Robert Barnard Books

The Ketterick Festival revolves around the Saracen’s Head, a Jacobean inn with its inn-yard and balconies miraculously preserved intact, due to the sloth of successive landlords. Here in festival time are performed the lesser-known masterpieces of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre. This year it is The Chaste Apprentice of Bowe (a play of uncertain authorship, since no one owned up at the time). But the actors find that the Saracen’s Head has been transformed by its new landlord – an Australian know-all with an insatiable curiosity and an instinct for power. The loathsome Des’s activities bring him into conflict with actors, committee, even the performers of Adelaide di Birckenhead, the little-known Donizetti opera that is the other lynchpin of the Festival programme. So adept is Des at fomenting friction and ferreting in the undergrowth of private lives that it is not surprising that it all ends in biers.

Colin Pinnock, on top of the world when he is selected as a junior minister to the new Prime Minister, receives a mysterious note that sends him into a world of mystery and murder.

Assigned as British Princess Helena's personal bodyguard, Scotland Yard Detective Perry Trethowan struggles to defend his own virtue against the lascivious princess while tracking down the methodical killer who is murdering her numerous lovers.

With the Nazis bombing London on a nightly basis, many working-class families sent their children to the comparative safety of the countryside. When the Blitz ended, the families came for their kids...but no one ever came for Simon Thorn. His name appears on no list of the evacuated children. And none of his meager belongings offer any clues as to his origins. Now an adult, newly moved to London, Simon is puzzled by an odd sense of familiarity when he walks down certain streets. He remembers his years of screaming nightmares that would terrify his his bewildered foster parents. And he resolves, once and for all, to find out where he originally came from...even as everything he uncovers suggests that, really, he doesn't want to know. Barnard untangles his riddle with great skill, and is likely to outwit all but a handful of readers - New York TimesIdeal for fans of Ruth Rendell and John Lawton Multi-award-winning author

Caroline Fawley is living in the Yorkshire village of Alderley. Her wealthy boyfriend keeps her in the lap of luxury. Life couldn't get much better. Then her boyfriend Marius goes missing and later a body turns up and that idyllic life is completely shattered. Originally published: 2002.

Inspector Perry Trethowan reads in the obituaries that his estranged father has died under peculiar circumstances: he was fooling around with a form of self-torture called strappado. At the request of his supervisor, Peter returns to his ancestral home to determine if any of his cousins or siblings might have helped the old man to his bizarre end

Set against the backdrop of a long-running soap opera, this captivating mystery unfolds in a world filled with intrigue and unexpected twists. Renowned author Robert Barnard, a Diamond Dagger award winner, weaves a tale that explores the complexities of the characters and the dramatic events that unfold on and off the screen, promising readers a thrilling experience filled with suspense and entertainment.

After a twenty-year absence, Merlyn Cantelo returns to Leeds to attend his late aunt Clarissa's funeral. Far from being welcomed back into the fold of his large and quarrelsome family, he is viewed by many with suspicion and distrust ? especially since his timely reappearance has thwarted the prospect of a tidy inheritance. However, all is more complex than it seems. The teenage Merlyn only fled his home at the vehement insistence of his sometimes clairvoyant aunt, who foresaw for him a life blighted by violence and death. Moreover, the root of this danger supposedly lies somewhere within the family? Merlyn knows that if he is to discover whether his aunt's fears were justified, he must come to terms with his tragic past ? and delve into the murky history of the Cantelo family.

Police superintendent Percy Trethowan finds London's Soho as colorful and full of life as ever--except for the four corpses he discovers in a seedy photography studio. Shot while doing a layout for a health and fitness magazine, the victims left behind a camera loaded with film, but not clues.

Thoroughly updated to include writers such as Caryl Churchill, Brian Friel, Martin Amis and Graham Swift, this book remains the best overall survey of English literature available. Robert Barnard looks selectively at the most important writers within each period from the time of Chaucer, and focuses on one or two of their works in detail. He deals briefly with the earlier periods and more fully with the last two centuries, moving right to the present with a detailed coverage of the post-war novel and theatre. In the best sense eclectic, his book draws together history, criticism, established ideas and fresh views.

Bettina Whitelaw is a grand dame of the English literary scene. Approaching eighty, with a beautiful flat in Holland Park and a comfortable income, her life is not dissimilar to that of her wealthy, elegant neighbours. But her background most certainly is. Brought up in Bundaroo, a small town in the Australian outback, Bettina's childhood was dominated by the relentlessly blazing sun, the long daily walk to school, and by the simmering animosities of smalltown life. Aged sixteen, Bettina managed to escape to begin her literary career in Europe. But now, more than sixty years later, her past is coming back to haunt her. As she embarks upon the painful process of writing her memoirs, images from her childhood begin to re-surface. And when her former housekeeper is the victim of a violent attack, Bettina begins to realise that she herself is in serious danger, a danger that has its roots in a small, dusty outback town.

Opera singers are often described as being larger than life, and certainly this is true of Gaylene Ffrench. Her appetites--for men, for booze, for attention--are gargantuan, and her ability to irritate is similarly outsized. So when someone electrocutes the bombastic Australian contralto, few tears are shed at the Northern Opera Company (though it's a pity her understudy's so lousy). In fact, most of the company members are dancing a jig, and it falls on Superintendent Nichols to determine which of them might have helped Gaylene along to her just reward.

Peregrine Trethowan meets elderly schoolteacher Edith Wing in a pub and she tells him about a possible unpublished Bronte manuscript. Miss Wing is then assaulted and the manuscript is stolen. Trethowan investigates.

England's celebrated, multiple-award-winning master crime novelist returns with a witty and poignant chiller about the evil of gossip and the sin of indifference. Father Christopher Pardoe is a good priest who genuinely cares for his parishioners but is also burdened by human weaknesses. His frequent visits to a young single mother, Julie Norris, raise eyebrows, especially as her bedroom curtains remain closed during these visits. Rumors swirl when it appears Julie may be pregnant again, leading to Father Pardoe's suspension from St. Catherine's. Meanwhile, Cosmo Horrocks, a sensational journalist, seizes the opportunity to exploit the scandal, stirring up a narrative filled with sex and intrigue. As questions arise about Julie's past and her estrangement from her parents, the tension escalates. When murder strikes, Inspector Mike Oddie and Sergeant Charlie Peace uncover raw emotions—hate and fear—beneath the town's surface. The investigation reveals that while there may be one killer, many share in the town's guilt. Rich with eccentric characters, crisp dialogue, and perceptive insights into human nature, this story delves into the complexities of morality and the consequences of indifference.

From master mystery writer Robert Barnard, this early novel, first published in 1979, received an Edgar Award nomination for "Best Novel." Scribner reissues this beloved work from a respected name in crime writing. Sir Oliver Fairleigh-Stubbs, an overweight and overbearing figure, collapses and dies at his birthday party while indulging in rare liquors. Despite promising his daughter to be polite and charitable, the strain proves too much for him. His death leaves a family relieved to be free of his domineering presence and a fortune amassed from his success as a bestselling mystery author. Surprisingly, his elder son, who openly despised him, inherits most of the estate, while his wife, daughter, and younger son receive royalties from a single, carefully chosen book. However, the manuscript of an unpublished volume, a potential goldmine left to Sir Oliver's wife, has vanished. As suspicions grow about the nature of Sir Oliver's death, Inspector Meredith, a spirited Welshman resembling the author's fictional hero, enters the scene. In Barnard's adept hands, Meredith's investigation unfolds as a classic example of detection, infused with elegance and humor, revealing the complexities of family dynamics and the darker side of literary fame.

For years the infamous Phelans, known with equal horror to the Social Security office and the local school, have lived in slovenly squalor in their council house in the run-down Belfield Grove Estate in the northern English city of Sleate.The Phelans' infamy has even penetrated the middle-class bastion of respectability, Wynton Lane, where six imposing Victorian stone houses stand in fearful isolation next to Belfield Grove.Wynton Lane and Belfield Grove have only their unfortunate proximity in common until the fateful day when the Phelans come to call. It seems that Jack has won big on the pools, and he's thinking of buying one of the six houses.Nothing so exciting has ever happened on Wynton Lane, and the homeowners hope it never will again. Until now barely nodding acquaintances, the Wynton Lane residents call an urgent meeting to map an emergency strategy. What can they do to stop Jack Phelan?What indeed? The Wynton Lane people have always thought of themselves as law-abiding, but they soon discover that malice can take on a momentum of its own, a momentum that can even lead to murder.

The MP for Bootham East was something of a fish out of water - a Tory with a conscience. When he was actually fished out of water, the Thames to be precise, it looked like a clear case of suicide or accident. But as Superintendent Sutcliffe's investigations got under way, and as the by-election campaign to elect his successor hotted up, some very murky political waters were dredged and made to reveal their secrets.The local Labour Party had been hijacked by the extreme left, the Tory Party had had an unattractive young man with dubious City connections foisted on it, and the Alliance candidate had something nasty in his past he would prefer to forget. In fact, by the time of the declaration poll, all the parties wished the by-election had never had to happen, and that the dirt had remained brushed away under the carpet.

The reputation of novelist Walter Machin greatly increases after his death and his widow and ex-wife are about to cash in on the resulting monetary rewards when one of them meets an accidental death, in a spoof of conventional murder mysteries

The Anglican Community of St. Botolphs, set peacefully on the Yorkshire moors, is jolted when someone is found murdered in Father Anselm's cell during the gathering of delegates for a Church symposium

It was midday on December 21st in the city of Tromsø when the boy was last seen - a tall, blond boy swathed in anorak and scarf against the Arctic noon. After that he wasn't seen again, not until three months later, when Professor Mackenzie's dog started sniffing around in the snow and uncovered a human ear - attached to a naked corpse. Nobody knew who he was, or where he had come from. And after three months it was almost impossible to track down the identity of the corpse. But Inspector Fagermo refused to give up - and as he probed deeper into the Arctic city he began to discover a dangerous conspiracy of blackmail, espionage, and cold-blooded murder.

It was the worse possible time for murder. Radio Broadwich had come to do a documentary on Twytching's local charm. Mrs Withens, self-appointed arbiter of community affairs, was determined to see the town put its best foot forward. But it was a Herculean task, what with Rev Tamville-Bence holding seances; the elegant Alison Mailer using all her wiles to get interviewed on the air; and with schoolteacher Jack Edgar making eyes at the flamboyant Harold Thring, Radio Broadwich's producer. But when violent death tarnishes little Twytching's snug image, it is up to Police Inspector George Parrish to let the skeletons out of the cottage closets...and to use what old Amos Chipweather saw to catch a killer.

Upstairs, in the room looking out to sea, the old man dictates wills, leaving things he no longer has to friends who are long dead. His children, who look after him, can cope with his senility, and thought there was nothing more to learn about his erratic life-style. When Roderick Cotterel hears from his illegitimate half-sister he is intrigued, even charmed: she is the daughter of his father, the distinguished novelist Benedict Cotterel, by the famous actress Myra Mason. She is writing a book about her mother, and is looking for material. The affair between the two had been a gutter press sensation back in the 'sixties, but the embers have long since cooled. However, when Cordelia and her boyfriend arrive and begin research for the book both Roderick and his wife begin to have doubts. And when their peaceful Sussex village is threatened by a visit from an almost suspiciously friendly Myra Mason, they realize they have got into something from which it would require superhuman delicacy and tact to extricate themselves. In the event somebody solves their problems in a way that is neither tactful nor delicate, though it certainly is final.

In einem kleinen Dorf in Yorkshire kommt Perry Trethowan, ein Beamter von Scotland Yard, im Pub mit einer älteren Dame ins Gespräch. Diese erzählt ihm, daß sie sich im Besitz eines Manuskripts aus dem Nachlaß Emily Brontes befindet. Kurz darauf wird die alte Dame in ihrem Cottage niedergeschlagen, und von dem Manuskript fehlt jede Spur. Perry Trethowan nimmt die Ermittlungen auf und macht dabei die Bekanntschaft höchst unliebsamer Gestalten.

Oliver Farleigh-Stubbs, slavný autor detektivek, je schopen urazit kde koho. Uprostřed rodiného večírku padá mrtev k zemi a pitva prokáže násilnou smrt. Je na detektivovi Meredithovi, aby dopadl vraha. A podezřelých je tak mnoho.