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The Longdon Murders

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2009-09-09

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 1905809700

On the night of a blizzard in January 1963, an elderly couple who live in a tiny Worcestershire village are summoned to their daughter’s cottage two and a half miles away at Longdon, on urgent but unspecified business. When eventually they reach their daughter’s cottage, exhausted and worried, they find it warm but empty. Unable to face the journey back home that night, they prepare a simple meal for themselves preparatory to retiring to bed in their daughter’s cottage. The following morning, the concerned neighbours find the couple still sitting at table, poisoned by a bottle of contaminated wine. A student is found to have been killed by the same rare poison in his London bed-sit within days of the Longdon murders. Coincidence? Surely not! Inspector Wickfield is appointed to find out. His inquiry is hampered by the repeated appearance of the deceased couple’s son who is a senior officer in the Canadian force. Weaving his way round red herrings and dead ends, Wickfield requires all his ingenuity, prompted by a random crossword clue, to uncover a devious and intricate plot instigated by a determined criminal. Julius Falconer can be relied on to provide stimulating and thought-provoking entertainment for a cosy night by the fire – but sharpen your wits first. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

The Alkan Murder

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2012-11-01

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 1782281835

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The wealthy and reclusive Harry Quirke, misanthropist and student of the piano works of Alkan, is stabbed to death in his country house outside Tadcaster. Only one of the obvious suspects seems to have much of a motive: his alibi is shaky, it is true, but there is no proof of his involvement. DI Moat and his assistant DS Stockwell follow one false lead after another in an exasperating investigation that seems to be getting nowhere: a gypsy caravan, an old murder in Kansas, the hurried will of a dying man, a golf-course green and an unfinished catalogue of Alkan’s works – none of it seems to make sense. Finally, the murderer makes the smallest of slips, and the penny drops - but it’s a close thing! Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

The Wichenford Court Murder

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2010-10-28

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1907728031

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A suicide before the First World War, a university career cut short by drink and debt, a missed business opportunity, family antagonisms, a threat to jobs on the estate, all give the inspector some food for thought, until he rumbles the one tiny mistake that leads to the unmasking of a killer.

The Bones of Murder

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2009-11-30

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 190580976X

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While renovating the derelict twelfth-century chapel attached to their new house in rural Worcestershire in 1972, Grace and Benjamin Hothersall uncover three skeletons, which have clearly been the victims of murder. When news of this reaches the newspapers, a series of anonymous letters and telephone-calls begins at the Hothersall residence. Clearly the murders are of not just historical interest, since someone very much alive seems determined to prevent further disclosures. Inspector Wickfield finds himself involved in a complex and baffling investigation, which embraces local witchcraft, a student of the cabala, abduction, a boy’s curse, a hidden will, a stranger in Cornwall, death in a railway carriage – and a Latin textbook of 1563! It nearly proves too much for him, but light dawns eventually and leads to a tense trial which brings the case to a close. The narrative almost fails to see the light of day, because the inspector objects to its style and instructs Mr Falconer to destroy the typescript. Fortunately for us, Mr Falconer has more sense than the inspector. As always, the reader is given as much information as the detectives and is challenged to spot the crucial clue in the labyrinth, as Wickfield must. Julius Falconer’s sure touch ensures another page-turner for the discerning reader, in which intelligent stimulation vies with sheer entertainment for pride of place. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

A Death Twice Avenged

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2009-06-05

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 1905809611

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From the top of the stairs, a little girl of five overhears an argument in the sitting-room below, between her father and a late-night visitor. Frightened and uncertain she dared not descend the staircase but sat trembling at the top, unable to return to bed. Her father is killed. She did not see the killer and cannot remember clearly the content of the conversation, but she remembers the killer’s voice. Twenty years later she recognises the voice, identifies its owner and sets out to take her revenge. The first part of her plan succeeds, and her quarry goes to gaol for six months, but in putting into action the second part, she disappears. Her husband reports her missing, a search is instigated. The police authorities in Worcester believe that Inspector Wickfield is the best man for the job, but he seems to do nothing but stumble from one blind alley to another. His investigation leads him and his sergeant, Spooner, to interview a businessman in Spain, a dotty clergyman, a cashiered army major, a gushing hypnotherapist, a horsey countrywoman and a seedy cabinetmaker, in an attempt to unravel the sequence of events – oh, and there is an important interlude in Scotland - but enlightenment comes only when Wickfield’s wife cracks a philosophical joke. In this work of detective fiction, Julius Falconer delights his readers yet again with a deliciously teasing and ingenious plot, laced with comments on life, the universe and everything – and that, of course, includes revenge. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

The Unexpected Death of Father Wilfred

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2009-09-09

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 1905809719

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One February evening in the year 1968, Fr Wilfred, the parish priest of the Sacred Heart Catholic church in Droitwich, tumbles out of his confessional, stabbed to death. His older sister demands the best detective in the force, and Stan Wickfield is appointed to the case. Unfortunately he cannot identify either the means or the motive of the murder, much less the perpetrator. His investigation leads him through the highways and byways of tensions in the Catholic Church in the wake of the Second Vatican Council and brings him face to face with anti-Catholic sentiment in the local population. His suspects include an eccentric and learned septuagenarian spinster who quotes d’Azeglio every time they meet, a school technician rejected for the priesthood because of his sexuality, the custodian of Kenilworth Castle and a bookmaker with a taste for anti-papal sentiment. Motives for the priest’s death waver confusingly between contempt for his office, disapproval of a teenage indiscretion, personal hatred and suicide. Wickfield is at his wits’ end until his wife’s reading – a novella by Nicholas Montserrat – prods him towards a triumphant solution. The story comes to a dramatic climax in two sermons preached by the dead priest’s curate, Fr Gabriel. Julius Falconer never fails to write serious and stimulating stories with humour, a wealth of researched detail and subtle plots. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

Death by Aloe-Seed

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2014-02-20

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 1782283315

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Struggling to maintain his usual round of pastoral care, agricultural concerns, family life and church services, the vicar of Sherburn in Elmete (1686-1771), parson and part-time farmer, again finds himself embroiled in a murder investigation forced on him by the indolence of the local law officers. He skitters about in pursuit of a one-eared footpad, a scarred man and an elusive pedlar, is arrested and tried for theft, thwarts a plot to murder the local miller and confronts a villainous highwayman – all, apparently, to no purpose. However, by resolutely excluding curses, spirits and bogles - the explanations offered by others - and concentrating on rational solutions to the mystery, he succeeds, finally and triumphantly, in identifying the murderer. Expertly edited for modern readers by the redoubtable Mr Falconer, this second chronicle of the doings of the vicar of Sherburn in Elmete draws the reader cosily into eighteenth-century village life where medicine is primitive, travel arduous and time-consuming and officers of the law less than eager to perform their functions. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

MR Carrick Is Laid to Rest

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2009-11-30

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 1905809751

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It is August 1974. A respected teacher at a private girls’ school in rural Worcestershire, Adrian Carrick, physically attracted to one of the Sixth-Form leavers, discloses his feelings for her. Convinced that he has mishandled their final meeting, he writes her a letter of regret and then kills himself by leaping over the edge of a quarry. The coroner’s verdict is suicide while the balance of his mind is disturbed. Not all is as it appears, however, and Inspector Wickfield is called in to take a look. His investigation leads him to Venice, where Carrick seemingly led a double life as the owner of an art gallery which acted as a base for international crime, to St.Gallen and Bologna, to Hereford and Birmingham, to Pershore and the suburbs of Worcester, without significant success. A second murder adds increasing urgency to the case. Interleaved in the investigation are the members of Mr Carrick’s philosophy class, in particular the girl who had caught Carrick’s eye. The case is solved through two startling pieces of intuition, which confirm the inspector’s place at the top of his profession and his wife, Beth, as his steady muse. In Mr Carrick is Laid to Rest, Julius Falconer has again provided the discerning public with a tightly-woven, deft and thought-provoking novel in the best traditions of British detective fiction. It will defy your efforts to put it down, and Inspector Wickfield will take his place in the pantheon of greats. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

A Figure in the Mist

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2011-08-26

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 1907728236

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When Lady Amelia Walden is murdered at Monk Fryston Hall Hotel in Yorkshire on the night of her eightieth birthday, the chief suspect is Robert Purbright, a bachelor in his fifties engaged at Farlington Hall, the ancestral Walden mansion, to catalogue her extensive collection of stamps. At his trial, the prosecution allege that he was creaming off choice specimens for himself and that his employer was beginning to have her suspicions. Exposure would have brought his career to an unpleasant end. The jury, however, find him Not Guilty. Enraged by their obtuseness, Lady Amelia¿s son, Toby, vows to prove them wrong.The detective inspector who had been in charge of the investigation, Walter Moat, admits to Toby Walden, in a strictly off-the-record conversation, that the police had made a poor case; but he also lays some of the blame on counsel for the prosecution for not fully exploiting the evidence. Despite his best amateur efforts, Walden does no better - until a second murder offers more promising openings. A book by Freud and an Iroquois legend conspire to raise Walden¿s hopes of finally getting Purbright convicted. But will raised hopes be enough?All the hall-marks of Falconer are here: velvet-smooth English, well-shaped narrative, erudite allusions, and a rich surplus of thought-provoking obiter dicta: in short, intelligent entertainment at its finest, for the connoisseur.

A Fearful Madness

Author: Julius Falconer

Publisher: Pneuma Springs Publishing

Published: 2013-03-21

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1782282610

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A police investigation into the violent death of a part-time cathedral verger stalls for lack of incriminating evidence. However, three people have a close interest in clearing the matter up where the police have failed: the victim's sister, and two suspects released without charge and eager to clear their names.