Lights Out for Granddad

Stephanie Golding takes licentious advantage of men. Or so it seems. Is that why she is brutally murdered at the crest of a quiet ravine, and with a weapon suggesting more torture than passionate death? Her fiancé vehemently denies involvement, so does everyone else.

The murderer in this apparently vengeful killing is investigated relentlessly by Detective Chief Inspector Charles Merstowe and his team of police and medical experts. Voyeurs, opportunists, friends of the victim, a mysterious white-haired man, shadows: all are suspect. Secrets must be uncovered, foibles exposed and explanations ruthlessly delved. Merstowe knows this, but the case fast becomes a losing challenge. Not much adds up. And what about upsetting machinations and revelations closer to home? There are unwelcome surprises there too. Even the police are disturbed.

An eventual ownership of the crime raises more fog than it diffuses. Perhaps only another death will clear the air completely of jealousy, hatred, blame, retribution and revenge. In the meantime, the veteran Merstowe is forced to question his own skills as a detective. His protégé questions his morals as well. His own doubts cast shadows over himself. Is he remotely on the right track? Was the victim in fact an angel? Or was she instead a cunning devil, too clever by half? Who were really her friends, and who her enemies? Most importantly, what’s wrong with the evidence? Stephanie Golding suffered in death. But why? It needs to be sorted out.

Love Ever After

Everyone in town knows the Miller house and its occupant: old lady Miller. Local kids call it haunted while the adults just shake their head sadly thinking about poor Mrs Miller living all alone. Beyond that, no one gives it much thought, until the night Jason, his girlfriend, Erica, and a handful of friends venture off into the dark to check out the lake that borders her house. The lake is rumoured to hold the remnants of an earlier town lost to a flood. While checking out the forgotten town hidden in the murky water, the house seems to come to life.

With a dangerous storm coming, murderers on the loose and the mystery of the house looming over them, their small, sleepy town comes to life with imminent threats. Jason wants nothing more than to protect the love of his life, but with the group’s curiosity and a mystery to the Miller house that they just can’t let go, they are pulled into a tangled hunt that changes their lives forever.

Mary Copeland: Victorian detective

Mary Copeland: Victorian detective examines the life of this young woman who is raised by her uncle and aunt in London in the late nineteenth century and who develops into a detective of stature who works on request for Scotland Yard. As a woman, however, it is almost impossible to fulfil a social function and so she has to do her job anonymously. She is assisted in this by employees of Scotland Yard, with whom she forms a secret unit over time.

The stories, which take place from 1888, include many painters from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The titles of the four stories are taken from paintings from that time. Swiers impressively manages to portray the London of those days, just after The Ripper Murders and before The London Dock Strike.

In the Netherlands, the first four books on Mary Copeland were published between 2019 and 2022 and subsequent volumes are in preparation.

Murder Unchained

When Private Investigator Paul West took on his next case, it seemed easy and one that would pay handsomely. All West had to do was compile a profile of Jason Knox for his only son, Matthew, who had no memory of him. His father had walked away from Matthew’s mother when he was an infant and left him the sole beneficiary of his multi-million-dollar estate.

It didn’t take long before he was thrust into one of the most complex cases in a long and illustrious career. It took him to Ebony River, a small town, on Vancouver Island’s east coast that seldom gave a wink or nod to the outside world.

What he found was the two-year-old unsolved murder of Jason Knox and his wife that was still baffling RCMP Sergeant Andy Holt. When West told him why he had come to Ebony River, Holt asked him if he would go undercover and help him solve the case.

West’s investigation concentrated on an eclectic range of residents including: bikers with an agenda, a former member of the town council with a grudge to settle, a small church time had left behind, a farmer’s Sunday dinner that revealed hidden secrets and a mayor desperately trying to get re-elected.

Murder Unchained is a page-turner. It will keep the reader guessing up to the last page.

Prunes

Old spies don’t retire, they just sit on the sidelines until needed. This is what Mr Eggington and Violet believed until they uncovered a plot that would reshape the financial world. Mr Eggington was counting toilet rolls and paperclips until he reached retirement, and his best former operative, Violet, had ended up as a tea lady.

Events unfold with surprising speed after she tries to buy a packet of biscuits to go home with Mr Eggington’s tea. She is set up and ‘roofied’ ending up in an old person’s home after this dastardly attack and Mr Eggington is ridiculed when he tried to bring his fears to the attention of his boss.

Rallying the most unlikely people they engineer a plot to save the country. Hidden depths are uncovered in their new friends and they pool all their skills to overthrow the evil megalomaniac, after trying to break all the codes and riddles of course!

Whispering Shadows

Money, the need of an estranged parent, paedophiles or trafficking, these are the usual motives for kidnappers. If their plans fail, fear and panic may end in murder.

It is June 1995 in Sydney, Australia. Detective Chief Inspector Martin Janson is investigating a heinous crime: a small boy is missing. It appears random, and motiveless. Janson is frustrated, there are no witnesses and few clues.

A troubled Irishman who is said to have a ‘mysterious gift’ which he uses in the TV show ‘Spirits and Mind-blowing Magic’. His manager, a flamboyant, loud showman; a known paedophile, a children’s entertainer and a Scotsman, are all suspects.

The Irishman, Kieran Madigan, may be a phony, and his ‘mysterious gift’ a nonsense, thought up for the TV show. Barchester, his manager, is a liar and a fraud, but does that make him guilty?

In Melbourne, where two women are found dead, a Scotsman is a major suspect. A Scot was seen near the scene of the crime in Sydney; is there a connection?

Detective Chief Inspector Janson and his team race the clock to solve the mystery and find the murderers before it is too late to save the child.

Moorland Forensics - Bound by Polaris

Murder is afoot in the Southwest, again.Muriel Jennings, elderly mother and owner of the successful Jennings Clay Company, has met a premature end—survived only by her children and business partners, Stella and Mark. James, Katie and Fiona Sinclair, at Moorland Forensic Consultants, have been tasked with assisting the investigation.After attending a meeting at Muriel’s book club in Bovey, Katie learns the last book to be read: The Sinner’s Daughter by Lillian Webster—the story of Ted Cartwright who murdered five women in his remote home on Dartmoor, a little over fifteen years ago.The more she uncovers about the lives of those close to Muriel, her family, her business associates and her book club, convinces Katie of parallels between the Jennings and the Cartwright cases.Could the two be linked—fact or fiction?Julie D. Jones delivers a murder-mystery, set in Devon in which the landscape is as alive as the characters breathing in her prose. Moorland Forensics - Bound by Polaris, is an intelligent piece of fiction that will have you guessing until the death.

Moorland Forensics - Conspiracy of Souls

In 1986 young investigative reporter for the Newton Abbot Star and daughter of wealthy philanthropist Lord Ilbert-Tavistock tragically disappears under mysterious circumstances, never to be seen again.

Over 30 years later the fresh graves of two teenage girls are uncovered on the desolate wastes of Dartmoor, followed by the sadistic murder of a City art expert, sending shockwaves through the South West.

Contracted to assist the police task force; siblings James, Fiona and Katie Sinclair at Moorland Forensic Consultants uncover links to the murders with the medieval Benedictine Priory of St Oswald’s and tumultuous events from the battlefields of WW2.

With the police close to admitting defeat and pressure mounting from an outraged media, in a last-ditch effort the team travels to Southern Germany to obtain vital evidence.

Moorland Forensics race against the clock to prevent more deaths, whilst James is battling his own demons, taking things one step too far.

The Instruments of Death

“I am the end of all things to all things” – Amara

David was enjoying his very normal life until his world collapsed in on itself.

Grief and personal tragedy lead our unlikely hero to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of his young family and uncover a mystery that goes beyond our world and into the next. Unfortunately for David, a man in some very dark glasses is also on the case. Will he assist David or will he be an Instrument of Death?

Speaking of Death, the lord of the dead has a problem. One of the most dangerous men that has ever existed has managed to hide himself and his followers from the dark master’s gaze. What follows is a unique story featuring time travel, otherworldly beings, a civilisation at the centre of the earth, a gem that could alter our very existence and an adventure unlike anything you’ve ever read.

The Vault of Svalbard

The vault of Svalbard, the global seed bank, has been robbed and its irreplaceable content stolen. The theft becomes a priority case for the Global Agency for Informed Consent (GAIC). As the agency’s director, Achilles is in charge of the investigation into the disappearance of the seeds. Suspicions first fall on the Earth Movement and its music band Save the Earth, because of their radical position on climate change and food shortages. Unpredictable circumstances though take the investigation to the Sahara Desert controlled by the Confederation of the Tuaregs.

The theft of the seeds is the first episode in a series of adventures that involve a mysterious small chamber hidden in the vault of Svalbard. When Achilles and its team eventually enter the chamber, its secret is finally unveiled. The chamber contains a jar full of water. Some say that it has healing powers. Others claim that it never evaporates hence one single drop could quench a person’s thirst forever. Is it is new water? Should the jar be removed from the vault? How can such water be protected from the grabbing hands of a thirsty humanity?

Two dramatic events now happen. The seeds are returned undamaged and a moving glacier destroys the vault of Svalbard. Achilles suspects that somebody removed the jar before the destruction. But where is it now, the water jar? The mystery surrounding the precious water stretches from the North Pole to the South Sahara and is resolved in the last pages of the story.

The Tinder Detective Agency – The Littlest General

When those with power and influence think they can get away with murder, it is only the naïve and innocent who are brave enough to track them down and bring them to justice. It is not the size of the person, but of the heart that beats within.

By the time the villains realise who they’re dealing with their fates are sealed.

Samantha and the Tinder Detective Agency aren’t going to let them get away with it.

The Sword and the Greater Good

30th October 1899. A young, red-haired journalist steps off the train in Cape Town, brimming with determination. His mission: to cover the brewing war between Dutch settlers and the British imperial rulers of South Africa.

With a spring in his step, Winston Churchill senses adventure and danger waiting just over the horizon. But his journey takes an unexpected turn when he’s captured and imprisoned, bound for a camp in Pretoria.

Far beyond the physical world, alarm bells echo through the ether. The Sword has heard them.

For the fate of the world order hinges on Churchill’s freedom.

Luke, James, and Magnus are summoned once again to answer the call. Yet this time, the stakes are even higher – because time itself is under siege.

As the Sword, wielding its power to bend time and space, fights to preserve history, the question remains: can they keep the threads of destiny from unraveling?