'Beautifully written, cunningly plotted, with one of the most interesting central characters.' E.S. ThomsonWest Wales, 1850.When an old tree root is dug up, the remains of a young woman are found. Harry Probert-Lloyd, a young barrister forced home from London by encroaching blindness, has been dreading this discovery.He knows exactly whose bones they are.Working with his clerk, John Davies, Harry is determined to expose the guilty, but the investigation turns up more questions than answers.The search for the truth will prove costly. Will Harry and John be the ones to pay the highest price?

Amongst the scholars, secrets and soporifics of Victorian Oxford, the truth can be a bitter pill to swallow... Jesus College, Oxford, 1881. An undergraduate is found dead at his lodgings and the medical examination reveals some shocking findings. When the young man's guardian blames the college for his death and threatens a scandal, Basil Rice, a Jesus College fellow with a secret to hide, is forced to act and finds himself drawn into Sidney Parker's sad life. The mystery soon attracts the attention of Rhiannon 'Non' Vaughan, a young Welsh polymath and one of the young women newly admitted to university lectures. But when neither the college principal nor the powerful ladies behind Oxford's new female halls will allow her to become involved, Non's fierce intelligence and determination to prove herself drive her on. Both misfits at the university, Non and Basil form an unlikely partnership, and it soon falls to...

Not every corpse put in a pit has died of the plague…   England, 1349     The Black Death is tearing through the country and those not yet afflicted are living in fear.   Martin Collyer wakes up in his family's charcoaling hut in the Forest of Dean to find his father dead on the bed beside him, half-sewn into his shroud. As Martin’s most recent memory is of being given the last rites, he cannot account for why he is alive and why his father – whose body bears not a trace of the plague – is dead.   With no home to go to and set free from the life of virtual servitude that his father had planned for him, Martin sets off on a journey across England to seek salvation for his father’s unconfessed soul.   He befriends another traveller on the way. But the man – Hob Cleve – seems to be harbouring dark secrets of his own.   As more suspicious deaths occur, Martin is left wondering whether Hob can be trusted.   What is Hob hiding? Is Martin travelling with a killer?   And what really led to Martin’s miraculous recovery?

Harry Probert-Lloyd has inherited the estate of Glanteifi and appointed his assistant John as under-steward. But his true vocation, to be coroner, is under threat. Against his natural instincts, Harry must campaign if he is to be voted as coroner permanently by the local people and politicking is not his strength. On the hustings, Harry and John are called to examine the body of Nicholas Rowland, a radical and pioneering schoolteacher whose death may not be the accident it first appeared. What was Rowland's real relationship with his eccentric patron, Miss Gwatkyn? And why does Harry's rival for the post of coroner deny knowing him? Harry's determination to uncover the truth threatens to undermine both his campaign and his future.

Why should the devil have all the best tunes?The Salvation Army has come prancing and singing from the slums of London to the poorest quarters of Oxford, but along with its red hot gospel preaching and music hall songs it brings a prohibition message which sparks immediate opposition and violence.An Army soldier – an ex-drunk – is brutally killed and a note suggests that the Salvation Army's shadowy enemy, the Skeleton Army, is responsible.With the police unwilling to come between the two forces, Non Vaughan, aspiring journalist and great hope of the Oxford women's college movement, and Basil Rice, Jesus College fellow and union-sanctioned guardian of the dead man's family, are compelled to investigate.But as the threats from both sides escalate, resulting in a second death, Non and Basil realise that they must stop the fighting before it results in an outright war. For with the University's annual commemoration...

Praise for Alis Hawkins: 'Beautifully written, cunningly plotted, with one of the most interesting central characters.' E.S. Thomson 'The most interesting crime creation of the year.' Phil Rickman Harry Probert-Lloyd, a young barrister forced home from London by encroaching blindness, has begun work as the acting coroner of Teifi Valley with solicitor's clerk John Davies as his assistant.When a faceless body is found on an isolated beach, Harry must lead the inquest. But his dogged pursuit of the truth begins to ruffle feathers. Especially when he decided to work alongside a local doctor with a dubious reputation and experimental theories considered radical and dangerous. Refusing to accept easy answers might not only jeopardise Harry's chance to be elected coroner permnantly but could, it seems implicate his own family in a crime.

Poor judgements have tragic consequences... The latest in the unputdownable Teifi Valley seriesThe Teifi Valley's coroner, Harry Probert-Lloyd, is struggling: with the blindness that drove him home from London, with the county magistrates and with an estate teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. He needs an escape, so when Dr Benton Reckitt is asked to give a second opinion on the apparently natural death of young Lizzie Rees, Harry willingly goes with him. But mistakes are made. Harry becomes embroiled in local rumours and in Esther Rees's search for the truth behind her daughter's sudden death. What is Lizzie Rees's father hiding? Was somebody else in the farmhouse on the night she died? And, most crucially for Harry, will he be able to uncover the mystery, and solve personal difficulties that threaten to tear him apart? Perfect for readers of Laura Shephard-Robinson, Stuart Turton or Elly Griffiths, this is a superb...