Alys Clare

The new 'Lassair' mystery from the author of the 'Hawkenlye' books - Very early one summer morning, Lassair slips out of her Fenland village on a deeply personal mission and discovers the body of a young woman, hidden where it has no place to be. The girl's identity is quickly discovered but, as she wonders who killed her and why, Lassair swiftly becomes mystified and frightened. Why did a sweet-natured seamstress have to die? Suspicion soon creeps...

Lily Raynor goes undercover in a girls’ boarding school in 1881 London to investigate runaway pupils and their connection to a shadowy group of powerful men.

A Hawkenlye medieval mystery - May 1199. Abbess Helewise has been summoned by Queen Eleanor to discuss the building of a chapel at Hawkenlye Abbey. Meanwhile, Sir Josse d'Acquin is on the trail of a group of mysterious knights rumoured to be devil worshippers. As Helewise heads for home, Josse follows his quarry to Chartres, where he meets the last person he expects: Joanna. And she has grave problems of her own . . .

"London, 1880. 'I'm dreadfully afraid someone is threatening to kill my wife...' When accounts clerk Ernest Stibbins approaches the World's End investigation bureau with wild claims that his wife Albertina has been warned by her spirit guides that someone is out to harm her, the bureau's owner Lily Raynor and her new employee Felix Wilbraham are initially skeptical. How are the two private enquiry agents supposed to investigate threats from beyond...

"February, 1605. A series of killings shake the quiet life of Devon's Tavy valley. Country doctor Gabriel Taverner, summoned by the coroner to examine the bodies, believes that the murders are somehow connected to a mysterious woman recently discovered in shocking circumstances. Gabriel is determined to solve the mystery, and soon uncovers clues that link his unexpected patient to the brutal killings. Prominent among them is the strange and recurring...

"London, April 1882. When cool-headed Phyllida visits the World's End Investigation Bureau to offer a curious case concerning her fiance, proprietor Lily Raynor is intrigued - and privately excited. For accepting the case means taking an unexpected trip abroad, to France. Phyllida's fiance, Wilberforce, is currently in an asylum in Brittany, after a tragic incident which resulted in the death of his father. Did he kill him on purpose - or was it an...

Apprentice healer Lassair isn't too alarmed when a travelling peddler relates a grisly tale of a red-bearded giant breaking into a woman's home and caving in her skull like an eggshell; peddlers, she has observed, tend towards the dramatic. But her attitude changes when she learns that the dead woman is a distant relation. The incident makes Lassair's family uneasy, for the intruder seemed to be searching for something. What could it be? Lassair...

In the latest Hawkenlye mystery, desperate men commit terrible crimes – but vengeance is on its way...Winter, 1211. Former abbess Helewise moves back to her cell near Hawkenlye Abbey to help the needy, putting a strain on her relationship with Sir Josse D'Acquin, who is called to examine the bodies of three men, one of whom bears a complicated symbol carved into his chest: a symbol that signifies vengeance. Meanwhile, far from home, Sir Josse's...

A Hawkenlye medieval mystery - Autumn 1196. A secretive stranger arrives at New Winnowlands, and Sir Josse d'Acquin guesses that he is a returning Crusader. Josse seeks the assistance of Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye to have the man's injuries treated in the infirmary. But then the various demons who are on the man's trail begin to turn up, and Josse realizes that his mysterious guest has brought with him a terrible secret . . .

February, 1212. Sir Josse d'Acquin and Helewise are summoned to Southfire Hall, where Josse's elderly uncle, Hugh, lies dying, surrounded by his children. But the pair soon discovers that Hugh's ill health is not the only cause of distress in the house: for Hugh's son and heir, Herbert, has taken an unpleasant new wife, the widowed Lady Cyrille. Josse and Helewise are distracted by the discovery of an injured young man on the road outside on the evening...