lap, the message still held between his fingers. Had there been anyone else present in the room, the words would now have been visible to all. The message read: "We know your secret".

In The Invisible Man, an unexpected guest at the Coach and Horses in Iping arouses the local's interest with his short temper and his completely covered face. Griffin is seeking solitude and quiet, but is soon forced from the village and finds temporary shelter in the home of an old university friend, Kemp. In The Time Machine, a Victorian scientist travels into the far future and discovers the descendants of humanity, the Eloi, living in apparent peace. However, after his time machine goes missing, he discovers that humanity has in fact split into two distinct species.

Wilfred Owen was born on 18th March 1893 at Plas Wilmot, near Oswestry in Shropshire, the eldest of four children. His mother's strong Anglican views passed through to Wilfred, and the Bible, along with books on the Romantic poets, particularly John Keats, were particular favourites and contributed to his initial devotion to the church. In 1913 Wilfred began work as a private tutor teaching English and French at the Berlitz School of Languages in Bordeaux, France, and later with a family.

Balla is often described as "the Slovak Kafka" for his depictions of the absurd and the mundane. In the Name of the Father features a nameless narrator reflecting on his life, looking for someone else to blame for his failed relationship with his parents and two sons, his serial adultery, the breakup of his marriage, and his wife's descent into madness. Against the backdrop of their stiflingly gray provincial lives, he completely fails to act against "the thing" growing in the cellar of the house he built with his brother.