Bøker av Andrew Taylor

From the No.1 bestselling author of The American Boy and The Ashes of London comes a collection of three gothic novellas - Broken Voices, The Leper House and The Scratch - perfect for fans of The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley.Three dark tales to read by the fireside in the cold winter monthsBROKEN VOICESIt's Christmas before the Great War and two lonely schoolboys have been left in the care of an elderly teacher. There is little to do but listen to his eerie tales about the nearby Cathedral. The boys concoct a plan to discover if the stories are true. But curiosity can prove fatal.THE LEPER HOUSEOne stormy night, a man's car breaks down. The only light comes from a remote cottage by the sea. The mysterious woman who lives there begs him to leave, yet the next day he feels compelled to return. But, the woman is nowhere to be seen. And neither is the cottage.THE SCRATCHClare and Gerald live in the Forest of Dean with their cat, Cannop. Gerald's young nephew, back from service in Afghanistan, comes to stay, with a scratch that won't heal. Jack and Cannop don't like each other. Clare and Jack like each other too much. The scratch begins to fester.

Do you ever search in vain for exactly the right word? While the English may not have a word for it, the good news is that the Greeks, the Norwegians, the Dutch or possibly the Inuits probably do. This is a smorgasbord of words from around the world that can come to the rescue when the English language fails.

A tribute to the enduring power of the printed word.

Groundbreaking surveys of the complex interrelationship between the languages of English and French in medieval Britain.

The House and the Senate floors are the only legislative forums where all members of the U.S. Congress participate and each has a vote. Andrew J. Taylor explores why floor power and floor rights in the House are more restricted than in the Senate and how these restrictions affect the legislative process.

The eighth in the acclaimed William Dougal crime series, from the bestselling author of The American Boy and The Ashes of London. William Dougal is a respectable private detective, a hardworking citizen and a responsible father - and now he's also a killer. After a violent squabble takes a dangerous turn, Dougal decides to shun the police and instead take things into his own hands. He accepts the assistance of his old rival and current employer, Hanbury, to dispose of the corpse. But Dougal quickly finds that help doesn't come cheap. In fact, it's often more trouble - and danger - than it's worth . . .

The sixth instalment of the brilliant William Dougal crime series, from the bestselling author of The American Boy and The Ashes of London. William Dougal's life seems to be running smoothly. Now working with his old rival, Hanbury, his reputation is gaining him cases from every corner. But with every climb, there has to come a fall . . .When Dougal agrees to investigate the disappearance and suspected murder of publisher Oswald Finwood, he is faced with an array of suspects, all with the means and motive - from Finwood's estranged wife to an elusive author who had an appointment with Finwood on the day he disappeared.

The fifth part of the acclaimed William Dougal crime series, from the bestselling author of The American Boy and The Ashes of London. Rod Lorton wants revenge. After his wife's death, he discovers unsavoury truths about her and her former employer, PR chief Ivor Newley.Called in to investigate Lorton's new-found enemy, private detective William Dougal uncovers a weakness to exploit: Newley's rare collection of coins, coins that would leave Newley susceptible to blackmail if the collection were to disappear . . .

From the No. 1 bestselling author of THE AMERICAN BOY comes a brilliant new historical thriller set during the French Revolution. Selected as Historical Novel of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times, and picked as one of Radio 4's Crime Books of the Year.Paris, 1792. The city is gripped by revolution and the gutters run with blood as thousands lose their heads to the guillotine.Edward Savill, a London merchant, receives word that his estranged wife has been killed in France. Her ten-year-old son, Charles, has been taken by emigre refugees to Charnwood Court, deep in the English countryside.Savill is sent to fetch Charles, only to discover the child is mute. The boy has witnessed unimaginable horrors, but a terrible secret keeps him from saying a word. Locked in a prison of his own mind, his silence is the only thing that will keep him safe.Or so he thinks ...

Second of the two volumes, this book examines the place of the National Union of Mineworkers in post-war British politics. Covering the years 1969 to 1995, it charts reactions to the pit closures programme of the late 1950s and 1960s and the development of the NUM's reputation as the union that could topple governments.

FEATURED IN THE TIMES TOP 100 CRIME & THRILLERS SINCE 1945 Bleeding Heart Square is a tense historical thriller from the bestselling author of The Ashes of London1934, LondonInto the decaying cul-de-sac of Bleeding Heart Square steps aristocratic Lydia Langstone fleeing an abusive marriage. However, unknown to Lydia, a dark mystery haunts Bleeding Heart Square. What happened to Miss Penhow, the middle-aged spinster who owns the house and who vanished four years earlier? Why is a seedy plain-clothes policeman obsessively watching the square? What is making struggling journalist Rory Wentwood so desperate to contact Miss Penhow?And why are parcels of rotting hearts being sent to Joseph Serridge, the last person to see Miss Penhow alive?

The third instalment of the brilliant William Dougal series, from the bestselling author of The American Boy and The Ashes of London. There's unfinished business between William Dougal and his widowed father. Part of it has to do with Celia Prentisse, William's ex-girlfriend. When her historian father is found drowned, it's declared suicide, but Celia remains unconvinced - not least because his abandoned clothes were found with a bottle of the wrong brand of gin and a slim volume of Schopenhauer's essays.It's not much evidence, but it's enough to send her godfather, retired British intelligence officer Major Ted Dougal, and his son William off on a trail that leads to a 1930s arsenic poisoning and a still-classified World War I court martial . . .

James wasn't much more than a child when he had an affair with Lily. And now, twenty-four years later, Lily confesses to James that their affair led to a daughter, Kate. And Kate desperately needs her father's help: she's wanted for murder. But there is no room for murder in James' life. He has a wife, a good job, a nice house in the country.

It is 1993 and Thomas Penmarsh has lived in Finisterre, the house by the sea, all his life, he's only 48 and in 1967 he lost everything he valued. However now his controlling mother has died and he is master of the house. When Esmond, his cousin and childhood confidante, comes to live with him Thomas is overjoyed. But is Esmond all that he seems?

The first book in the brilliant William Dougal crime series, from the bestselling author of The American Boy and The Ashes of London. William Dougal, a post-graduate expert in the medieval script of Caroline Minuscule, stumbles on the garroted corpse of his tutor - and finds himself embroiled in a hunt for a cache of diamonds, a deadly fairy story in which no one obeys the rules, least of all Dougal's girlfriend Amanda. As the body count rises, the couple pursue both the diamonds and their doom from London, to an East Anglian cathedral close, from Cambridge to a wintry Suffolk estuary.

Part of the Prime Ministers Series, Law was a Conservative who opposed Home rule for Ireland

'Andrew Taylor is a master story-teller' Daily Telegraph From the No.1 bestselling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the seventh instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth seriesLove and need make unexpected bedfellows, and both are blind. As the grip of a long hard winter tightens on Lydmouth, a dead woman calls the dying in a seance behind net curtains. Two provincial newspapers are in the throes of a bitter circulation war. A lorry-driver broods, and an office boy loses his heart. Britain is basking in the warm glow of post-war tranquillity, but in the quiet town of Lydmouth, darker forces are at play. The rats are fed on bread and milk, a gentleman's yellow kid glove is mislaid on a train, and something disgusting is happening at Mr Prout's toyshop.Returning to a town shrouded in intrigue and suspicion, Jill Francis becomes acting editor of the Gazette. Meanwhile, there's no pleasure left in the life of Detective Chief Inspector Richard Thornhill. Only a corpse, a television set and the promise of trouble to come.'An excellent writer. He plots with care and intelligence and the solution to the mystery is satisfyingly chilling' The Times'The most under-rated crime writer in Britain today' Val McDermid 'There is no denying Taylor's talent, his prose exudes a quality uncommon among his contemporaries' Time Out

Interweaving real and fictional elements, The American Boy is a major new literary historical crime novel in the tradition of An Instance of the Fingerpost and Possession.Available for the first time as a downloadable audio file.England 1819: Thomas Shield, a new master at a school just outside London, is tutor to a young American boy and the boy's sensitive best friend, Charles Frant. Drawn to Frant's beautiful, unhappy mother, Thomas becomes caught up in her family's twisted intrigues.Then a brutal crime is committed, with consequences that threaten to destroy Thomas and all that he has come to hold dear. Despite his efforts, Shield is caught up in a deadly tangle of sex, money, murder and lies - a tangle that grips him tighter even as he tries to escape from it. And what of the strange American child, at the heart of these macabre events, yet mysterious - what is the secret of the boy named Edgar Allen Poe?

'Andrew Taylor is a master story-teller' Daily Telegraph From the No.1 bestselling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the final instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth seriesAs a young police officer in Palestine during the closing months of the Mandate - the cradle of Middle Eastern terrorism - Richard Thornhill saw and did things which still haunt his dreams and make him fear for his sanity. Is he himself a killer? Now, when a retired police officer is found dead in the ruins of Lydmouth Castle, the past has come back to claim Detective Inspector Thornhill, and he is under suspicion of another murder. His wife Edith and former lover Jill Francis join forces in an uneasy alliance to try to help him. But there are many complications - scandalous allegations have been made about Miss Awre's School of Dancing; the Ruispidge Charity's annual dance for young people is under threat; teenagers haunt the newly opened Italian coffee bar and yearn for fumbled intimacies in the sheltering darkness of the Rex Cinema. And the Spring floods are rising higher than they have in living memory, drowning a multitude of secrets . . .'An excellent writer. He plots with care and intelligence and the solution to the mystery is satisfyingly chilling' The Times'The most under-rated crime writer in Britain today' Val McDermid 'There is no denying Taylor's talent, his prose exudes a quality uncommon among his contemporaries' Time Out

'Andrew Taylor is a master story-teller' Daily Telegraph From the No.1 bestselling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the sixth instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth seriesWhen the body of Rufus Moorcroft, a middle-aged widower with a distinguished war record, is found in his summerhouse, the verdict is suicide. But both reporter Jill Francis and her lover, Detective Richard Thornhill, approaching the case from different angles, discover there's more to it than that. The key to the mystery stretches back to a highly-charged summer before the war, and back to another death. A local asylum plays a part, as do a moderately famous artist and his wife; Superintendent Williamson, now retired and loathing it; Councillor Bernie Broadbent - a man with more pies than fingers to put in them; a Cambridge don; an aristocratic unmarried mother, now gleefully drawing her old-age pension; and - to Thornhill's surprise and growing horror - his own wife, Edith.'An excellent writer. He plots with care and intelligence and the solution to the mystery is satisfyingly chilling' The Times'The most under-rated crime writer in Britain today' Val McDermid 'There is no denying Taylor's talent, his prose exudes a quality uncommon among his contemporaries' Time Out

'Andrew Taylor is a master story-teller' Daily Telegraph From the No.1 bestselling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the second instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth seriesWhen a spinster of the parish is found bludgeoned to death in St John's, and the church's most valuable possession, the Lydmouth chalice, is missing, the finger of suspicion points at the new vicar, who is already beset with problems.The glare of the police investigation reveals shabby secrets and private griefs. Jill Francis, struggling to find her feet in her new life, stumbles into the case at the beginning. But even a journalist cannot always watch from the sidelines. Soon she is inextricably involved in the Suttons' affairs. Despite the electric antagonism between her and Inspector Richard Thornhill, she has instincts that she can't ignore . . .'An excellent writer. He plots with care and intelligence and the solution to the mystery is satisfyingly chilling' The Times'The most under-rated crime writer in Britain today' Val McDermid 'There is no denying Taylor's talent, his prose exudes a quality uncommon among his contemporaries' Time Out

'Andrew Taylor is a master story-teller' Daily TelegraphFrom the No.1 bestselling author of The Ashes of London and Fire of Court, this is the first instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth seriesWorkmen in the small market town of Lydmouth are demolishing an old cottage. A sledgehammer smashes into what looks like a solid wall. Instead, layers of wallpaper conceal the door of a locked cupboard which holds a box - and in the box is the skeleton of a young baby. Items within the box suggest that the baby was entombed early in the nineteenth century, but when another man is also found dead, the evidence suggests that the baby's death is more recent and that a killer is on the loose. For Journalist Jill Francis, newly arrived from London, this looks like her first story to chase ... 'The most under-rated crime writer in Britain today' Val McDermid'Captures perfectly the drab atmosphere and cloying morality of the 1950s . . . Taylor is an excellent writer. He plots with care and intelligence and the solution to the mystery is satisfyingly chilling' The Times 'There is no denying Taylor's talent, his prose exudes a quality uncommon among his contemporaries' Time Out 'Andrew Taylor is a master story-teller' Daily Telegraph

'Andrew Taylor is a master story-teller' Daily Telegraph From the No.1 bestselling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the fourth instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth seriesThe Korean war rumbles in the background throughout this novel as a reporter is found murdered at the Bathurst Arms, squatters are evicted from a military camp and there are new developments in the three-year-old hunt for a missing teenager. And in spite of all that's going on, Jill Francis, a local journalist, and DI Richard Thornhill find they can no longer resist their feelings for each other.'An excellent writer. He plots with care and intelligence and the solution to the mystery is satisfyingly chilling' The Times'The most under-rated crime writer in Britain today' Val McDermid 'There is no denying Taylor's talent, his prose exudes a quality uncommon among his contemporaries' Time Out

'Andrew Taylor is a master story-teller' Daily Telegraph From the No.1 bestselling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the third instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth seriesAfter the coldest night of the year, they find the man's body. He is dangling from the Hanging Tree on the outskirts of a village near Lydmouth, with his trousers round his ankles. Is it suicide, murder, or accidental death resulting from some bizarre sexual practice?Journalist Jill Francis and Detective Inspector Thornhill become involved in the case in separate ways. Jill is also drawn unwillingly into the affairs of the small public school where the dead man taught. Meanwhile a Peeping Tom is preying upon Lydmouth; Jill has just moved into her own house and is afraid she is being watched. And there are more distractions, on a personal level, for policeman and reporter . . .'An excellent writer. He plots with care and intelligence and the solution to the mystery is satisfyingly chilling' The Times'The most under-rated crime writer in Britain today' Val McDermid 'There is no denying Taylor's talent, his prose exudes a quality uncommon among his contemporaries' Time Out

'Andrew Taylor is a master story-teller' Daily Telegraph From the No.1 bestselling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, this is the fifth instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth seriesWhen Mattie Harris's body is found drowned in the river, everyone in Lydmouth knows something is wrong. Mattie wasn't a swimmer - it can't have been a simple accident. She was drunk on the last night of her life - could she have fallen in? Or was she pushed? Mattie was a waitress, of no importance at all, so when Lydmouth's most prominent citizens become very anxious to establish that her death was accidental, Jill Francis's suspicions become roused. In the meantime she is becoming ever closer to Inspector Richard Thornhill, and discovering that the living have as many secrets as the dead...'An excellent writer. He plots with care and intelligence and the solution to the mystery is satisfyingly chilling' The Times'The most under-rated crime writer in Britain today' Val McDermid 'There is no denying Taylor's talent, his prose exudes a quality uncommon among his contemporaries' Time Out

'Complex, with lots of sinister implications... moves the traditional crime novel on to some deeper level of exploration' Jane Jakeman, Independent

This text makes use of union material and party and government archives, as well as oral testimony, much of it highly confidential, to present an overall account of the evolving nature of the tripartite relationship between the miners, the NUM and the state.

*WINNER of the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award 2013*'Andrew Taylor wrote superb historical fiction long before Hilary Mantel was popular' Daily TelegraphFrom the No.1 bestselling author of THE AMERICAN BOY comes a new historical thriller set during the American War of Independence.August, 1778. British-controlled Manhattan is a melting pot of soldiers, traitors and refugees, surrounded by rebel forces as the American War of Independence rages on.Into this simmering tension sails Edward Savill, a London clerk tasked with assessing the claims of loyalists who have lost out during the war.Savill lodges with the ageing Judge Wintour, his ailing wife, and their enigmatic daughter-in-law Arabella. However, as Savill soon learns, what the Wintours have lost in wealth, they have gained in secrets.The murder of a gentleman in the slums pulls Savill into the city's underbelly. But when life is so cheap, why does one death matter? Because making a nation is a lucrative business, and some people cannot afford to miss out, whatever the price...