Sarah Rayne

Introducing professional researcher Phineas Fox in the first of a brand-new series of chilling mysteries. Phineas Fox has mixed feelings when he's asked to research the infamous 19th-century violinist Roman Volf for a TV documentary. Hanged for his part in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, Volf was a notorious criminal and womaniser, whose glittering talent was undermined by his scandalous private life. However, on uncovering evidence...

When Nell West starts extending her Oxford antiques shop, she is not expecting to uncover strange fragments of its past: fragments that include a frightened message scribbled on old plasterwork, dated 1850 and referring to someone called Thaisa.She also uncovers a mysterious link with a village on the Dorset coast - a village with an ancient bell tower and dark memories of a piece of music known locally as Thaisa's Song. The sea is gradually encroaching...

Fosse House, home of the reclusive Luisa Gilmore, harbours curious secrets - secrets that stretch back almost a century, to the ill-fated Palestrina Choir in its remote Belgian convent. When Oxford don Michael Flint travels to the house to trace the origins of the long-dead Choir, he is at once aware of the house's eerie menace. Who is the shadowy young man who lurks in the grounds, and why does his exact likeness appear in a sketch from 1917? What...

On inheriting his grandfather's tumbledown Irish cottage, adjoining the grounds of an old monastery, Isarel West discovers some old sheet music composed by his grandfather entitled the Devil's Piper Suite, and starts to play it. But little can he realize the evil that the music conjures up.

Felicity Stafford is struggling to come to terms with the death of her husband Connor - and a chilling post-mortem report: Con's blood fits no known human classification. And when a young man with the same dangerous charm as Connor enters her life, Felicity and her small daughter become threatened by the past: a past mysteriously entangled with an ancestral Derbyshire family who once guarded England's forests from a fearsome enemy.

Secretly aware of his own shortcomings as a writer, Tod Miller appeals to his daughter, Fael, to help him construct a full stage musical. One evening Fael is accosted by a mysterious young man who claims he can help her write the show. However, there's a sinister condition attached to his offer.

Researching a biography of the composer Franz Liszt, Phineas Fox uncovers evidence of a brutal murder - and finds his own life in danger. Music researcher Phineas Fox has been enjoying his latest commission, gathering background material for a biography of Franz Liszt. But although he has - as anticipated - uncovered plenty of scandal in the 19th century composer's past, matters take a decidedly unexpected turn when his investigations lead to Linklighters,...

A house with a sinister past-and a grisly power… When Michael Flint is asked by American friends to look over an old Shropshire house they have unexpectedly inherited, he is reluctant to leave the quiet of his Oxford study. But when he sees Charect House, its uncanny echoes from the past fascinate him-even though it has such a sinister reputation that no one has lived there for almost a century. But it's not until Michael meets the young widow,...

The brutal history of an abandoned English prison comes to life in this gothic novel of superstition, criminality, and capital punishment. In the northwest of England, Calvary Gaol was a fearsome house of correction where many prisoners were put to death before it was shut down. With its grim façade and terrifying past, it remains as foreboding as ever. Especially on a chilly night, when its ghosts can all but be heard chattering: from the...

A once-glittering music hall now hides dark mysteries in this atmospheric thriller set in both present day and Edwardian London. A hundred years ago, the Tarleton Music Hall on London's south bank was one of the city's most popular attractions. People lined up night after night to see its headliner, the legendary song-and-dance man Toby Chance. But that was before Toby disappeared in 1914. People were shocked to see the Tarleton suddenly locked up....