Sometimes we're not alone.... What is the dreadful secret hiding behind the front door of an insignificant South London terraced house? Following a triple killing in 1896, a series of murders occur sporadically in the same house, culminating in the murder of the new occupant's girlfriend over a century later. But is there a connection or are they simply coincidences? Reverend Bernard Paltoquet, the vicar of the local parish, is determined to find out. He gradually discovers what links the murders and, with the help of his friends Dr MacTavish and medium Dorothy Plunkett, finally unlocks the mystery that has kept 57 Bockhampton Road in the grip of an unidentifiable evil influence for so many years.

The Bockhampton Road Murders:  Book 1  in the Reverend Paltoquet Mystery Series

Twins sometimes run in families; in the Fentimans’ case, they positively stampede. In 1937, Robert Fentiman is hanged for the murder of a barmaid. Twenty years later his ghost claims his innocence, and Rev Bernard Paltoquet is called on to help clear his name by the dead man’s son, Carl. As Bernard and his pal Robbie begin their investigations, by a cruel twist of fate, another barmaid is murdered, who turns out to be the daughter of the first barmaid. And, by another twist of fate, Carl Fentiman is the main suspect. A professional medium, with an unconventional use for a crystal ball, is called in to help solve both crimes, but she is as baffled as Bernard and Robbie. Meanwhile Bernard’s housekeeper, Mrs Aitch, has deserted the vicarage for a mysterious suitor….

The Dark Side of the Mirror (Book 7 in the Reverend Paltoquet supernatural mystery series) The Dark Side of the Mirror (Book 7 in the Reverend Paltoquet supernatural mystery series)

Once again we are in the cosy, but slightly scary, world of private eye Teddy Bean. It is 1959 and into his life comes a new client, Brian Amory, who claims he is being followed. Meanwhile, in a quiet leafy street in a north London suburb a woman is brutally murdered in her hallway. Teddy becomes unofficially involved in the case when Amory’s wife finds the murder weapon in the wardrobe and another client brings him an incriminating letter. And then, one cold December night, Teddy unwittingly walks into danger when he finally unmasks the murderer.

The Murder in Weeping Lane

‘Oh dear, what can the matter be ....’Why does a woman keep falling from the Big Wheel at a South London fair? Hallucination or something more sinister? It seems that Robbie MacTavish and Mrs Harper’s great-nephew Alfie are the only two people who can see her. Meanwhile, Rev. Bernard Paltoquet is asked to investigate a 60-year-old mystery, when the Vicarage plumber asks for his help in tracing his long-lost grandmother. As Robbie tries to discover who the falling woman is and what she wants, Bernard begins to uncover the tragic events surrounding Albert’s grandmother’s fate.

So Long at the Fair

Sometimes, the only enemy a man has is his own … Jed Parks, Bernard Paltoquet’s new gardener, has an unusual psychic gift: he can see people’s auras. A black aura is a death sentence. He also has a guilty secret. Having helped to cover up two murders, he lives in fear his past will come back to haunt him. Thus, when Lady Mountjoy, his former employer and lover, turns up telling him he is the father of her son, he is torn between his old life and his new. Bernard and his friend Robbie become involved in Jed’s plight, but they are powerless to prevent the tragedy which follows….

The Man Who Was Death

It is London in the early 1960s and Teddy Bean is making a name for himself as a private detective. However, his personal problems are taking over, with his brother, John, only slowly recovering from a heart attack and his wife, Pearl, dying in a car accident. Added to this, he takes on a difficult case involving a woman presumably drowned at sea by her husband. Teddy needs help while his brother is incapacitated and finds it in his friend, ex-Detective Inspector Tony Halliday. With the added support of their secretary Muriel, the Bean Detective Agency is open for business once more!

Murder of Convenience

The year is 1948. Reverend Bernard Paltoquet and his friend Dr Robbie MacTavish go on a tour of Europe and encounter a mystery in a Bergen forest. Why are the ghosts of two children haunting a fir tree? The following Christmas, that very tree turns up in the church hall and the ghosts of the children with it. It seems they cannot rest until their murderer has been brought to justice and only the psychic Robbie can help, even though he doesn’t speak a word of Norwegian! It seems an impossible task, but Robbie is determined to help them, despite all the obstacles in his way.

Haunted Christmas:  Book 2 (Reverend Paltoquet Mystery Series)

A serial killer is on the loose, going round strangling women with their own tights and removing their right shoes. Various suspects turn up but, with no obvious motive, the police are impotent and the murders continue. The only link they can find concerns a ‘religious’ meeting, regularly held at the local civic centre, which was attended by at least two of the victims. Amateur detective Samantha Powers is dating Jack Parkinson who, it transpires, is seeing another woman behind her back. He comes under suspicion when that young woman becomes another victim of the strangler as it seems he was the last one to see her alive. There are other suspects, including a vicious, depraved copper and a creepy vicar. As the story unravels, the real culprit remains hidden until almost the last page.

Death in High Heels

The date 1888; the place Whitechapel in London’s East End. Yes, it is the time of the unholy, but mercifully brief, reign of Jack the Ripper. Prostitutes are being viciously murdered by an unknown assailant and, as the murders become ever more horrific, young Polish immigrant, Jacek Kaminski, is gradually suspected of being the perpetrator. He even begins to suspect so himself, being subject to blackouts during which he has no recollection of what he has done. But can it be true? Can he ever be sure? We follow Jacek’s trials and tribulations in this highly fanciful story of just one possible solution to the Ripper case.

UnOriginal Sin

The year is 1935. Art connoisseur-cum-private investigator Felix Underwood is asked to find out what happened to Reggie Soper, a young solicitor who disappeared without trace 15 years previously. Determined to help Charlotte Soper find her missing father, his investigations take him from the comfort of his Bond Street art emporium to the wilds of Yorkshire where he finds his presence among the village locals not entirely welcome. Undaunted by the wall of silence surrounding him, he continues his search, finding a friend and helpmeet in Mavis, the landlady of the inn where he lodges. Together, they uncover a nightmare; the full horror of which nothing has prepared them for.

Hidden

Strangers can be exciting. They can also be dangerous. When Petra meets Jason through an online dating site, little does she realise the kind of man he is. Complications follow when he falls for Becca, her prettier sister, whose picture Petra has uploaded to the site instead of her own. Things start to spiral out of control when Jason’s estranged wife turns up unexpectedly. Set on marrying Becca, he takes drastic steps to rid himself of her forever. Meanwhile, Jason’s friend Marcus is torn between loyalty to his friend and suspicion he is a cold-blooded murderer. Then Becca receives news no one ever wants to hear…

Once You Kiss A Stranger

What links the murder of seventeen-year-old Helen Carstairs in 1954 to the murder, over thirty years earlier, of Private Rodney Purbright? The tragic story of two sisters, one pretty, one plain, is key to both murders. The Rowan sisters are bound together by a secret they must keep, and their reclusive behaviour plants suspicion in the minds of their neighbours, who regard them as ‘witches’. Dispensing herbal remedies and keeping a mangy black cat add to their air of mystery and seem to bear out the rumours. It doesn’t take the police long to arrest and charge Helen’s father of her murder. Henry Carstairs is also accused of incest by her best friend and of being the father of his daughter’s unborn baby. According to Inspector Craddock, it is an open-and-shut case, especially when the murder weapon turns out to have Carstairs’ fingerprints on it. But things are never as simple as they seem in the world of Reverend Bernard Paltoquet and his friend Dr Robbie MacTavish who, although taking a backseat in this novel, are watching events unfold with interest and have theories of their own.

The Witches of Wandsworth: The Reverend Bernard Paltoquet Mystery Series, Book 4 (Reverend Paltoquet Mystery Series)

Towards the end of the Nineteenth Century, two young mothers meet violent ends in a large South London house. Reverend Bernard Paltoquet and Dr Robbie MacTavish, together with their friend, clairvoyant Dorothy Plunkett, are drawn into these tragic events, when young November Jones walks into Robbie’s surgery in the late autumn of 1962. What is the mystery surrounding her, and why is a restless spirit trying to communicate through her? The disused cellar in the house she rents seems to hold the answer. Meanwhile, two senior citizens are wandering in and out of Bernard’s vicarage trying to find answers of their own.

The Possession of November Jones: 3 (Reverend Paltoquet Mystery Series)

When Fiona and James Brett move into their fashionable London home, they discover the attic room harbours a dark and deadly secret. James locks himself away inside, ostensibly to take up oil painting, but he soon becomes moody, even violent. Local prostitutes are being attacked, and then the Bretts’ Polish cleaner is murdered. Another murder soon follows and this time it is even more close to home. James’s former lover is found mutilated, mirroring the Whitechapel killings of over a century ago. Could James be responsible, or is the evil of Jack the Ripper’s crimes casting its shadow over him?

The Long Shadow

The year is 1961. Barney Carmichael is about to take on his toughest case yet when a mysterious and glamorous woman walks into his office unannounced. Her request is simple: find her son. It is soon clear that the task is far from simple, however. In fact, the more Barney and brother Jim delve into the mystery, the more confusing it becomes. Meanwhile, Barney’s friend, Inspector Tony Halliday of Scotland Yard, seeks his help in solving a series of baffling murders. Charwomen at a big London office block are being picked off, seemingly at random, by an unknown assailant. The Carmichael Private Investigation agency has also taken on a bright new secretary, but when she is determined to do some investigating of her own, she makes a devastating discovery that changes her life forever. This is the third novel in the Barney Carmichael Private Investigator series.

The Mop & Bucket Murders (The Barney Carmichael murder mystery series)

When a mysterious middle-aged woman moves in next door to St Stephen’s vicarage, she is immediately taken under the wing of Nancy Harper, the Reverend Bernard Paltoquet’s redoubtable housekeeper. As the relationship between the two women develops, however, ‘Mrs Aitch’ begins to entertain suspicions that her new neighbour is not all she seems. Bernard and his friend Dr Robbie MacTavish also begin to think she has a dark secret. Another stranger to the world of the St Stephen’s vicar comes in the shape of a freakish little man with strange powers which he uses to help Bernard and his friends with their various problems. Other complications ensue, culminating in the brutal slaying of a man on the eve of his wedding and an Old Bailey murder trial. But is the verdict safe?

Seeing Double

The year is 1958, the place fashionable Chelsea, London. One famous film star commits suicide, and another famous star is run over. An eminent Harley Street plastic surgeon dies under suspicious circumstances, and Chief Inspector Spry of Scotland Yard is prompted to ask “When is a murder not a murder?” When a fading film star decides to undergo plastic surgery to help revive her flagging career, it turns out to be the worst decision of her life, culminating in her eventual suicide. When people close to her, including her former husband, begin to drop like flies, the plot thickens until all the strands come together in the best Agatha Christie tradition.

Damaged

It is winter in the Cotswolds and a suspicious death has occurred. Psychic medium ‘Madame Zelda’ is found dead on Christmas morning, an open box of chocolates by her side. DCI Hayley Pascal and her new oppo, DS Artie Frobisher, have little to occupy themselves over the dead time that is Christmas at Oxford Police Station, until the chocolates are found to contain a poisonous substance. Cold cases can wait. They now have a new case to solve: one of MURDER. There are no shortage of suspects: the victim’s feckless husband Charlie, her simple-minded son Luke and Grant Vaughan, the man she has cut out of his mother’s will. Added to these complications, Hayley Pascal is missing her daughter, who lives with her ex-husband in Paris and who has promised to visit her at New Year, but doesn’t. Here is a straightforward murder mystery in the tradition of Agatha Christie, but it is also a story of ordinary people driven to drastic measures through loneliness, misery and the need for revenge.

Death Comes Gift Wrapped

A ghost with a secret to tell … but who will hear her? Rev Bernard Paltoquet becomes involved in another psychic mystery when a young woman, Alice Troy, is murdered and Howard Drake, one of Bernard’s parishioners, is convicted of the crime and sentenced to hang. However, thanks to a mongrel dog, Bernard and his psychic doctor friend, Robbie MacTavish, are alerted to Alice’s unquiet spirit at her graveside. But time is running out for Drake, and it is only Robbie who can help him. However, he is convinced the verdict is safe….

Reverend Paltoquet supernatural mystery series

The Corpse Wore Red (Book 9 in the Reverend Paltoquet supernatural mystery series)

In 1913 suffragette Emily St John-Carstairs and her husband disappear from their South London home under mysterious circumstances. The scene shifts to 1958, where Teddy Bean, a former juggler turned private detective, is hired by Emily's sister to find her. As the story unfolds between the two decades, we follow the fortunes of an unprincipled parlour maid, an unemployed alcoholic cook and a mysterious gentleman known only as ‘Bob’, all of whom are in some way linked to Emily’s fate. Added into the mix, is the ex-juggler's schizophrenic, knife-wielding wife but what part does she play in Emily’s story?

Getting Away with Murder

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