When the committee members of the Oldford Literary Festival all receive anonymous letters telling them to resign or die, it marks the start of an unusual case for Chief Superintendent Lambert and DS Hook. All of the members identify one man as being capable of such a thing: Peter Preston, a self-important cultural snob who is in disagreement with the head of the festival, Marjorie Dooks, over what he sees as the dumbing down of the events programme. But could a disagreement over a literary festival actually lead to murder? It's not long before Lambert and Hook have their answer...

Sir Godfrey Tallboys had come home from the Crusades. Home to Knight's Acre. But the years had brought many changes - and not only to his estate. His wife Sybilla, exhausted with struggling to keep poverty at bay, had grown old before her time. And with Sir Godfrey's return, there was further change. With him was the Moorish slave girl who had saved his life in Spain...Tana, beautiful and beguiling, his mistress - and now she was expecting his child. Aflame with all the jealous passions of the East, Tana saw Sybilla as the obstacle to her desire. Her arrival was to alter the fortunes of the quiet Suffolk house. And in a way none of them could have possibly foreseen...

When Melanie Hunter goes missing, it is completely out of character for the polite, friendly palaeontologist, and the men in her life come under suspicion. And there's plenty to suspect: lies, half-truths, deceptions... Seems that when you pull one thread, the whole fabric of family life can come apart. It soon becomes clear that there are secrets in Melanie's past, and pain she tried to hide from the world. Bill Slider and his team investigate, and if they are to succeed then they will need to find the answer to two questions: who loved Melanie, and who loved her too much?

DI McLusky has settled into his new job in Bristol but the severe freeze shows an unfamiliar side to the city. After the conviction of a drug baron earlier in the year a new kingpin secures the hub of drug crime in Bristol. But how secure is he? A series of seemingly unconnected murders, accidents and dying drug users slowly reveal the web of violence. Narrow strips of a cut-up photograph arriving piecemeal at the Bristol Herald's offices may hold vital clues but will the completed puzzle reach McLusky in time to prevent more deaths? The private lives of both McLusky and his rival DI Kat Fairfield take unexpected turns too, making the atmosphere at Albany Road station icier still...

Iceland 1934: Two boys playing see something they shouldn't have. The consequences will haunt them and their families for generations. Iceland 2009: The credit crunch bites. The currency has been devalued, savings annihilated, lives ruined. Grassroots revolution is in the air, as is the feeling that someone ought to pay... And in a country where everyone knows everybody, it isn't hard to draw up a list of exactly who is responsible. And then, one-by-one, to cross them off. Iceland 2010: As bankers and politicians start to die, at home and abroad, it is up to Magnus Jonson to unravel the web of conspirators. But while Magnus investigates the crimes of the present, the crimes of the past are catching up with him.

1922. Commander Joe Sandilands returns from a stint in India and immediately finds himself up to his neck in a tricky political situation. London is reeling from IRA atrocities and Joe is further plagued by the machinations of a spy-ring being run under his nose by a Russian emigree princess. When a war hero is gunned down and the life of a popular Englishman is threatened, Joe knows he has only days to root out the person behind the killings. With the help of the proposed victim and the services of a woman police constable, Joe discovers that the murderer's motive is more devious than he could ever have imagined. And when the mask comes off, the killer's identity shocks even the battle-hardened Sandilands.

A bloody gang war has erupted in the World Heritage designated city of Bath, leading DCI James Carrick to enlist the help of his old friends, husband and wife team Patrick Gillard and Ingrid Langley, late of MI5 and now working for the Serious Organized Crime Agency, to hunt down the criminals. One of the country's most notorious and feared crime lords, "Uncle", is spotted in the city, and they are soon embroiled in a dangerous game of cat and mouse to catch him and his gang. As the investigation takes ever more personal and sinister turns, and with Uncle and his associates always one step ahead of the game, can Patrick and Ingrid bring them to justice?

When Ben Hammond reluctantly embarks on a pensioners' coach tour, he is surprised to find that he has met one of his fellow passngers before. It is Miss McGuire, his former maths teacher...and she is acting rather strangely. On the journey home, Ben realises that Miss McGuire is no longer on the bus, but when he is told she stopped to visit her sister, alarm bells start ringing. Miss McGuire had no sister. Ben is compelled to investigate and, when he does, he unearths all manner of dark secrets. Suspicious characters lurk in the gloom of the Full Moon Inn and, at a nursing home not far from the coach's route, elderly people are disappearing...

Blanche Longhurst is a pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary, delivering Spitfires from factories to air bases around the country during World War Two. She believes herself to be safe from the direct conflict but during one routine trip, bad weather causes her to lose her bearings and projects her into activities that go against her sense of morality. She finds herself in another war, in another country where the anti-Nazi offensive is filled with subterfuge and personal betrayal. Eleven years later and now with a 10-year-old son, Blanche still suffers from memories of the war and knows that she will have to confront her demons if she is to move on.

Jane Fortune causes a stir when she arrives in the small community of Dingleford. She has bought an old cottage and plans to open a tearoom. Old friends Charles Weatherby and Harold Prestcott both fall for the newcomer, but her behaviour seems to vary wildly - she encourages first one then the other and at other times barely recognises them. Is there more to the fair Miss Fortune than meets the eye?

It is 1940 and Staff Nurse Polly Brown has been granted a posting at Cliffehaven Memorial Hospital on the south coast to be near her badly injured husband, Adam. But her decision has meant that she has had to part with their beloved five-year-old daughter, Alice, who is travelling to safety in Canada. Polly's heart is torn in two as she says goodbye to Alice and heads to the Beach View boarding house in Cliffehaven, where she throws herself into her work. But as she confronts the fact that Adam may not survive his injuries, a telegram arrives at Beach View. The boat Alice was on has been torpedoed by a German U-boat...

A tranquil Spanish village by the sea is the perfect place for Primavera Blackstone to raise her ten-year-old Tom, son of the late lamented Oz, especially when they are joined by his nephew, pro-golfer Jonny Sinclair. But when her best friend Shirley introduces her new man, Patterson Cowling, he seems to be a trouble magnet. A casual thief tries to pick his pocket and is found a few days later with his face blown off. A bloody coincidence, or does Patterson Cowling have a past to protect? As the body count rises, and Primavera becomes den mother to an extended golfing family, it seems that homicide is par for the course, and that hazards lie in wait for everyone.