Simon Prebble
In this eighth mystery featuring hard-boiled Roman PI Marcus Didius Falco, Davis creates a chiaroscuro world of evil plots and dark humor, as olive oil whets a villain's appetite for power and his taste for murder.
Surprisingly, nobody is poisoned at the Society of Olive Oil Producers banquet—the attempted murder of Rome's chief spy occurs immediately afterward. Suspicion falls, quick as the Italian night, on the dinner's sinuous dancer,
...A cult classic in the United Kingdom since its first publication there in the 1970s, Don't Point That Thing at Me is the first of a series of hilarious and dark-humored crime thrillers featuring the Honorable Charlie Mortdecai, degenerate aristocrat, amoral art dealer, seasoned epicurean, unwilling assassin, and acknowledged coward.
With his thuggish manservant, the incomparably named Jock Strapp, Mortdecai endures all manner of nastiness
...The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes collects together eleven stories detailing the famous exploits and adventures of Baker Street's greatest detective. Arthur Conan Doyle's compilation was originally published in 1894 and contains these stories: "Silver Blaze", "The Adventure of the Yellow Face", "The Stockbroker's Clerk", "The Gloria Scott", "The Musgrave Ritual", "The Adventure of the Reigate Squire", "The Adventure of the Crooked Man", "The
...84) Dead cert
Last Act in Palmyra is the sixth book in the bestselling Falco series by Lindsey Davis.
The spirit of adventure calls Marcus Didius Falco on a new spying mission for Emperor Vespasian to the untamed East. He picks up extra fees from his old friend Thalia the snake dancer as he searches for Sophrona, her lost water organist. With the chief spy Anacrites paying his fare, Falco knows anything can go wrong.
A dangerous brush with
...87) My Revolutions
89) Quiller Bamboo
Summoned late at night to the Bureau, Quiller attends a secret conference with the foreign secretary and a surprise defector: the Chinese ambassador to Britain. Minutes later, shots ring out and the ambassador's body is flung out onto the sidewalk of a deserted London street, riddled with bullets.
Searching for clues, Quiller flies to Calcutta to meet Sojourner, a key ally in the plan to bring democracy to China. But Sojourner is killed—thus,
...90) Mortality
91) The winter pony
92) Fox evil
One of the world's greatest novelists, Leo Tolstoy was also the author of a number of superb short stories, one of his best-known being "The Kreutzer Sonata." This macabre story involves the murder of a wife by her husband. It is a penetrating study of jealousy as well as a piercing complaint about the way in which society educates men and women in matters of sex—a serious condemnation of the mores and attitudes of the wealthy, educated class.
...99) Devil's Bride
When Devil, the most infamous member of the Cynster family, is caught in a compromising position with plucky governess Honoria Wetherby, he astonishes the entire town by offering his hand in marriage. No one dreamed this scandalous rake would ever take a bride. And as society mamas swooned at the loss of England′s most eligible bachelor, Devil′s infamous Cynster cousins began to place wagers on the wedding date.
...The year is 548, and Empress Theodora is dead of disease. Such is the belief of everyone in Constantinople, capital of the Roman Empire—everyone except Emperor Justinian, who orders John, his Lord Chamberlain, to find her murderer or suffer the consequences.
There is no sign of foul play, but many of the aristocrats at the imperial court had good reason to want Theodora dead. Suspects include General Artabanes, forced to occupy a house
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