Archives: Books

Miss Seeton Draws the Line

Posted on March 29, 2026 by - FFC, FIC022030, FIC022070, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Social comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 05/05/2016
  • Paperback ISBN: 1911440551
  • eBook ISBN: 9780993576317
  • Audiobook ISBN: 9781788420297
A Miss Seeton Mystery 2

Miss Seeton Draws the Line

Heron Carvic, Phyllida Nash (narrator)

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Miss Seeton is most embarrassed . . .

Her every attempt at a portrait of little Effie Goffer has become a chilling picture of a corpse. Is Miss Seeton actually drawing a clue to a series of child murders in rural England?

Scotland Yard thinks so, and wants Miss Seeton to turn from sketching . . . to catching a killer skilled in a very deadly art.

Retired art teacher Miss Seeton steps in where Scotland Yard stumbles. Armed with only her sketch pad and umbrella, she is every inch an eccentric English spinster and at every turn the most lovable and unlikely master of detection.

What people are saying about Miss Seeton:

“Miss Seeton is a hoot! I was torn between laughter and eye rolling with each page turn. The characters are loveable and thoroughly British. This is a perfect specimen of classic British mystery.“

“What a joy Miss Seeton is. Why did I wait so long to read them? Splashy characters, lovely setting, and just plain funny.”

“I’ve become a Miss Ess addict. Great characters that get better with each book. A must for anyone who loves a good British cozy with a twist, and surprising revelations of what a good brollie can do in a pinch.”

“What a great series. This is one of the best in English light reading mysteries.”

“Miss Seeton is a delightful sendup of the amateur sleuth. If your doctor has prescribed laughter as the best medicine, run and buy the entire series as fast as you can.”

Editorial reviews:

“A most beguiling protagonist!” New York Times

“Miss Seeton gets into wild drama with fine touches of farce . . . This is a lovely mixture of the funny and the exciting.” San Francisco Chronicle

“This is not so much black comedy as black-currant comedy . . . You can’t stop reading. Or laughing.” The Sun

“Depth of description and lively characters bring this English village to life.” Publishers Weekly

“Fun to be had with a full cast of endearingly zany villagers . . . and the ever gently intuitive Miss Seeton.” Kirkus Reviews

“Miss Seeton is the most delightfully satisfactory character since Miss Marple.” Ogden Nash

Other books in the series

Witch Miss Seeton

Posted on March 29, 2026 by - FFC, FIC022030, FIC022070, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Social comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 02/06/2016
  • Paperback ISBN: 191144056X
  • eBook ISBN: 9780993576324
  • Audiobook ISBN: 9781788420303
A Miss Seeton Mystery 3

Witch Miss Seeton

Heron Carvic, Phyllida Nash (narrator)

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A sudden interest in the occult swept through the English village of Plummergen.

Ouija boards were replacing the best china in many a cozy cottage. It might be quite the thing for maiden ladies and persnickity aunts, but it wasn’t Miss Seeton’s cup of tea . . . until Scotland Yard requested she go undercover to investigate sinister shenanigans in the Kentish countryside.

A flim-flam was afoot in the local witches’ coven – and magic could be a prelude to murder most foul.

Serene amidst every kind of skullduggery, retired art teacher Miss Seeton steps in where Scotland Yard stumbles. Armed with nothing more than her sketchpad and umbrella, she is at every turn the most lovable and unlikely master of detection.

What people are saying about Miss Seeton:

“Miss Seeton is a hoot! I was torn between laughter and eye rolling with each page turn. The characters are loveable and thoroughly British. This is a perfect specimen of classic British mystery.“

“What a joy Miss Seeton is. Why did I wait so long to read them? Splashy characters, lovely setting, and just plain funny.”

“I’ve become a Miss Ess addict. Great characters that get better with each book. A must for anyone who loves a good British cozy with a twist, and surprising revelations of what a good brollie can do in a pinch.”

“What a great series. This is one of the best in English light reading mysteries.”

“Miss Seeton is a delightful sendup of the amateur sleuth. If your doctor has prescribed laughter as the best medicine, run and buy the entire series as fast as you can.”

Editorial reviews:

“A most beguiling protagonist!” New York Times

“Miss Seeton gets into wild drama with fine touches of farce . . . This is a lovely mixture of the funny and the exciting.” San Francisco Chronicle

“This is not so much black comedy as black-currant comedy . . . You can’t stop reading. Or laughing.” The Sun

“Depth of description and lively characters bring this English village to life.” Publishers Weekly

“Fun to be had with a full cast of endearingly zany villagers . . . and the ever gently intuitive Miss Seeton.” Kirkus Reviews

“Miss Seeton is the most delightfully satisfactory character since Miss Marple.” Ogden Nash

Other books in the series

Miss Seeton Sings

Posted on March 29, 2026 by - 1DBKE, 1DBKESK, 1DDU-GB-E, 1DDU-GB-ESK, FF, FFC, FFD, FFJ, FFK, FFS, FIC022000, FIC022030, FIC022070, FIC050000, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Social comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 16/06/2016
  • Paperback ISBN: 1911440705
  • eBook ISBN: 9780993576331
  • Audiobook ISBN: 9781788420389
A Miss Seeton Mystery 4

Miss Seeton Sings

Heron Carvic, Phyllida Nash (narrator)

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When a flood of perfectly faked banknotes hits the market, retired art teacher Miss Emily Seeton, the Yard’s famed ‘MissEss’, is chosen to investigate a respected Geneva bank. Somehow, the forger is also mixed up in the theft of valuable paintings.

But Miss S. is new to air travel – surely the names Geneva and ‘Genova’ must be the same place? Bamboozling both the crooks and the police who vainly try to keep tabs on her, innocently humming the fraudsters’ musical password, she trips gaily along the dangerous trail.

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

Other books in the series

Miss Seeton, By Appointment

Posted on March 29, 2026 by - 1DBKE, 1DBKESK, 1DDU-GB-E, 1DDU-GB-ESK, FF, FFC, FFD, FFJ, FFK, FFS, FIC022000, FIC022030, FIC022070, FIC050000, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Social comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 11/08/2016
  • Paperback ISBN: 1911440721
  • eBook ISBN: 9780993576379
A Miss Seeton Mystery 6

Miss Seeton, By Appointment

Hampton Charles, Heron Carvic

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Who should be hobnobbing with the great and the good at a Buckingham Palace garden party but little Miss Emily Seeton, retired teacher and artistic sleuth. It seems there may be a traitor amongst HM’s faithful retainers.

But while Miss Seeton is viewing shrunken heads and other royal treasures with Sir Wormelow Tump, a plan is being hatched by a titled crook to steal valuables of a different kind – a fabulous set of Lalique jewellery. So the battling brolly must make the most of her royal appointment and literally ‘use her head’ to save the day.

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!

Other books in the series

The Miss Seeton Series

Posted on March 29, 2026 by - FFC, FIC022030, FIC022070, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Social comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 19/10/2017
  • eBook ISBN: 9781788420716
A Miss Seeton Mystery 999

The Miss Seeton Series

Books 4-5 and Prequel

Heron Carvic, Hamilton Crane

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This collection brings together the fourth and fifth adventures in the Miss Seeton Mysteries series by Heron Carvic, plus the series prequel by Hamilton Crane. While a picture may paint a thousand words, for this lovable retired art teacher, a sketch can catch a thousand criminals . . .

Miss Seeton Sings (Book 4) Miss Seeton boards the wrong plane and lands amidst a gang of European counterfeiters. One false note, and her new destination is deadly indeed.

Odds on Miss Seeton (Book 5) Miss Seeton in diamonds and furs at the roulette table? It’s all a clever disguise for the high-rolling spinster . . . but the game of money and murder is all too real.

Miss Seeton’s Finest Hour (A Prequel) War-time England, and a young Miss Emily Seeton’s suspicious sketches call her loyalty into question—until she is recruited to uncover a case of sabotage.

Retired art teacher Miss Seeton steps in where Scotland Yard stumbles. Armed with only her sketch pad and umbrella, she is every inch an eccentric English spinster and the most endearing and unlikely master of detection.

What people are saying about Miss Seeton:

“Miss Seeton is a hoot! I was torn between laughter and eye rolling with each page turn. The characters are loveable and thoroughly British. This is a perfect specimen of classic British mystery.“

“What a joy Miss Seeton is. Why did I wait so long to read them? Splashy characters, lovely setting, and just plain funny.”

“I’ve become a Miss Ess addict. Great characters that get better with each book. A must for anyone who loves a good British cozy with a twist, and surprising revelations of what a good brollie can do in a pinch.”

“What a great series. This is one of the best in English light reading mysteries.”

“Miss Seeton is a delightful sendup of the amateur sleuth. If your doctor has prescribed laughter as the best medicine, run and buy the entire series as fast as you can.”

Editorial reviews:

“A most beguiling protagonist!” New York Times

“Miss Seeton gets into wild drama with fine touches of farce . . . This is a lovely mixture of the funny and the exciting.” San Francisco Chronicle

“This is not so much black comedy as black-currant comedy . . . You can’t stop reading. Or laughing.” The Sun

“Depth of description and lively characters bring this English village to life.” Publishers Weekly

“Fun to be had with a full cast of endearingly zany villagers . . . and the ever gently intuitive Miss Seeton.” Kirkus Reviews

“Miss Seeton is the most delightfully satisfactory character since Miss Marple.” Ogden Nash

“I think, on the whole, Miss Seeton is the most loveable and entertaining of any of today’s fiction detectives. May she live forever.” London Mystery Selection

Other books in the series

The Yellowthread Street Mysteries

Posted on March 29, 2026 by - 1FPCH, FH, FIC031000, FIC031010, Humorous Mystery and Crime, Satirical Comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 07/02/2019
  • eBook ISBN: 9781788420068
A Yellowthread Street Mystery 999

The Yellowthread Street Mysteries

Books 1-3

William Marshall

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The first three books in William Marshall’s unforgettable, classic series of police procedurals – suspenseful and hilarious in equal measure.

Yellowthread Street Among the gangsters and the goldsmiths of Hong Bay, Chief Inspector Feiffer and his police department had their hands full . . . tourist troubles, a US sailor turned stick-up artist, and the jealous Chinese who solved his marital difficulties with an axe. Then the Mongolian with a kukri brought an extra touch of terror to the district . . .

The Hatchet Man Postman Lawrence Shang was watching a film called The Axeman of Shanghai when his life abruptly ended. Carpet trader Edward Peng was enjoying The Last Picture Show. So begins a series of murders across the Hong Bay district of Hong Kong – and a nightmarish investigation for Harry Feiffer and his staff at the Yellowthread Police Station.

Gelignite In the seamy Hong Bay district of Hong Kong, crimes of every shape and size were commonplace. But not letter bombs. Not till Mr Leung and Mr Ramaswamy were spread bloodily over the office walls. When Detective Inspector Spencer narrowly escaped becoming victim number 3, the Yellowthread Street police were grimly determined to track down the culprit.

Yellowthread Street brings to vivid life a seamy world where people called Osaka Oniki the Disemboweller, Shotgun Sen and The Chopper feel at home, a world of surreal possibility recorded with unique humour and a poignant sense of humanity.

Praise for the Yellowthread Street series:

“Marshall has the rare gift of juggling scary suspense and wild humor and making them both work.” Washington Post Book World

“Marshall’s style – blending the hilarious, the surreal, and the poignant – remains inimitable and not easily resisted.” San Francisco Chronicle

“Marshall has few peers as an author who melds the wildest comedy and tragedy in narratives of nonstop action.” Publishers Weekly

“Marshall is building a growing, iconoclastic body of work that mixes weird fantasy [and] wayward characterization . . . to produce a subtle, charged, atmospheric, lush fiction hybrid sure to satisfy those with a taste for mysteries on the far edges.” Philadelphia Inquirer

“Despite the wild humor, Marshall’s stories contain excellent police procedure, real suspense, and fine irony . . . incessantly scary.” Chicago Tribune

“Among the best police procedural series on the market.” Detroit Free Press

“As an inspired poet of the bizarre, [Marshall] orchestrates underlying insanity into an apocalyptic vision of the future.” New York Times Book Review

“Marshall’s novels feature seemingly supernatural events that turn out to have logical, if not precisely rational, origins. He has savage fun with police procedure.” TIME

“Nobody rivals Marshall’s ability to expose the links between comic hysteria and the most mundane human foibles, from greed to cowardice to simple funk.” Kirkus Reviews

“Moves at the speed of a bullet; don’t read it aloud or you’ll run out of breath.” Chicago Sun-Times

Other books in the series

That’s Me in the Middle

Posted on March 29, 2026 by - FIC032000, FJM, Social comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 26/01/2017
  • Paperback ISBN: 1911440462
  • eBook ISBN: 9781911440604
  • Audiobook ISBN: 9781788420334
The Bandy Papers 2

That’s Me in the Middle

Donald Jack, Robin Gabrielli (narrator)

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

Strangely horse-faced World War I flying ace Bart Bandy finds himself kicked upstairs – to everyone’s appalled surprise – and made a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Flying Corps.

But not for long. Persuaded to give a school speech on the many shortcomings of Field Marshal Haig, he finds Fortune’s Wheel definitely on the turn and soon he is once more heading for the hell of the trenches  – this time on a bicycle. 

With the daredevil commander of the 13th Bicycle Brigade, Bob Craig, there follow a series of edge-of-the-seat adventures, always accompanied by what Craig later refers to fondly as “brilliant exchanges of utter nonsense”.

Donald Jack’s blackly humorous Bandy memoirs are classics of their kind. Against an unshrinkingly depicted backdrop of war and its horrors, his anti-hero’s adventures are both gripping and shockingly funny.

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:

“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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This One’s on Me

Posted on March 29, 2026 by - FIC032000, FJM, Social comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 18/05/2017
  • Paperback ISBN: 1911440500
  • eBook ISBN: 9781911440642
The Bandy Papers 6

This One’s on Me

Donald Jack

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On the run, ex-fighter pilot Bart Bandy finds his life starting to unravel.

Flying to Britain in his self-designed amphibious aircraft, Bart makes a forced landing in Reykjavik, is rescued by a beautiful but bossy blonde who takes a shine to him, and finally sinks his precious plane in the drink while saving the life of a novice pilot who has come down in the North Sea.

The boy turns out to be the son of a fabulously rich Indian maharajah, whose shopping list features a complete airforce full of pilots and planes. As Bart can barely scrape together fourpence ha’penny for a pint of beer these days, it looks like his luck has turned . . .

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.

Other books in the series

Me So Far

Posted on March 29, 2026 by - FIC032000, FJM, Social comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 15/06/2017
  • Paperback ISBN: 1911440519
  • eBook ISBN: 9781911440659
The Bandy Papers 7

Me So Far

Donald Jack

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So all is pretty cushy for our reluctant hero, ex-WWI ace pilot Bart Bandy.

Actually that should read pretty Khooshie, the name of the handsome young prince of Jhamjarh, whose life Bart recently saved. His reward from the grateful Maharajah is to set up an airforce for the independent state, while living high on the hog in his own personal palace.

But it’s 1925 and the British authorities are already highly suspicious about the purpose of this new force when Bart, as usual, falls foul of a most important personage, the Viceroy of India no less. Could end badly. Not nearly as badly as the intentions of the neighboring Indian state of Khaliwar though, as Bart soon discovers – but absolutely no one seems inclined to believe him.

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.

Other books in the series

Hitler Vs. Me

Posted on March 29, 2026 by - FIC016000, FIC032000, FJM, Social comedy, WEBFICTION

  • Publication date: 24/08/2017
  • Paperback ISBN: 1911440527
  • eBook ISBN: 9781911440666
The Bandy Papers 8

Hitler Vs. Me

Donald Jack

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The years have flown away as fast as his head of hair, sadly for ex-WWI flying ace Bartholomew Bandy.

By the start of World War II he’s no longer a daredevil young pilot, but a balding forty-something, relegated to training younger men for the terrible battle against the Luftwaffe. Despite resorting to a firmly fixed toupée, he is hurtfully dismissed as too old for active service. They don’t want him.

But then, mysteriously, they do – and Bart is back where he belongs, in the cockpit of one of the super new Spitfires, ready to inflict plenty of damage. Some of it even on the enemy. There’s a quite jovial encounter with royalty. And yet he can only boast one over-sexed girlfriend, and one mortal enemy among the brass hats – he must be losing his touch.

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

 

Other books in the series