Arrow Books Earthly Remains Leon Donna

A woman's cryptic dying words in a Venetian hospice lead Guido Brunetti to uncover a threat to the entire region in Donna Leon's haunting twenty-ninth Brunetti novel • When Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wants to speak to the police, Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, waste no time in responding • 'They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no', Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently-deceased husband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him Brunetti softly promises he and Griffoni will look into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy. They discover that Fadalto worked in the field collecting samples of contamination for a company that measures the cleanliness of Venice's water supply and that he had died in a mysterious motorcycle accident

At a dinner party given by his parents-in-law, Commissario Brunetti meets Franca Marinello, the wife of a prosperous Venetian businessman. He's charmed - perhaps too charmed, suggests his wife Paola - by her love of Virgil and Cicero, but shocked by her appearance • A few days later, Brunetti is visited by Carabinieri Maggior Filippo Guarino from the nearby city of Marghera. As part of a wider investigation into Mafia takeovers of businesses in the region, Guarino wants information about the owner of a trucking company who was found murdered in his office. He believes the man's death is connected to the illegal transportation of refuse - and more sinister material - in his company's trucks. No stranger to mutual suspicion and competition between rival Italian police departments, Brunetti is nevertheless puzzled by the younger man's behaviour

When a body is found floating in a canal, strangely disfigured and with multiple stab wounds, Commissario Brunetti is called to investigate and is convinced he recognises the man from somewhere. However, with no identification except for the distinctive shoes the man was wearing, and no reports of people missing from the Venice area, the case cannot progress • Brunetti soon realises why he remembers the dead man, and asks Signorina Elettra if she can help him find footage of a farmers' protest the previous autumn. But what was his involvement with the protest, and what does it have to do with his murder? Acting on the fragile lead, Brunetti and Ispettore Vianello set out to uncover the man's identity. Their investigation eventually takes them to a slaughterhouse on the mainland, where they discover the origin of the crime, and the world of blackmail and corruption that surrounds it

When Commissario Brunetti is summoned to the hospital bedside of a senior paediatrician whose skull has been brutally fractured, he is confronted with more questions than answers. Three men have burst into the doctor's apartment in the middle of the night, attacked him and took his 18-month-old son - but why? As he investigates, Brunetti finds infertility, desperation, and babies for sale. Meanwhile, Inspector Vianello uncovers a scam between pharmacists and doctors in the city. And certain information about one's neighbours can lead to all kinds of corruption and all sorts of pain • Donna Leon's new novel is as subtle and gripping as ever, set in a beautifully realised Venice, seething with small-town malice

Celebrated by The Times as one of the 50 Greatest Crime Writers, Donna Leon brings Venice to life in the twenty-second Brunetti novel of this bestselling series, where our detective must uncover the mystery surrounding a mute man's murder • When making routine enquiries into a possible bribery case that could embarrass the mayor - a humiliation Vice-Questore Patta is very keen to avoid - Commissario Brunetti receives a call from his wife, Paola, who is evidently very upset. The middle-aged deaf mute with the mental age of a child who helped out at the Brunetti's dry cleaners has been found dead - an 'accidental' overdose of his mother's sleeping pills - and Paola is distraught by the news. To the neighbourhood he was just the 'boy' who helped out, but nobody knew much about him - not even his name

In Death at La Fenice, Donna Leon's first novel in the Commissario Brunetti series, readers were introduced to the glamorous and cut-throat world of opera and to one of Italy's finest living sopranos, Flavia Petrelli - then a suspect in the poisoning of a renowned German conductor. Now, many years after Brunetti cleared her name, Flavia has returned to the illustrious La Fenice to sing the lead in Tosca • As an opera superstar, Flavia is well acquainted with attention from adoring fans and aspiring singers. But when one anonymous admirer inundates her with bouquets of yellow roses - on stage, in her dressing room and even inside her locked apartment - it becomes clear that this fan has become a potentially dangerous stalker. Distraught, Flavia turns to an old friend for help

A gripping Temperance Brennan novel from world-class forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, the international no. 1 bestselling crime thriller writer and the inspiration behind the hit TV series Bones • On a bitterly cold March night in Montreal, forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan is exhuming the remains of a nun in the grounds of an old church • Hours later, Tempe is called to the scene of a horrifying arson. A young family has perished, but there is no explanation, no motive, and no witnesses • From the charred remains of the inferno, to a trail of sinister cult activity, Tempe faces a nerve-shattering case which will test her forensic expertise - and her instinct for survival

A Detective under Pressure • Deputy Coroner Clay Edison is juggling a new baby who won't sleep with working the graveyard shift. For once he's trying to keep things simple • A Haunting Discovery • When infant remains are found by developers demolishing a local park, a devastating cold case is brought back to light • A Desperate Search for Answers • Clay has barely begun to investigate when he receives a call from a man who thinks the remains could belong to his sister - who went missing fifty years ago. Now Clay is locked in a relentless search that will unearth a web of violence, secrets and betrayal • Because in this town, the past isn't dead. It's very much alive. And it can kill

Sunderland, 1941 • With a brief break in air raids providing some much-needed respite from the war, things are looking up for head welder Rosie, who has fallen head over heels for Detective Sergeant Miller. But how long can their romance last in such uncertain times? • Life remains full of challenges for Gloria, who must face her abusive ex-husband and confront her own guilty conscience about baby Hope’s real father. The secret is tearing her apart but if she admits the truth, she will risk losing everything • Both women are determined that their love and faith will be enough to keep the most difficult of promises, but nothing is as simple as it seems…

Lancashire, 1832 • Maids Hannah and Mary find themselves with no jobs and no home when their employer, Henry Sudell, loses all his money and disappears in the middle of the night. They have no choice but to return to Blackburn where Hannah is lucky to be taken in by her sister Jennet and brother-in-law, Titus, but Mary must seek lodgings in the infamous Star beer house • Mary tries to get her job back as a weaver, but the influx of workers from the countryside and no support for the working class means that jobs are scarce. With no other choice she remains at the beer house, forced to risk her reputation and even her life • In the middle of a cholera outbreak and political upheaval, can Mary ever find a way to recover all she's lost?

The latest from Douglas Reeman - our greatest living naval writer • January 1970, and the final chapter in the Blackwood history appears to have closed with the murder in Cyprus of Lieutenant-Colonel Mike Blackwood, and the subsequent sale of the ancestral home. Disillusioned and grieving for his distinguished father, Lieutenant Ross Blackwood believes there is no future for him in the Corps. The Royal Marines have been reduced in strength, and their role in a modern world, after so splendid a tradition, diminished to policing and paperwork. But Ross remains a Blackwood and a Royal Marine, and the loyalty and dedication of a Blackwood to the Corps sustain him from vicious guerilla warfare in Malaysia through the moral and political minefields of Northern Ireland, where one man's terrorist is another's patriot, to the South Atlantic, and a conflict as bloody as it is unpredictable

LOST • 1972. A plane has crashed in the Andes mountains. The passengers are hopelessly lost in one of the most isolated places on earth • ABANDONED • Almost three months later, two of the survivors, emaciated and frozen, reach the authorities and lead a rescue team to the remaining fourteen passengers • ALIVE • The rescue team are shocked when they reach the crash-site. Food supplies have long gone, and the remains of the dead lie scattered among the fuselage • It is only too clear how these passengers have managed to stay alive