Robert Barnard: 48 books

A Brontë Encyclopedia is an A- Z encyclopedia of the most notable literary family of the 19th century highlighting original literary insights and the significant people and places that influenced the Brontës’ lives. Comprises approximately 2,000 alphabetically arranged entries Defines and...

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. He cares about his parishioners. He is also a human being -- and is thus saddled with man's...

What an honor, to become a trustee of one of England’s distinguished stately homes. Yorkshire cop Charlie Peace’s wife Felicity is at first thrilled when she’s asked to help oversee Walbrook Manor, a recent gift to the nation. It’s not long, though, before both she and Charlie smell trouble....

When British policemen Charlie Pearce and Mike Oddie investigate the unsurprising murder of the village parish Lothario, they question Rosemary Sheffield, the vicar’s wife. Rosemary, who has recently “lost” her faith and been accused of immoral behavior with a Yugoslavian refugee, makes a perfect suspect. Another winning combination of plot, character, and wit from Barnard.

Can the rich get away with murder, or is there always a price? Two days in May bring Colin Pinnock’s career to a peak. His party wins a stunning election victory and he wins a new government office. What a pity that among the congratulations pouring in lurks one grubby card asking: “Who do you...

In A City of Strangers, Barnard creates one of his most memorable characters ever; the dreadful Jack Phelan. Dirty, potbellied, vulgar, selfish, Jack is a man everyone loves to hate. And the rest of his family isn’t much better. The wife is slatternly, the teenaged children flirt with petty crime...

The rigidly conservative town of Hexton-on-Weir, where twelve-year residents, such as veterinarian Marcus Kitteredge and his wife Helen, are still regarded as newcomers, sponsors a church fair which becomes the background for murder.

Matt Harper, a television and radio personality and a former professional soccer player, has just bought Elderholm, an old stone house in Leeds in the north of England. It's ideal for him, his partner Aileen, and her three children. Even the attic space seems just right -- the perfect place for a...

Mystery and black comedy collide in this collection of sixteen stories with crime, wit, and twists to spare.

Old church meets new with a vengeance when a monk is brutally murdered at St. Botolph’s.

The body of a young man, almost naked, found in the car park behind a Haworth restaurant marks the beginning of the case, and it is his identity that is the first puzzle for DC Charlie Peace and his superior, Detective Superintendent Oddie. But before long the puzzle that most concerns them is the...

With the Nazis bombing London on a nightly basis, many 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 evacuation list, and none of his belongings offer any...

Hilariously satirizing Britain’s education system, a mystery at the Burleigh School involves the inept leadership of its headmaster, Edward Crumwallis, and the evil pupil he chooses as his next headboy—sneaky sycophant Hillary Frome.

Professor Belville-Smith had bored university audiences in England with the same lecture for fifty years. Now he was crossing the Australian continent, doing precisely the same. Never before had the reaction been so extreme, however, for shortly after an undistinguished appearance at Drummondale University,...