Allison Busby: 459 books

‘Edward Marston has tapped into a rich vein of inspiration. His Home Front Detective series promises a long run’ Daily Mail Pentonville Prison, 1917. Wally Hubbard was meant to be serving a long sentence for arson, but when he makes an audacious escape, Inspector Marmion, who arrested him,...

1861, East Anglia. Alone in a first-class carriage, the Swarbricks are robbed at gunpoint, but when the universally-admired Swarbrick fights back, the train robber takes more than money and jewellery, killing the man working to unify East Anglia’s tangle of railway networks. Inspector Colbeck...

For Lord Westfield’s Men, Every high road leads to death When the deathly horrors of the Black Plague decimate the audiences in London’s theatres, the acclaimed troupe of players called Lord Westfield’s Men take to the high road to seek out fresh audiences. But wherever they go, they...

For Lord Westfield’s men, sometimes murder takes centre stage… The reign of Elizabeth I has seen a flowering of English theatre. The esteemed theatrical company called Lord Westfield’s Men have enjoyed many a success but it falls to Nicholas Bracewell, the company’s bookholder and mainstay,...

Winter, Witchcraft and Devilish Deceit Faced with the austerities of a bitterly cold English winter, the theatre is deserted and Westfield’s Men find themselves out of work. Fortuitously, the company is invited to perform at a country home in Essex; welcome news to the disgruntled players. The...

Clemency van Emden receives an anonymous terse message informing her that her estranged father is dead and buried. Confounded by this news and desperate to visit her father’s final resting place, she returns from Holland determined to seek answers. A chance encounter on a busy London street leads...

The Cotswolds are filled with idyllic and quintessentially English villages: the perfect, peaceful location for recently widowed Thea Osbourne to housesit, if perhaps a little dull. Until a body turns up. At the centre of the tragedy, Thea discovers that the cosy facades hide than their share of secrets… Includes...

It is the autumn of 1917, and at the luxurious Lotus Hotel in Chelsea, a maid is disrupted from her morning rounds by a horrifying discovery: instead of the dignified older lady who has been occupying a room, she finds the dead body of a much younger woman. Harvey Marmion and Joe Keedy are dispatched...

DI Charlie Priest is on gardening leave – the neighbours have complained about his weeds – when the call comes. Ghislaine Curzon, girlfriend of one of the royal princes, is in Heckley to open the Curzon Centre, a new shopping mall and conference facility. But as she reveals the commemorative plaque...

Undertaker Drew Slocombe is not having a good day. His business is failing, the car needs an MOT and he’s driving 120 miles to the Cotswolds to carry out the late Greta Simmonds’ final wishes. Unfortunately, when he gets there, a string of mistakes leaves him the chief suspect of a murder inquiry....

D.I. Charlie Priest of the East Pennine force is officially on sick leave, but this brief break from work comes to an abrupt end when Mrs Norris’s chauffeur is found dead from unnatural causes – namely a blast to the head from a Kalashnikov. Her husband, an American tobacco tycoon, is distinctly...

Thea Osborne, accompanied by her beloved spaniel Hepzie, has had her fair share of unfortunate occurrences while house-sitting. Her new assignment for the mysterious Yvonne Parker is no exception. The somewhat unsettling village of Snowshill has Thea on edge as soon as she arrives, and soon enough...

Despite the catastrophic outcomes of her previous house-sitting commissions, Thea Osborne, accompanied by her trusty spaniel, Hepzie, is truly convinced nothing can go wrong on her next assignment in the charming village of Blockley. The Montgomerys have asked her to look after their house while they...

Wiltshire, December 1915. Widow Olivia Harbury has been persuaded by her cousin Donald to live with him and his wife, but tensions soon rise between the pair. Then, much to Donald’s disapproval, Olivia becomes involved in starting a new Women’s Institute. A chance meeting brings Olivia...