On a cold November night in a Deptford yard, dock worker Harry Parker stumbles upon the body of a dead woman. Inspector Ben Ross is summoned from Scotland Yard to this insalubrious part of town, but no witness to the murder of this well-dressed, middle-aged woman can be found. Even Jeb Fisher, the local rag-and-bone man, swears he’s seen nothing.

Meanwhile, Ben’s wife Lizzie is trying to suppress a scandal: family friend Edgar Wellings has a gambling addiction and no means of repaying his debts. Reluctantly, Lizzie agrees to visit his debt collector’s house in Deptford, but when she arrives she finds her husband is investigating the murder of the woman in question.

Edgar was the last man to see Mrs Clifford alive and he has good reason to want her dead, but Ben and Lizzie both know that a case like this is rarely as simple as it appears. . . .

Leigh Hollins had no choice but to honor her father’s dying wish: that she find her estranged mother, now living in seclusion in Norway, and reconcile with her. Leigh’s mother, Laura Worth, was once one of the most dynamic movie stars in the world, her films eclipsed only by her real life, which was filled with intrigue, scandal, and romantic melodrama. Then, after the mysterious death of the director on her final film, Laura slipped away from the Hollywood limelight. All she wanted was to be alone—but her daughter is about to shatter her solitude.

When Leigh arrives at her mother’s isolated hillside home in Bergen, she’s met with both guarded joy and trepidation. Gunnar, a family friend, is a welcoming figure who sparks an unexpected attraction. But when Leigh reunites with the mother she once longed to know, she discovers a weakened recluse, a woman living in fear. As Leigh opens old wounds, draws out long-buried secrets, and unwittingly invites the dreadful past back into both of their lives, she learns that not everyone is a fan of Laura Worth. Someone wants her dead—and Leigh herself has also been targeted for a killer fade-out.

A classic collection of mystery stories: “With skillful plotting laced with tongue-in-cheek humor, Allingham never ceases to intrigue and surprise” (Daily Mail).

This volume offer eighteen delightful mysteries from the Queen of Crime that will baffle the most ingenious of armchair detectives—and even, at times, the imperturbable sleuth Albert Campion himself.

Enjoy one of England’s great golden-era writers at her witty best as she spins delicious tales of high-risk heists and domestic deceptions in this exquisite short story collection.

As a young girl, Hannah Stowe was raised at the tide’s edge on the Pembrokeshire coast of Wales, falling asleep to the sweep of the lighthouse beam. Now in her midtwenties, working as a marine biologist and sailor, Stowe draws on her professional experiences sailing tens of thousands of miles in the North Sea, North Atlantic, Mediterranean, Celtic Sea, and the Caribbean to explore the human relationship with wild waters. Why is it, she asks, that she and so many others have been drawn to life at sea—and what might the water around us be able to teach us?

Braiding her powerful and deeply personal narrative and illustrations with stories of six keystone marine creatures—the fire crow, sperm whale, wandering albatross, humpback whale, shearwater, and the barnacle—Stowe invites readers to fall in love, as she has, with the sea and those that call it home, and to discover the majesty, wonder, and vulnerability of the underwater world.

Everything changed the night she disappeared . . .

On a summer’s night in 1994, sixteen-year-old Flora Powell vanished from her sleepy seaside town without a trace. Their hearts shattered, Flora’s mother, her sister Heather, and Heather’s best friend Jess had to somehow carry on not knowing what happened.

Twenty-five years later, tragedy strikes again when Heather walks into a stranger’s house and allegedly kills two people in cold blood.

Why would this loving wife and doting new mother commit such a heinous crime? Jess, now a reporter, returns to the hometown she left behind to cover the case and dig for answers. But this isn’t like any other story. Jess was like a sister to the Powell girls, until the summer that tore them all apart.

What happened to the girl she used to know?

… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2