Bøker av Carla Simpson

Mikaela takes on a case alone when Brodie is pulled into a new investigation for Sir Avery and the Agency. Her inquiry services are requested by the wife of a prominent London surgeon after he has disappeared, while Brodie is sent to track down rumors of a planned attack in London by the anarchist known as the Black Hand.It is a time of dangerous unrest across the whole of Europe, and they realize the two cases may be connected when the doctor is found murdered at a secret office in the East End where he performed certain procedures. It is also the place where the anarchist was followed, only to disappear. What was the reason for secrecy regarding that specific office? Why was the doctor murdered? What is the connection to the anarchists?The doctor's notes, along with unearthed documents, provide more clues about ancient Egyptian surgical procedures. And fingerprints found at the scene of the murder match prints discovered after Mikaela meets with Sir James Redstone, a friend and one-time travel companion who has recently returned to London.She is unwilling to believe that Redstone is part of the anarchist's plot. It makes no sense. Then, a coded message is intercepted and reveals that 'everything is in place', along with the date an attack is to take place-in just four days.But where? And what else is in that coded message?Assistance with deciphering the last of the code comes from an unexpected source and reveals the target-Parliament, the heart of British law and authority. Hundreds of people will die.With time running out, they race to stop the anarchists, expose the plot, and discover a deception they could never have imagined...

A photograph taken of the daughter of one of London's most prominent citizens in a private setting sets Brodie and Mikaela off on a new inquiry case to find out who took the photograph and then sent it to the family.The case begins simply enough until the young woman goes missing. Then, the family receives another photograph of their daughter who is obviously quite dead and that simple inquiry case has now become an investigation of murder.But this is no routine investigation to follow the clues as another photograph is received, and another body is found.Then another, and Brodie and Mikaela must confront the fact that the murderer is brilliant, talented with those startling even beautiful images, and quite possibly insane as the murders do not appear to be for the usual reasons of robbery, blackmail, or an assault. What then is it that drives a cold-blooded killer to pick his victims, take those enigmatic photographs that catches them so perfectly? Then take another photograph once they are dead?Brodie has his own thoughts from years of experience with the MP of London as an investigator, while Mikaela has an entirely different take on the murders.Their inquiries take them from the struggling photographer who takes iconic photos around London then sells them for the stereopticons that have become so popular in Victorian London, to the casual photographer on the street with his box camera, and into the galleries where photo exhibits are shown.All the while they are exploring the next step in their relationship.As the murderer becomes bolder, the photograph of his next victim appears in the Times of London, setting off even more inquiries, and prominent London families fear the worst.Then, Brodie receives a photograph of Mikaela...

A THIRTY YEAR OLD MURDER... Old Town, Edinburgh, in a squalid tenement where poverty, rats, and disease are rampant, a young woman who worked in a local tavern lies dying. Just another number and bound for a pauper's grave in Greyfriar's kirkyardA BOY FOUND STANDING IN HIS MOTHER'S BLOOD... Alone, his grandmother the only family left, young Angus Brodie hides in the shadows nearby, the bronze medallion his dying mother pressed into his hand clenched in a tight fist as the constables carry her body from the tenement. And a name overheard--the man who was there that night, seen by the woman who collected the rents.A VOW MADE, A PROMISE TO BE KEPT...As his mother lay dying, Angus Brodie vowed that he would find the one responsible for her death no matter how long it took.

What is real or only an illusion?Ghostly images that appear and float across the stage, objects that levitate into the air, and a beautiful assistant who disappears inside a glass box, then reappears inside a second glass box. All while the audience at the Crystal Palace, including amateur investigator Mikaela Forsythe, watch the performance.Is it real? Can the audience believe what they see?Then, an evening with her friend, Theodora Templeton while attending the one-night performance by master illusionist, Jean Luc Betard, takes a ghastly turn and plunges Mikaela headlong into murder when the illusionist's young assistant is found dead at the end of his newest stunt.The police, specifically Chief Inspector Abberline, who is also in attendance, declare it a tragic accident in an illusion gone wrong. But after making her own observations Mikaela is not convinced and places a call to Private Investigator Angus Brodie.Their's is a complicated partnership, more so with his latest work with the Special Services organization at the conclusion of their previous case, and that particularly complicated conversation he insisted on having with her. Irritating man!Never the less, Mikaela is certain there is more amiss than merely a tragic accident, and Brodie is forced to admit that she may be right, pulling them together once more, personal feelings aside. Or possibly not...That certainty takes both of them on a dangerous trail of clues that appear and then just as quickly disappear much like the illusionist's tricks.The case is no slight of hand, but a series of dangerous illusions meant to deceive both Mikaela and Brodie, and perhaps make them both disappear for good, while the murderer goes about his deadly scheme.And then, there is that conversation that she walked out on before, but he insists on having, even in the midst of murder.Oh my!

London, 1890: It's a New Year, but murder never takes a holiday.The past reaches out to the unlikely investigative team of Angus Brodie and Mikaela Forsythe when a man she was once engaged to marry seeks her assistance to find his young runaway son.However, a simple case of following the clues left behind becomes far more as the search unravels her former fiancé's secrets.Mikaela is determined to find the answers, and yet Brodie can't keep his mind off of his own questions about this woman who is too darn independent; aggravates him no end with her lists, theories, and ideas; puts her life at risk; and may still have feelings for the man she might have once married...questions that might complicate this already complicated partnership of theirs. When the boy's father is found dead, everything they thought they knew about the case is turned on its head and new motives start to take form.It's a race against time when the boy's school jacket is discovered, along with a note, and Mikaela and Brodie must work side by side with his mother, a woman who makes no attempt to hide her dislike for Mikaela, is determined to protect her husband's legacy at all cost, and who sends them into a place where the hunters become the hunted and they must work together once more in order to survive.

Murder, betrayal, revenge... and two people bound together across oceans, and time.She has had the dreams since she was a small child, her parents killed in a shipwreck in the treacherous waters off the coast of Cornwall. The dreams are from another time and place, and a man who waits in shadows. They are an elusive memory that leave her with questions but no answers.Now a young woman, on the eve of her marriage to a man she doesn't love, a mysterious stranger enters her life. He's dangerous, with secrets of his own, but it's as if he's stepped out of her dreams... out of that other life.He's known as the Raven, the symbol that flies above his ship. He has a ruthless reputation and he's responsible for the loss of English ships and cargo across the English Empire.Now, he's arrived in London, taking the disguise of a titled gentleman, with one purpose--revenge, the name of the ship he sails. But she is a woman from his past, a past life, lost a long time ago. She represents everything he hates and has sworn against.Fate and time have set a different course for them, a collision course of hearts and souls where choices will have to be made about what they believe...

Murder, betrayal, revenge... and two people bound together across oceans, and time.She has had the dreams since she was a small child, her parents killed in a shipwreck in the treacherous waters off the coast of Cornwall. The dreams are from another time and place, and a man who waits in shadows. They are an elusive memory that leave her with questions but no answers.Now a young woman, on the eve of her marriage to a man she doesn't love, a mysterious stranger enters her life. He's dangerous, with secrets of his own, but it's as if he's stepped out of her dreams... out of that other life.He's known as the Raven, the symbol that flies above his ship. He has a ruthless reputation and he's responsible for the loss of English ships and cargo across the English Empire.Now, he's arrived in London, taking the disguise of a titled gentleman, with one purpose--revenge, the name of the ship he sails. But she is a woman from his past, a past life, lost a long time ago. She represents everything he hates and has sworn against.Fate and time have set a different course for them, a collision course of hearts and souls where choices will have to be made about what they believe...

The LadyFor Laurel Wentworth it is unlocking the truth about her mother and father, and discovering the sister she never knew.Twins, separated as infants, one raised in Boston, the other one raised in the raw, wild gold fields and silver mines of Nevada; separated by time, lies, and those who tried to protect them.For Laurel it is a journey that begins when she stows away in a steamer trunk on board a ship bound for San Francisco to uncover the truth about the father she believes abandoned her.The GamblerFor Ruel Delaney, privateer and scoundrel, it's one last shipment, one last run before he returns to Virginia City and the life he's built there in the gambling halls and rich silver mines of the Mother Lode.But the discovery in the hold of that ship that also holds that last shipment, turns his world upside down. The woman he discovers in that steamer trunk is the same woman he walked away from once before.Or is she? What is the lady willing to risk? What is the gambler who never loses, willing to bet?And what could possibly go wrong for two people who should never have met?

The lady in search of her pastLaine has lived her life not knowing who her real family was before she arrived in Philadelphia as a small child, along with hundreds of children who filled the orphan trains that traveled to the East. All she has is the name that was written on a piece of paper pinned to her dress--Dalton--the name of a notorious outlaw gang written about in the dime novels, with prices on their heads, responsible for dozens of deaths in the lawless West. Now a man has entered her life who may have the answers to the questions she's had her whole life--Who is she? What happened to her family? How did she get there? If she's brave enough, strong enough to follow him into the dangerous Oklahoma Territory where the Dalton name means blood and death.A man who closed the door on his pastMarshal Ranse McCandliss lost his family in the lawless, dangerous Oklahoma Territory far beyond the tame streets of Philadelphia or Washington D.C. where he tracks down a young woman with an unknown past.He once rode with the oldest Dalton brother, until his friend was killed and he narrowly escaped. Now, he is the law, determined to learn the truth about the lady, her connection to the notorious Dalton Gang, and hunt down the rest of the Daltons once and for all.When the lady is taken hostage, he's forced to go after her, following a trail into the lawless Outlet where every man makes his own law, and it's kill or be killed. It's a path that will test them both and their unwanted feelings for one another as time runs out for the Dalton Gang in bloody last gunfight.

A severed foot. Fingerprints left on a wine glass. A secret cypher code. The scent of orange and cinnamon left behind by the murderer.Mikaela Forsythe, adventuress, author, and now private investigator, is back, pulled into a deadly case that may just see her friend, actress Theodora Templeton, sent to prison for murder when that severed foot is found in her bed and a high-ranking official has gone missing.But is it a crime of passion or something far more sinister?There is only one person who can assist--former police inspector Angus Brodie, the irascible Scot who challenges her at every turn. But Brodie is reluctant to take the case of a woman who communicates with the dead and keeps a four foot iguana as a pet. Until there is another murder, and then another.As the body count rises Mikaela and Brodie are forced to undertake a dangerous scheme to expose the murderer. But secrets lie in wait, and desperate people will take desperate measures to protect those secrets.All the while Mikaela's great aunt has decided to go on safari, the Mudger and Rupert are caught up in the case, and a brilliant young man--Bloody hell! Another Scot!-- has joined the team. Then there is that undeniable attraction to deal with that lies simmering just beneath the surface for two people who could not be more different...What is an independent lady to do?

London 1889 - Murder, mystery, and two people in a most unlikely partnership.She's an unconventional lady who has traveled the world, practices the art of self defense most excellently, and has an interesting tattoo in, ahem... a very unusual place.He's a former member of the Metropolitan Police, now a private investigator, who grew up on the poverty ridden streets of Edinburgh and has worked the dangerous back alleys of London's notorious East End.A vicious murder brings them together in a race against time that takes them from the sordid back streets of London into the elite private clubs of the powerful and rich, to find the killer before he strikes again and prevent a deadly scheme. A scandalous affair, deceptions, and secrets will challenge what they know and what they believe.Come along as the lady and the detective join forces in an amazing time of new inventions, startling discoveries, and unexpected revelations, where a young woman who doesn't rely on anyone is forced to trust the irascible Scot who is a tough as they come and just might learn a thing or two from her... if they both don't end up dead!