An ambitious young clerk, dependent on his devout aunt’s fortune, feigns piety while pursuing a libertine life. Seeking to secure his inheritance, he travels to the Holy Land to obtain a sacred keepsake, experiences a vivid vision that transports him to biblical Jerusalem and exposes religious hypocrisy, and returns only to have a scandalous mix-up—substituting his lover’s nightgown for a holy relic—ruin his schemes and satirize the collision of faith, desire, and social ambition.

A spare, often eerie collection of stories set in contemporary and near-future China that follows ordinary people as they navigate economic upheaval, surveillance, and the creep of technology and environmental change. The prose blends realist detail with subtle speculative twists, illuminating how commerce, politics, and desire reshape intimate lives and relationships. Recurring themes of displacement, aspiration, and loss create a vivid, unsettling portrait of a society in flux.

When a cruel, wealthy family patriarch is found brutally murdered at his country house during a tense Christmas reunion, the famous Belgian detective is called in to untangle a web of grudges, lies and inheritance motives. The victim’s relatives all had reasons to want him dead, and the apparently impossible circumstances and unusual wounds baffle the police. Through psychological insight and careful deduction, the detective uncovers staged clues, hidden relationships and a surprising method and motive, exposing long-buried family betrayals.

Freya Lockwood returns to her English hometown when her estranged mentor, antiques dealer Arthur Crockleford, dies under mysterious circumstances. She received a letter from Arthur asking her to investigate, sent days before his death, and she teams with her Aunt Carole to follow clues to an old manor hosting an antiques weekend. There the antiques are poor reproductions and guests seem secretive and menacing, and Freya and Carole try to discover what Arthur was involved in before the killer strikes again.

In 1965 a fortune-teller tells teenage Frances Adams she will be murdered. She spends a lifetime compiling dirt on everyone she meets to prevent that fate, but nearly sixty years later she is found dead at her sprawling country estate. Her great-niece Annie arrives and must sift through Frances's files and a village of possible suspects to catch the killer before she becomes the next target.

A hostile prime minister launched the Monochrome inquiry two years earlier to investigate historical over-reaching by the British Secret Service. Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle were seconded to Monochrome and given access to classified archives, but MI5's First Desk blocked their work and the probe collapsed. On the eve of its closure an unexplained MI5 file surfaces, revealing the buried history of a classified 1994 Berlin operation that ended in tragedy and scandal and whose cover-up has rewritten thirty years of Service history.

Millie limpa a casa de Nina e Andrew Winchester todos os dias e prepara as refeições antes de comer sozinha em seu minúsculo quarto no sótão. Nina começa a sujar os cômodos de propósito, conta mentiras perturbadoras sobre a filha e tortura psicologicamente o marido, que fica cada vez mais fragilizado. Apesar do passado problemático, Millie imagina ter a vida de Nina com roupas, carro e marido perfeitos. Logo os Winchesters descobrirão que não sabem quem Millie é nem do que ela é capaz.

A plucky orphan raised in an English boarding school is sent to live with distant relatives in Manaus and, on the steamer journey and in the lush Amazon, discovers the extraordinary beauty and danger of the rainforest; she makes warm friendships with locals and fellow travellers, uncovers the selfish schemes of her supposed guardians, and ultimately finds courage, belonging, and a new kind of family far from England.

In Leningrad in 1968, Alexander Karpenko is, from an early age, clearly destined to lead his countrymen. After his father is assassinated by the KGB for defying the state, he and his mother flee and must choose at the docks between a container ship to America or to Great Britain. A coin toss decides his future. Spanning two continents and thirty years, the story follows his triumphs and defeats as an immigrant who ultimately faces the past he left behind in Russia.

After actress Natalie Raines is found dying from a gunshot, police suspect her agent and soon to be ex-husband, Gregg Aldrich. Two years later a criminal says Aldrich tried to hire him to kill Natalie, and assistant prosecutor Emily Wallace takes the case. She gives a seemingly well meaning neighbor a key to care for her dog, unaware of his violent past. The trial draws headlines and eerie sentiments haunt Emily after the jury decides Aldrich's fate, putting her transplanted heart and life at risk.

The Cahills are a wealthy San Francisco family with twisted secrets. Marla Cahill wakes from a coma after a highway crash with no memory and a reconstructed face while another woman died. Her family calls her Marla, but they are strangers as she recuperates in an isolated mansion and grows increasingly certain she is not who they say and that her life is in danger.

Sisters Cassie and Allie leave Oregon to pursue acting in Los Angeles, but Allie becomes a star while Cassie remains stuck in bit parts. When Allie's body double is shot and Allie goes missing, police trace a last call to Cassie though she has no memory of placing it, and she is confined to a Portland psych ward amid public suspicion. Cassie checks out to find Allie, but macabre murders that mimic her family make her doubt everyone and herself.