by Philip Eliot | Apr 18, 2026 | Thriller & Suspense |
PRAISE FOR CHRIS BRIDGES‘Hugely gripping’ ABIGAIL DEAN‘A unique new voice’ ERIN KELLY‘Full of surprises’ LESLEY KARA––––––––––––––She’s not there to save her friend. She’s there to silence her. When nurse Laura arrives at her old best friend’s death bed, it’s not out of compassion – it’s out of fear. Her enigmatic friend Sadie is dying, and with her last breath, she might destroy everything.Sixteen years ago, tragedy tore their group of nursing students apart. And Laura has spent every moment since then ensuring the truth never sees the light of day.But as Sadie fades, the past refuses to stay buried. And Laura is about to learn: The dying don’t always go quietly.And some confessions are worth killing for.‘Chilling’ FORBES‘Gripping’ SUNDAY POST––––––––––––––AUTHORS LOVE THE DEATH BED’Sinister and packed with twists’ D S BUTLER’The Death Bed kept me intrigued and hooked until the shocking end’ MARIE TIERNEY‘Vivid, harrowing and utterly compelling’ LESLEY KARA’As slick as it is sick’ JO FURNISS‘Intriguing, atmospheric and unpredictably twisty’ CATHERINE KIRWAN’Darkly atmospheric and gripping’ ASHLEY TATE‘Sick, twisted and impossible to put down!’ NAOMI WILLIAMS‘Intoxicating and riveting’ BONNIE BURKE-PATELPRAISE FOR THE McDERMID DEBUT SHORTLISTED SICK TO DEATH‘Emma is a force to be reckoned with…deliciously dark and twisted, and a lot of fun.’ OBSERVER‘A hugely gripping and enjoyable debut… Clever and witty.’ ABIGAIL DEAN‘A gripping debut from a unique new voice. Bridges writes with a stinging authenticity and tinder-dry humour.’ ERIN KELLY‘A slick and exciting debut that had me devouring each page… A twist to rival Gone Girl left me gasping.’ KATY BRENT‘A dazzling debut, skillfully crafted and full of surprises. Beautifully written, utterly original and shockingly dark.’ LESLEY KARA‘Thrilling, moving and thought-provoking, with a brilliant central character. A skilful suspense novel.’ B. P. WALTER
by Philip Eliot | Apr 18, 2026 | Thriller & Suspense |
Kelly Robinson, a 24-year-old economics doctoral student, spent the day on a perilous climb to Abuna Yemata Guh, a 5th-century monolithic church carved into a sheer cliffside in Ethiopia.Inside, the chapel walls were covered with vibrant frescoes, their colors deep and rich, depicting serene biblical figures, saints, and angels.But then something happened that science couldn’t explain.Within hours, the video Kelly captured of the incident went viral.Thousands of miles away, the crew of the Tahila watched in disbelief. If the footage was real, it meant one terrifying thing: the Elixir of Life had been found.And the world was now in grave danger.To make matters worse, Sam Reilly was missing…
by Philip Eliot | Apr 18, 2026 | Mystery |
When a young woman is found murdered in the Earl of Unsworth’s garden, his loyal secretary, Mr. Quayle, must uncover the truth in this “English country house mystery infused with humor, verve, and plenty of surprises.” (Kirkus Reviews)“I do not wish to disturb you, your lordship, but there is a body in the garden…”England, 1925. No one knew who the dead woman was—not Lord Unsworth or his sister, not his niece or his nephew, nor any of His Lordship’s other increasingly distant relations—no one. Or so they claimed.But the police soon have other ideas, impertinent, dangerous ideas, and when their suspicions dare fall on one of the family, Lord Unsworth turns to his loyal secretary, Mr. Quayle to solve the case.Quiet, methodical, and eminently efficient, Mr. Quayle has been Lord Unsworth’s personal secretary for almost a year now, but their connection runs far deeper. Unable to protect His Lordship’s only son-and-heir during the War, Mr. Quayle is determined to find the true culprit and save Lord Unsworth’s remaining family—from themselves, if necessary.With a cast of intriguing characters and a plot full of twists and turns, “A Most Efficient Murder” offers an intriguing blend of humor and suspense—an Agatha-Christie-style whodunit that will keep you guessing until the final pageA Most Efficient Murder is the first Mr. Quayle Mystery.ALSO BY ANTHONY SLAYTONTHE MR. QUAYLE MYSTERIESBook 0: A QUITE DEADLY AFFAIRBook 1: A MOST EFFICIENT MURDERBook 2: A RATHER DASTARDLY DEATH
by Philip Eliot | Apr 18, 2026 | Crime Fiction |
The murder victim’s wife was blindWorld War II. During the attacks on Berlin in the winter of 1943-44, wave after wave of British bombers swept over northern Europe and dropped their lethal loads on the German capital. A fair percentage of the bombers would fail to return from these ‘ops’, and RAF planners calculated the life expectancy of the airmen in weeks rather than months.Therefore it did not seem strange when a Lancaster named D-Daisy landed at its base in England after a bombing run, and a member of the crew was found dead.However, one person soon came to the conclusion that this man had been murdered. And the person who discovered this happened to be blind since birth. Her name was Daisy and she was the victim’s wife. She was very blonde and very pretty; also very young. That’s why no one would listen to her.So she had to find the killer on her own“Using the carefully plotted twists and turns of the murder mystery, throwing in a highly unconventional blind sleuth with her very own take on the world, Nick Aaron lifts the genre to a more thoughtful level.” — The Weekly BannerThis 62k novel is a stand-alone Blind Sleuth MysteryThe concept of this series is simple: the sleuth is a blind woman, and she solves a mystery in each novel. All these stand-alone mysteries taken together form an overview of the half-century between World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and narrate the life story of Daisy Hayes. It is not necessary to read the books in any particular order, but most readers just love sticking to the correct chronology:1943: D for Daisy1946: First Spring in Paris1952: Honeymoon in Rio1956: Cockett’s Last Cock-up1960: Murder on the High Sea1964: The Desiderata Stone1967: Blind Angel of Wrath1972: Berlin Fall1984: The Nightlife of the Blind1986: Daisy’s Pushkin Duel1989: Daisy and Bernard1992: The Desiderata GoldAD 67: The Desiderata RiddleAD 76: Desiderata’s Lost Cause1990s: Back to Africa1990s: The Icarus CaseAD 79: August in Pompeii1990s: The Murder Convention1990s: The Empty Grave ChroniclesAn unusual sleuth Daisy Hayes was born in London in 1922. Her father was a bank manager, hoping for a son, but he had to settle for a blind daughter.Now what do you do when your child is blind since birth and you have the means to do all that is necessary to help her? You hire a private tutor to stimulate her verbal abilities in the first years of her life, because you realize how vital language will become for her. Then you send her to an exclusive school where everything is done to develop the minds and resourcefulness of blind girls. There they teach them all these fancy techniques of spatial orientation and mind mapping. And before you know it, your darling daughter has become a smart female detective who just seems to draw murder mysteries like a magnet…In combination with this unusual sleuth, Nick Aaron enlists the techniques of the page turner to create an enjoyable reading experience: well-written prose, clever plots, and surprising characters. Unputdownable.
by Philip Eliot | Apr 18, 2026 | Crime Fiction |
A new Scottish crime novel featuring a trainee detective with a secret she can’t keep hidden…Erin Aitkin joined Tulliallan Police College for a fresh start, free from the horrors of her childhood. But when a fellow recruit is murdered, she must risk exposure to track down the killer.Erin’s job isn’t made any easier by being forced to work with DCI Villeneuve, the truculent head of the detective course. Villeneuve may think that Erin is a prize tit, but she is determined to use Erin’s position as an insider to spy on her fellow students.When every one of your suspects is a fellow detective, the investigation becomes even more difficult. As Erin’s carefully constructed new life falls apart around her, she must find the killer before she gets kicked off the course, or worse still, becomes the next victim.
