Elizabeth George

At the great Scottish manor house of Westerbrae, a London theatrical company gathers to hear a controversial new play. By the evening's end, the beautiful playwright has been brutally murdered in her bed-and Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley becomes immediately embroiled in a crime whose genesis is tangled in the obligations of love and the consequences of betrayal. With orders to keep the case from the press as long as possible because of the notoriety of the principal suspects, Lynley and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers travel to the isolated estate. Among their suspects: the most powerful theatrical producer in Britain, two of the nation's most beloved stars, and the woman Lynley loves. For Lynley, the investigation requires all the delicacy he can muster-and it forces him to face a personal dilemma as well. For present at Westerbrae on the night of the murder is Helen Clyde, a woman with whom Lynley shares a complicated history and an enduring friendship that has deepened into love. The fact that she occupied the room next to the murder victim cannot be overlooked. The fact that she did not occupy it alone cannot be ignored. Fighting to overcome a jealousy that threatens to cloud his judgment and emotions so troubled they could lead to fatal mistakes, Lynley finds himself beset at every turn by family scandals, fierce theatrical rivalries, and shattering revelations. When the living occupy his thoughts more powerfully than the dead, the question becomes whether he can walk the treacherous line between the clinical detachment of a professional investigator and the seething turmoil of a lover. For in the murder house, motives run very deep indeed. Outraged over what she sees as the kid-glove handling of an upper-crust murder, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers strikes out on her own, putting her career at risk and questioning her deepest professional loyalty as she begins a relentless search into the secrets that haunt not one family but two, and hold them to silence. Filled with menace and suspense, Payment in Blood is as much rooted in the unexplored regions of the human heart as in the unforgiving Scottish countryside, where the blood that binds can also kill.

A baby's cry echoes on lonely nights through Keldale Valley in Yorkshire. Three hundred years ago, when Cromwell's raiders swept through a village in this valley, not a living creature was to be found on its fog-shrouded streets. The entire population had taken refuge in Keldale Abbey. But then, as the legend goes, an infant began to cry-and the villages knew they had escaped Cromwell's ravages only to be betrayed by a babe. So they smothered the child to silence it. To this day, the low, thin wail of an infant can be heard in Keldale's lush green valleys. Now, into this pastoral web of old houses and older secrets comes New Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley. Accompanied by Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, Lynley has been sent to solve a particularly savage murder which has stunned the peaceful countryside. Fat, unlovely Roberta Teys has been found, clad in her best silk dress, seated in the great stone barn beside her father's decapitated corpse. Her first and only words were: "I did it. I'm not sorry." She has refused to speak since. The priest who found young Roberta insists the girl is innocent. The villagers, who have known the girl all of her life, concur. The local police, however, maintain that she's guilty of the brutal slaying of one of the region's most respected citizens. As Lynley and Havers wind their way through Keldale's dark labyrinth of scandals, they uncover a series of revelations that will reverberate through this tranquil English valley-and in their own lives as well. In A Great Deliverance Elizabeth George probes the delicate motivations of the heart against a backdrop of buried scandals, unresolved antagonisms and dizzying ambiguities. It was her debut novel, the winner of the Agatha and Anthony Awards for best first novel as well as France's Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere. It was nominated for both a Macavity and an Edgar. It has been optioned for television by the BBC.

Kit Taylor is marked by suspicion and disapproval from the moment she arrives on the unfamiliar shores of colonial Connecticut in 1687. Alone and desperate, she has been forced to leave her beloved home on the island of Barbados and join a family she has never met. Kit's unconventional background and high-spirited ways immediately clash with the Puritanical lifestyle of her uncle's household, and despite her best efforts to adjust, it seems that Kit will never win the favor of those around her. Torn between her quest for belonging and her desire to be true to herself, Kit struggles to survive in a hostile place, and just when it seems she must give up, she finds a kindred spirit. But Kit's friendship with Hannah Tupper, believed by the colonist to be a witch, proves more taboo than she could have imagined and ultimately forces Kit to choose between her heart and her duty. Elizabeth George Speare's Newberry Award-winning novel portrays the life of a girl uprooted from her birthplace and yet unbound by the suppression of her new home, a heroine whom readers will admire for her unwavering sense of truth as well as her infinite capacity to love. This is the description printed in the front of Elizabeth George Speare's book.

After witnessing his father's crucifixion by Roman soldiers, Daniel bar Jamin is fired by a single passion: to avenge his father's death by driving the Roman legions from the land of Israel. Consumed by hatred, Daniel joins the brutal raids of an outlaw band living in the hills outside his village. Though his grandmother's death slows his plans by forcing him to move home to care for his sister, he continues his dangerous life by leading a group of the boy guerrillas in spying and plotting, impatiently waiting to take revenge. In nearby Capernaum, a rabbi is teaching a different lesson. Time and again Daniel is drawn to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, only to turn away, disappointed and confused by Jesus' lack of action in opposing the Romans. Devoid of tenderness and forgiveness, headstrong Daniel is also heedless of the loyalty of his friend Joel; the love of Joel's sister, Malthace; and the needs of his own disturbed sister, Leah, dragging them down his destructive path towards disaster. Elizabeth George Speare won the 1962 Newbery Medal for this magnificent novel of Daniel's tormented journey from a blind, confining hatred to his acceptance and understanding of love. Booklist called it "a dramatic, deeply felt narrative whose characters and message will be long remembered." - Inside front cover. "Angry and bitter, a teenager in ancient Israel fights the occupation of his land by the Romans. He plots revenge and carries out daring raids, never doubting his ideals, until all of his actions, plans, and notions are brought into question by a man who fights the Romans with a force stronger than hatred."

Left alone to guard the family's wilderness home in eighteenth-century Maine, a boy is hard-pressed to survive until local Indians teach him their skills.