Archives: Books

Hands Up, Miss Seeton

  • Publication date: 22/09/2016
  • Paperback ISBN: 1788420829
  • eBook ISBN: 9781911440017
A Miss Seeton Mystery 11

Hands Up, Miss Seeton

Hamilton Crane, Heron Carvic

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Miss Seeton accused! The kindly Miss Seeton? A thief? A preposterous notion – until the lovable spinster mistakes tomato ketchup for blood… and the “wounded” man she’s trying to help is robbed by a pickpocket. In a flurry of confusion, Miss Seeton is accused of being the thief’s accomplice! And in the hands of the London police, our unlikely jailbird uncovers a veritable nest of crime…

Serene amidst every kind of skulduggery, this eccentric English spinster steps in where Scotland Yard stumbles, armed with nothing more than her sketchpad and umbrella!

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Me Bandy, You Cissie

  • Publication date: 23/03/2017
  • Paperback ISBN: 1911440489
  • eBook ISBN: 9781911440628
  • Audiobook ISBN: 9781788420396
The Bandy Papers 4

Me Bandy, You Cissie

Donald Jack, Robin Gabrielli (narrator)

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Peace has broken out and World War I flying ace and all-round chancer Bartholomew Bandy isn’t exactly making a success of being a commercial pilot in the USA. 

But when a job lot of aircraft bits purchased with the last of his pay turns out to be a complete Vickers Vimy bomber, he feels his luck has changed.

With the help of his very tall, very sweet girlfriend Cissie, and the hindrance of his very short, very bad and beautiful girlfriend Dasha, Bart smashes (literally) straight into the exciting new world of the movies. Not an ideal career for someone whose face, as he says himself, resembles that of a Tibetan yak, but then absolutely nothing about Bart is ideal.

With the blackest of black comedy and seat-of-the pants escapades, Donald Jack’s series about a young pilot is uniquely funny and compelling.

What people are saying about The Bandy Papers:

“Reading can lead to involuntary bursts of loud laughter.”

“Very descriptive, full of air combats and written with a fine eye for period detail . . . there is quite simply no finer book of its kind. Highly recommended.”

“It is clear that Bandy likely should’ve been killed several times, but very likely the Grim Reaper was laughing too hard to hold his scythe straight . . .”

Hysterically funny! . . . each book is another installment in the continuing saga of a Canadian and his adventures in war, the world, and women.”

“I have yet to find another author with the wit and humor of Donald Jack.”

Editorial reviews:

I enjoyed every word . . . terrifically funny.”  P.G. Wodehouse

“Jack does more than play it for laughs . . . The mingling of humor and horror is like a clown tap-dancing on a coffin, but Jack is skillful enough to get away with it.” Time Magazine

“Funny. Very. Donald Jack has as light a touch with this fragile art as his hero has on throttle of a Sopwith Camel. Excessive corn is avoided in favour of wit and a delight in life.” New York Times

“Bartholomew Bandy is the most remarkable hero (or anti-hero) since Harold Lloyd impersonated the Freshman.” Chicago Tribune

To know Bandy is to love him . . . you tend to gallop through and come hurtling out at the end panting for more.” The Sunday Sun

“For those to whom Bandy is a newcomer, what a treat is in store.” Toronto Star

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Cherry Slice

  • Publication date: 02/04/2020
  • Paperback ISBN: 1788421655
  • eBook ISBN: 9781788421645

Cherry Slice

Jennifer Stone

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Reality TV turns deadly in Cherry Hinton’s first case

When Kenny Thorpe, a contestant on Expose TV’s Big Blubber, the hot new celebrity weight-loss show, is murdered on live television in front of 3 million viewers, the case seems pretty watertight. After all, everyone saw Martin do it – didn’t they?

Cherry Hinton knows there’s more to this than meets the eye. As an investigative reporter, she went undercover on dating show Caravan of Love… but after getting in too deep with one of the other contestants, she was caught knickerless in front of the nation. Humiliated, fired and heartbroken, she has fled to Brentwood, where she opens a cake shop, and tries to forget all about Expose.

Until Kenny Thorpe’s sister walks into her shop with a letter that turns Cherry’s world upside down. Is Martin innocent? How is infamous gangster Leon Solent involved? Is Expose to blame, and is there a killer still on the loose?

Cherry is the only one in a position to find out.

The Great American Cheese War

  • Publication date: 27/06/2019
  • Paperback ISBN: 1788421574
  • eBook ISBN: 9781788421560
Great America 2

The Great American Cheese War

The comedy thriller you’ll swear you’re living today

Paul Flower

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Governor Bill Hoeksma of Michigan is a simple, gun-loving son of a billionaire who idolises George W. Bush.

When a mysterious illness afflicts members of his inner circle, his conspiring advisors point to a rumoured viral weapons attack – via monkeypox-carrying prairie dogs – launched by the Wisconsin government. Governor Bill decides the Michigan militia should lead the military response, chaos ensues, and he falls unwittingly into a scheme of his powerful father’s making. That scheme begins with cheese research and a Hollywood movie star. How it will end all depends on two unlikely heroes: an aging lesbian state senator, and a high-school teacher born and raised in the Michigan militia.

When the conspiracy runs out of road, and guns are drawn in a showdown outside a Cracker Barrel, will anyone emerge victorious from the Great American Cheese War?

 

The Batch Magna Caper

  • Publication date: 27/06/2019
  • Paperback ISBN: 1788421299
  • eBook ISBN: 9781788421317
The Batch Magna Chronicles 3

The Batch Magna Caper

Peter Maughan

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Welcome to Batch Magna, a place where anything might happen. And often does…

A hapless gang of crooks, led by pawnbroker Harold Sneed, have managed pull off ‘the big one’: a wages snatch at a factory in Shrewsbury. Two gang members take the money back to Birmingham by train, changing at a station almost on the doorstep of Sir Humphrey of Batch Hall.

It’s there that things start to unravel. The money goes missing. Misunderstanding follows misunderstanding, until it leads the crooks to Batch Hall when everyone is busy with a historical re-enactment show. Among the replica firearms is a real gun, carried by Harold Sneed with murderous intent and Humphrey in mind.

Sneed is now convinced that Humphrey – an overweight former short-order cook from the Bronx – is a Mafia mobster lying low. And on top of this, he believes Humph has his money; as a result, the spectators at Batch Hall are in for more of a show than they bargained for…

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Clouds in a Summer Sky

  • Publication date: 25/07/2019
  • Paperback ISBN: 1788421329
  • eBook ISBN: 9781788421348
The Batch Magna Chronicles 4

Clouds in a Summer Sky

Peter Maughan

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Welcome to Batch Magna, a place where anything might happen. And often does…

Life in an old steam boat deep in the Welsh Borders holds numerous charms, but the Commander’s wife Priny is suffering from arthritis, a condition not at all improved by their water-based lifestyle. The couple take up an offer from Humphrey, the squire of Batch Hall, of a straight swap: their boat, the Batch Castle, for one of the Masters’ Cottages facing their beloved river. 

The Castle is restored to river-worthiness and starts plying successfully as the Cluny Steamboat Company to Shrewsbury and back. As a result it takes a good deal of profit away from a taxi firm in a local border town, much to the displeasure of the firm’s English owner, Sidney Acton. Enlisting the aid of two corrupt Welsh councillors, Acton plots against the new venture. Only time will tell if his sabotage attempts will bear fruit or blow up in his face…

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The Ghost of Artemus Strange

  • Publication date: 22/08/2019
  • Paperback ISBN: 1788421353
  • eBook ISBN: 9781788421379
The Batch Magna Chronicles 5

The Ghost of Artemus Strange

Peter Maughan

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Welcome to Batch Magna, a place where anything might happen. And often does…

Sir Humphrey has offered to play Father Christmas at the local hospital, but disaster strikes when he realises he won’t be able to buy the sack of toys he’d promised the children.

Rupert, a gentleman of the road, is found asleep in an old car in the Hall’s coach house. He is scrubbed up and given a room at the Hall, where two guests are already staying: a businessman and his rather young female companion. When money goes missing from their bedroom, Rupert is accused, and Miss Wyndham, the village’s amateur sleuth, decides to investigate the matter.

Meanwhile, local author Phineas Cook has come up with the idea of a resident ghost at the Hall to attract paying guests. All goes smoothly until the ghostly actors spend too long in the pub one evening and their performance descends into sword-wielding chaos.

As always in Batch Magna, events somehow manage to turn out all right in the end – but in the most unexpected manner…

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Bold as Brass

  • Publication date: 11/07/2019
  • Paperback ISBN: 1788421388
  • eBook ISBN: 9781788421409
The Stockwell Park Orchestra Series 2

Bold as Brass

Isabel Rogers

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Community music projects always spread harmony… don’t they?

When players in Stockwell Park Orchestra fear they may be getting out of touch with the community, they invite children from two nearby schools to join them for a season.

Supercilious, rich Oakdean College pupils have never mixed with the rough Sunbridge Academy kids, and when things go missing and rumours spread, the situation threatens to turn ugly. DCI Noel Osmar has to tread carefully: after all, he’s off duty. Step forward, Carl the trombonist.

Can music heal social rifts? Who has been stealing and why? And will the orchestra’s newly-composed fanfare turn out to be fantastic… or farcical?

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Darkwood

  • Publication date: 13/06/2019
  • Paperback ISBN: 1788421418
  • eBook ISBN: 9781788421430
The Darkwood Series 1

Darkwood

Gabby Hutchinson Crouch

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Magic is forbidden in Myrsina, along with various other abominations, such as girls doing maths.

This is bad news for Gretel Mudd, who doesn’t perform magic, but does know a lot of maths. When the sinister masked Huntsmen accuse Gretel of witchcraft, she is forced to flee into the neighbouring Darkwood, where witches and monsters dwell.

There, she happens upon Buttercup, a witch who can’t help turning things into gingerbread, Jack Trott, who can make plants grow at will, the White Knight with her band of dwarves and a talking spider called Trevor. These aren’t the terrifying villains she’s been warned about all her life. They’re actually quite nice. Well… most of them.

With the Huntsmen on the warpath, Gretel must act fast to save both the Darkwood and her home village, while unravelling the rhetoric and lies that have demonised magical beings for far too long. 

Take a journey into the Darkwood in this modern fairy tale that will bewitch adults and younger readers alike.

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The Cuckoos of Batch Magna

  • Publication date: 09/05/2019
  • Paperback ISBN: 178842123X
  • eBook ISBN: 9781788421256
The Batch Magna Chronicles 1

The Cuckoos of Batch Magna

Peter Maughan

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When Sir Humphrey Strange, 8th Baronet and squire of Batch Magna, departs this world for the Upper House, what’s left of his estate passes, through the ancient law of entailment, to distant relative Humph, an amiable, overweight short-order cook from the Bronx.

Sir Humphrey Franklin T. Strange, 9th Baronet and squire of Batch Magna, as Humph now most remarkably finds himself to be, is persuaded by his Uncle Frank, a small-time Wall Street broker, to make a killing by turning the sleepy backwater into a theme-park image of rural England, a playground for the world’s rich.

But while the village pub and shop put out the Stars and Stripes in welcome, the tenants of the estate’s dilapidated houseboats tear up their notices to quit, and led by pulp-crime writer Phineas Cook and the one-eyed Lt-Commander James Cunningham, they run up the Union Jack and prepare to engage.

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