Bøker av Robert Barnard

Superintendent Perry Trethowan was enjoying a peaceful motoring holiday in North Yorkshire when he and his wife, Jan, had a strange encounter in a country pub. The seemingly unremarkable elderly spinster who introduced herself as Miss Edith Wing, a retired schoolmistress, proceeded to produce form her capacious blue handbag a yellowing manuscript - and claimed that it was part of an undiscovered novel by one of the Bronte sisters. Was it a clever forgery, or the literary sensation of the century? What started out as a harmless holiday diversion for the superintendent turned into a hunt for a vicious attacker as both Miss Wing and Perry himself found themselves in deadly danger. 'You can count on a Barnard mystery being witty, intelligent and a joy to read' Publishers Weekly 'One of our most original and versatile bloodspillers' Marcel Berlins, The Times 'Delicious . . . an appetising entertainment' New York Times

Superintendent Perry Trethowan was used to cases that involved people in high places, and in this one he finds himself at the top of the tree - among the British royals. A Princess, albeit only a minuscule royal offshoot, with a snug little apartment in Kensington Palace and a snug little sum on the Civil List, is threatened - but by whom, why, and exactly what is uncertain. Her circle consists mostly of boy-friends, and they are a motley lot, drawn from the worlds of politics, the stage, even the football field. But are they endangered too or are they part of the threat? The Princess (fresh as morning dew, and much more treacherous) trips gaily through the minefield, while around her men keep dying. But blood will out, especially blue blood, and by the time Perry Trethowan gets to the bottom of the case, a murderer has been brought to justice and not a few reputations tremble in the scales. Robert Barnard's ability to create entertaining plots in the classic tradition was recognised through multiple nominations for Edgar Awards in the States, and he received the 2003 CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for a lifetime of achievement.

Picking up the primary scent of any investigation, this anthology of wicked tales paints a chilling portrait of modus operandi--the signature that identifies any repeat offender. In this collection of villainous narratives, a coroner reveals a body's telltale clues to his students as he unwittingly dissects his own relationship, a broken-down driver turns his roadside routine into a quite different type of pick-up, and two creative-writing tutors discuss the merits of "hard-boiled" versus "cozy" schools of crime writing while a murderous student points out that it's really procedure that counts. From the ex-doctor tenderly administering a final prescription to his victims to the party of finishing school debutantes exacting revenge on their lecherous host, these stories demonstrate that, even with the most despicable of crimes, there is always methodology within the madness.