Bücher von Miles Craven

In 1777 the young John Eagle moves to Yorkshire from London to begin his career as a junior attorney with senior partner, Abraham Balme, a curmudgeonly man who lives only for money and his spiteful elderly mother. John finds himself taking sides, not with Balme but with the ill-treated managing clerk, Tom Gill, and the downtrodden maid, Sukey. As he goes about his business, John proves an able attorney and is soon handling several delicate and, it transpires, connected cases. There is the death of his old friend, Richard Hudson, mysteriously found drowned in the Aire. He soon suspects it was no accident and may be linked to a renegade character, Long Larkin, who from his grim mansion on the moors is engaged in illegal coining activities and terrorises the locality. John forms a friendship with Sir Walter Spencer-Stanhope, a magistrate and prominent landowner. As the main authority in these parts, Sir Walter ought to be prosecuting Larkin without hesitation. But he argues that the time is not right and that Larkin serves a purpose as the War of American Independence is raging, with harmful economic effects. As John struggles he wonders if he has bitten off more than he can chew.

In late 1999 parts of a dismembered body are found in a bin-bag by a jogger. DS Nick Thomas, whös assigned the case, feels there is no one he can trust. Meanwhile on one of the roughest council estates in Leeds, teenager Jamie Winn, known simply as J, steals and extorts on behalf of his criminal father, while elder brother Ricky is on the payroll of powerful mobster, William Maloney, whose tentacles reach to the very top of the city¿s hierarchy. More a howcatchem than a whodunit or a whydunnit, A Hiding to Nothing is a story of courage and redemption in the face of the gravest danger.

It is 1778 in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Sixteen-year-old Nell Cooper is doted on by her baronet father, Sir Patrick, a man acutely status conscious and highly susceptible of slights. He is a rich West India planter who brings home from Barbados a slave girl, Olu, as a ¿pet¿ for his daughter. The two girls are uneasy companions, each in their own way strong and defiant. Nell, through whose eyes the story is told, expects Olu to be a grateful, submissive slave happy with her lot, but, as she quickly discovers, this is far from being the case. Yet in spite of everything the two girls grow close, a development not lost on Sir Patrick who starts to regret bringing Olu home. Soon the baronet is having the pair watched, using as a spy his evil steward and attorney, Archibald Vine.

When mystery girl Perdita arrives in the small Welsh village of Pont Wan in 1959 the lives of its inhabitants, good, bad and downright evil, will never be the same again. While a few people grow to like the plucky young stranger, most remain hateful, laying all their ills at her door. Darkening the atmosphere further is the shadow of fifteenth-century witch and wisewoman, Mother Olwyn, who prophesied that the weak bridge from which the village took its name would one day fall for a third time, marking the end of the world. Judging by the poor state of the bridge, that time looks imminent.

Joe and Tess have spent seven years married, but not in bliss. Each fiercely proud and unwilling to be first to give in, their love becomes a cancerous war of worsening proportions as they deny each other affection and refuse to communicate. Miserable and hurt by Tess¿s drunken actions at a party, Joe leaves and drives away ¿ drives anywhere, as long as it¿s far from her. When he finds himself literally on a cliff edge, his pride leads to a strange chain of events that will have terrible consequences for them both.

It¿s Halloween 1793 and a teenage prostitute is found murdered, her body horribly mutilated. A new type of killer is stalking the muddy streets of Leeds and the authorities are perplexed. Worried about the loss of trade, the town corporation hires John Eagle to investigate. But other murders soon follow, each preceded by a cryptic note. The killer is clever and resourceful, challenging John to find him and break the chain of deaths. A battle of wits ensues in which the stakes for the young attorney have never been higher.