Anne Perry

Exiled from her palace by a bloody coup, an empress travels the dangerous wilds of her kingdom in search of enlightenment-and righteous vengeance The empress Tathea is awakened by the sounds of insurrection. The army, the aristocracy, and the royal guard have all turned against her husband, and stained the palace with his blood. Were she an ordinary ruler, she might follow him to the grave, but Tathea is a child of the wild lands. She comes from the...

In this short story, the New York Times—bestselling author delves into the private lives and personal histories of her "extremely congenial characters" (The Philadelphia Inquirer). It is 1912, and Peter Naylor calls at the home of Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, longtime friend of Thomas Pitt and his wife, Charlotte. Clouds are gathering in Europe, and the prime minister is considering Thomas to head up the country's intelligence services-the king...

Short tales about deadly books, by top mystery authors. An ancient scroll draws a bookseller into a chilling mystery Monty Danforth finds the tin buried beneath a shipment of leather-bound classics. Inside is a millennia-old vellum manuscript written in an unfamiliar but unmistakably ancient language. Danforth tries to photocopy and photograph it, but he ends up with blank images, as though the ink were made of something impervious to modern technology....

Scotland Yard's Superintendent Thomas Pitt and his clever spouse, Charlotte, investigate a murder at a secret summit of Irish political figures that threatens to precipitate a civil war.