by Philip Eliot | Nov 14, 2025 | General Nonfiction |
In this remarkable legal page-turner, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Barry Siegel recounts the dramatic, decades-long saga of Bill Macumber, imprisoned for thirty-eight years for a double homicide he denies committing. In the spring of 1962, a school bus full of students stumbled across a mysterious crime scene on an isolated stretch of Arizona desert: an abandoned car and two bodies. This brutal murder of a young couple bewildered the sheriff ‘s department of Maricopa County for years. Despite a few promising leads—including several chilling confessions from Ernest Valenzuela, a violent repeat offender—the case went cold. More than a decade later, a clerk in the sheriff ‘s department, Carol Macumber, came forward to tell police that her estranged husband had confessed to the murders. Though the evidence linking Bill Macumber to the incident was questionable, he was arrested and charged with the crime. During his trial, the judge refused to allow the confession of now-deceased Ernest Valenzuela to be admitted as evidence in part because of the attorney-client privilege. Bill Macumber was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.The case, rife with extraordinary irregularities, attracted the sustained involvement of the Arizona Justice Project, one of the first and most respected of the non-profit groups that represent victims of manifest injustice across the country. With more twists and turns than a Hollywood movie, Macumber’s story illuminates startling, upsetting truths about our justice system, which kept a possibly innocent man locked up for almost forty years, and introduces readers to the generations of dedicated lawyers who never stopped working on his behalf, lawyers who ultimately achieved stunning results. With precise journalistic detail, intimate access and masterly storytelling, Barry Siegel will change your understanding of American jurisprudence, police procedure, and what constitutes justice in our country today.
by Philip Eliot | Nov 14, 2025 | Science Fiction |
Aster Worthington spearheads the First Contact Team to unravel a message from an alien race. “The Lambdons” promise free energy if humanity builds a few special robots and downloads their message into a super computer to direct construction of the fusion reactor. An excited world agrees and builds a massive structure called the Dome to house the alien enterprise.
Seven years later, there’s no “free energy” and strange things happen in and around the Dome. Aster and her colleagues mount an expedition under the protection of Army Rangers to investigate the interior. Instead of friendly aliens, they discover hordes of deadly intelligent humanoids with insect-like characteristics.
When the military team is brutally murdered by the Lambdons, the scientists scatter. It’s soon apparent that the Lambdons intend to take over the planet using biological warfare. The only hope for humanity lies with a two-thousand year old scroll hidden by the church. The question is, can Aster and her team unravel the scroll’s mystery in time to save the planet?
by Philip Eliot | Nov 14, 2025 | Historical Fiction |
Anna Dahlberg grew up eating dinner under her father’s war-trophy portrait of Eva Braun.
Fifty years after the war, she discovers what he never did—that her mother and Hitler’s mistress were friends.
The secret surfaces with a mysterious monogrammed handkerchief, and a man, Hannes Ritter, whose Third Reich family history is entwined with Anna’s.
Plunged into the world of the “ordinary” Munich girl who was her mother’s confidante—and a tyrant’s lover—Anna finds her every belief about right and wrong challenged. With Hannes’s help, she retraces the path of two women who met as teenagers, shared a friendship that spanned the years that Eva Braun was Hitler’s mistress, yet never knew that the men they loved had opposing ambitions.
Eva’s story reveals that she never joined the Nazi party, had Jewish friends, and was credited at the Nuremberg Trials with saving 35,000 Allied lives. As Anna’s journey leads back through the treacherous years in wartime Germany, it uncovers long-buried secrets and unknown reaches of her heart to reveal the enduring power of love in the legacies that always outlast war.
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by Philip Eliot | Nov 13, 2025 | Historical Fiction |
Soon to be a major feature film from the producers of Big Little Lies and Gone GirlParis, 1963. Behind Severine Kassel’s carefully crafted image as the Louvre’s most respected jewellery curator lies a woman haunted by unspeakable trauma. When she’s invited to London to authenticate a collection of rare Byzantine pearls, her composed facade finally cracks. These are not just any pearls—they belong to her family, stolen in an act of unimaginable cruelty two decades earlier.Her shocking revelation sets off a frenzied hunt for former Nazi officer Ruda Mayek. As Severine follows Mayek’s trail, the tightly controlled life she’s built around herself is shattered. Will her own carefully guarded secrets be revealed?From the snow-laden forests outside Prague to the elegant galleries of Paris and the windswept moors of Yorkshire, Severine must confront both the horrors of her past and the price of vengeance. But in a web of lies and betrayal spanning two decades, some truths are better left buried.From million-copy bestselling author Fiona McIntosh comes The Pearl Thief — a heart-stopping novel about whether love and hope can ever truly overcome the darkest acts of war. Perfect for fans of Kate Quinn’s The Rose Code and Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale.Readers love The Pearl Thief: ‘Love, love, love this book… had me hooked from page 1.’ Reader review, ?????‘My favourite book I have read in years. Gripping, page turning and utterly fascinating!! Couldn’t recommend it higher!’ Reader review, ?????‘Absolutely incredible!! Holy wow, this is my first Fiona McIntosh book I’ve read and I see what I’ve been missing out on. I loved this!’ Reader review, ?????‘Could not put this book down, and neither could my 88 year old grandmother. Heartbreak, hope, revenge, all in one. Loved it!’ Reader review, ?????‘A fast paced historical fiction story that has the perfect blend of action, mystery and love. It is so beautifully written.’ Reader review, ?????‘A powerful epic historical saga that will tantalise your feelings and completely take over your heart.’ Reader review, ?????‘A master of her craft.’Better Reading‘Action, heartbreak and romance aplenty.’ Australian Bookseller & Publisher ‘An extraordinary storyteller.’Book’d Out
by Philip Eliot | Nov 13, 2025 | Mystery |
It is November of 1880, and the future looks promising for Annie and Nate Dawson. Nate’s law practice is taking off. Annie has made the transition from pretend clairvoyant to a successful financial consultant, and as a couple, they are looking forward to spending their first Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays together. For Robert Livingston, the owner San Francisco’s newest grand emporium, the holidays are shaping up to be a dismal failure if he can’t figure out how to stop whoever is stealing from his department store, the Silver Strike Bazaar. When he hires the Dawsons to investigate, Annie and Nate discover that behind the doors of Livingston’s “Palace of Plenty,” nothing is quite what it seems. Pilfered Promises, by USA Today bestselling author, M. Louisa Locke, is the fifth full-length historical mystery in the cozy Victorian San Francisco mystery series featuring Annie and Nate Dawson and their friends and family in the O’Farrell Street boarding house. Locke’s shorter works, found in Victorian San Francisco Stories, Vol 1 and 2 and Victorian San Francisco Novellas, feature minor characters from the series.
