Head of Zeus

A PHOENIX COLD CASE: David Mapstone has returned to Phoenix, Arizona, the desert city he left behind a lifetime ago. The ex-cop, ex-history professor is working the police dept's cold case desk, unearthing long-buried secrets. And he's good at it: as an ex-historian Mapstone knows the past is never past, as an ex-cop he knows he can't trust anybody…
SOUTH PHOENIX RULES: Jax Delgado, a New York professor in Phoenix to research his next book has been tortured, murdered, his head severed and sent to his girlfriend. It shouldn't be an assignment for Mapstone, but the girlfriend in question just happens to his sister-in-law, Robin.
Delgado's murder has all the hallmarks of drug cartel execution, and Mapstone fears Robin could be the next target. But is she as innocent as she claims? And why would a professor be targeted by a drug cartel? Mapstone's investigation will compel him to cross the line into South Phoenix, a world that plays by a different set of rules: South Phoenix Rules.

WELCOME TO ROMAN BRITAIN. It is almost fifty years since the legions invaded but Britannia is still a raw, frontier province. Tensions run high, especially in the north, where Aurelia Marcella, a young Roman woman fled from the ruins of Pompeii, runs the Oak Tree Inn on the road to York.
DANGER IN THE WIND. On fine summer's morning in 100 AD, Aurelia awakes to two unusual events: a soldier murdered in his bed, and a letter arrived from Isurium and her cousin, Jovina, inviting Aurelia to a midsummer birthday party. But the missive also reads as a plea for help, referring to 'danger in the wind'. The murdered soldier also bore a message, locked in Aurelia's strongbox, indicating violence would erupt at the very same fort on the day of the party. At Isurium, Aurelia finds Jovina and her drunken husband and unruly children caught in a tangled web of greed, love, intrigue, and death. When violence engulfs the district, Aurelia suddenly finds herself in peril from enemies engaged in an anti-Roman plot and from family members bent on misguided or evil agendas of their own.

MEDIEVAL MYSTERY: On a remote East Anglian coast stands Tyndal Priory, which belongs to the Order of Fontevraud where monks and nuns live and work in close proximity. Prioress Eleanor of Wynethorpe, young and inexperienced, has just been controversially appointed by King Henry III.
TYRANT OF THE MIND: Winter, 1271. The shadow of death falls over Castle Wynethorpe on the Welsh border. Eleanor's nephew's life hangs in the balance, and she is summoned home tend him with prayers and healing talents. But death will not be denied. The chill that pervades the castle stems not just from the bitter winter besieging it, but also from the murderous tensions that afflict its occupants. Soon after Eleanor arrives, her brother, bloody dagger in hand, is found standing over the corpse of his oldest friend.
Unable to believe that her brother is a murderer, Eleanor sets out to prove his innocence before he meets his fate on the hangman's gibbet.

A MEDIEVAL MYSTERY.
On a remote East Anglian coast stands Tyndal Priory, home to a rare monastic order where men and women live and work together in close proximity. Twenty-year-old Eleanor of Wynethorpe has been appointed prioress by Henry III over the elected choice of the priory itself. Young and inexperienced, Eleanor will face a grave struggle – in a place dedicated to love and peace, she will find little of either.
In March, 1279, Edward I takes a break from hammering the Welsh and bearing down on England's Jews to vacation in Gloucestershire. The royal party breaks the journey at Woodstock Manor. And there one life begins as Queen Eleanor labours to birth a new daughter, and one draws to an end when apoplexy fells Baron Adam Wynethorpe.
Hotfoot to the baron's deathbed comes his elder son, Hugh, a veteran of Edward I’s Crusades, who can’t shake off the battle horrors he’s witnessed. The baron's daughter, Prioress Eleanor, has already arrived, bringing along both her sub-infirmarian, Sister Anne, and the monk, Brother Thomas, to tend her father. Awaiting Hugh is his bastard son, Richard, a youth filled with rebellion and a secret.
The royal manor is packed with troubling guests including a sinister priest, an elderly Jewish mother from nearby Oxford mourning a son hanged for the treason of coin-clipping, contentious and greedy courtiers, and a lusty wife engaged with more than one lover. Quite soon, the wife is found hanged. Eleanor and Sister Anne persuade the High Sheriff of Berkshire that Mistress Hawis death was not a suicide. In fact, many at the manor had reason to wish Hawis dead.

A MEDIEVAL MYSTERY.
On a remote East Anglian coast stands Tyndal Priory, home to a rare monastic order where men and women live and work together in close proximity. Twenty-year-old Eleanor of Wynethorpe has been appointed prioress by Henry III over the elected choice of the priory itself. Young and inexperienced, Eleanor will face a grave struggle – in a place dedicated to love and peace, she will find little of either.
SATAN'S LULLABY.
Prioress Eleanor knows something is terribly amiss. The situation turns calamitous when Davoir's sick clerk dies from a potion sent by Sister Anne, Tyndal's sub-infirmarian. Is Sister Anne guilty of simple incompetence or murder? Or, Davoir asks, did Prioress Eleanor order the death to frighten him away before he discovered the truth behind accusations she is unfit for her position? When Davoir himself is threatened, the priest roars for justice. Even expectant father Crowner Ralf, the local representative of the king's justice, has lost all objectivity. The most likely suspects are Anne, the woman Ralf once loved, the prioress he respects, and the Tyndal monk, Thomas, who is his closest friend. Who among the French and English assembled at Tyndal has succumbed to Satan's lullaby?

The diamond earrings worn by Marilyn Monroe wore in Some Like It Hot have been stolen. They were last seen at a benefit that took place the same night magician Alan Mitchell was killed in Kyle Tierney's bar, with Cristina the bartender as a witness. Kyle served his time, and Cristina is back in town… But with one private eye already gunned down on the search, should Cat De Luca try her hand at finding the jewels?

A PHOENIX COLD CASE: The desert city of Phoenix, Arizona, has its secrets and its not accustomed to giving them up easily. Ex-cop Mike Peralta and cold case expert David Mapstone have left the law behind and formed a detective agency to unearth them. And it's started badly…
THE NIGHT DETECTIVES: Moments after hiring them, their first client is gunned down. And the deaths don't stop there. Someone is killing their customers, killing everyone connected with their cases, and is now coming for them.
Why?
The answer will lead Mapstone and Peralta into the world of human trafficking, corrupt politics, and the white supremacist movement.

A medieval pilgrim harbours murderous intentions towards the King. Can Prioress Eleanor stop him before it's too late?
Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal is on a pilgrimage, looking for peace and respite, when rumours spread that King Edward is on his way, seeking God's blessing for his recent invasion of Wales. Lurking in this sacred place, however, is an assassin with murderous treason in mind. When a nun falls to her death from the priory bell tower, is it a tragic accident, or a sign of what's to come?
Although far away from the gossipy village of Tyndal, Eleanor, like a medieval Miss Marple, must use all her wit, wisdom and insight to unravel the clues to the case.
But can Eleanor expose the killer in their midst, or will she too fall victim to one who has made a covenant with hell?

A MEDIEVAL MYSTERY: On a remote East Anglian coast stands Tyndal Priory, home to a rare monastic order where men and women live and work together in close proximity. Twenty-year-old Eleanor of Wynethorpe has been appointed prioress by Henry III over the elected choice of the priory itself. Young and inexperienced, Eleanor will face a grave struggle – in a place dedicated to love and peace, she will find little of either.
SANCTITY OF HATE: Summer, 1276: Tyndal Priory is peaceful – or was until the corpse of a deceitful and unpopular man is found floating in the millpond. The list of suspects is long, but the villagers of Tyndal are certain they know who the killer is. They demand that a Jew made homeless by King Edward's Statute of the Jewry is hanged for the crime. While the lynch mob gathers, Prioress Eleanor has to ask herself why are they so keen to convict a stranger – a refugee only stopped in the village while his wife gives birth – for the murder of a man none of them could stand?

THE ROMAN EMPIRE, 109 AD
The frontier province of Bithynia is a cesspit of sedition, rotten with corruption and seething with hatred of Rome. When a rich Roman official is found dead on a desolate hillside; two riderless horses tethered in a nearby wood, it is assumed he was killed as a protest against Emperor Trajan's unlimited power.
But Pliny the Younger, newly appointed Governor of Bithynia, is not so sure.
Who was the other rider? What were the two of them doing in the middle of nowhere? And what links this murder to a secret cult of the Persian sun god, Mithras — the Bull Slayer?

DEATH IN BYZANTIUM: At the heart of what is left of the Roman Empire, lies a city simmering with intrigue & treachery. Amid this maelstrom stands John, a slave who has risen to become the right hand of Justinian, the greatest of Byzantium's emperors. With violence and murder commonplace, it is John's skills as an investigator that the Emperor prizes the most. NINE FOR THE DEVIL: The year is 548 and Empress Theodora is dead, the victim of cancer. Or so everyone believes — everyone except the Emperor himself.
Justinian orders John to find the murderer or suffer the consequences. It is an impossible investigation: there is no sign of foul play, but there are many at imperial court (including John himself) who had good reason to want Theodora dead…

DEATH IN BYZANTIUM: At the heart of what is left of the Roman Empire, lies a city simmering with intrigue & treachery. Amid this maelstrom stands John, a slave who has risen to become the right hand of Justinian, the greatest of Byzantium's emperors. With violence and murder commonplace, it is John's skills as an investigator that the Emperor prizes the most. EIGHT FOR ETERNITY. January, 532: riots engulf Constantinople. To some the riots portend the end of the empire, to others the end of the world itself. Against a murderous backdrop lit by raging fires and rampaging mobs, John must untangle a web of intrigue and treachery before the emperor himself is deposed.

DEATH IN BYZANTIUM: At the heart of what is left of the Roman Empire, lies a city simmering with intrigue & treachery. Amid this maelstrom stands John, a slave who has risen to become the right hand of Justinian, the greatest of Byzantium's emperors. With violence and murder commonplace, it is John's skills as an investigator that the Emperor prizes the most. SEVEN FOR A SECRET. AD 542: An enigmatic young woman claims she has a secret for John. But before she can reveal it, her red-dyed corpse is found in a subterranean cistern. Who was she? What was her secret? John is intrigued by her resemblance to a solemn-eyed little girl depicted in a mosaic in the palace. His quest to discover her secrets will test his loyalty and endanger his life.

DEATH IN BYZANTIUM: At the heart of what is left of the Roman Empire, lies a city simmering with intrigue & treachery. Amid this maelstrom stands John, a slave who has risen to become the right hand of Justinian, the greatest of Byzantium's emperors. With violence and murder commonplace, it is John's skills as an investigator that the Emperor prizes the most. SIX FOR GOLD: AD 542. John is chained and imprisoned, accused of murdering an imperial senator – and worse a favourite of the infamous empress Theodora. His life is almost certainly forfeit but Justinian spirits him out of Constantinople and to a remote Egyptian shrine. Why? And what is the connection between a series of brutal deaths in this remote outpost and what happened in Constantinople? If John can stay alive long enough, he may just find the key to returning home.

DEATH IN BYZANTIUM: At the heart of what is left of the Roman Empire, lies a city simmering with intrigue & treachery. Amid this maelstrom stands John, a slave who has risen to become the right hand of Justinian, the greatest of Byzantium's emperors. With violence and murder commonplace, it is John's skills as an investigator that the Emperor prizes the most. FIVE FOR SILVER: The year is 542 and plague ravages Constantinople. Amidst the chaos, John the Lord Chamberlain is on the trail of a murderer. Peter, John's elderly servant, has an angelic vision telling him a close friend has been murdered, and asks John to find the killer. It transpires that Peter's old friend has indeed been stabbed, but the victim was not what he appeared. In a city being emptied by plague, it's hard to find evidence, but John establishes a possible connection. Only a man of unbending principle could hope to find justice in a terrified city where the good and the bad are struck down indiscriminately, where disorder rules, and where witnesses may die before they can be questioned.

DEATH IN BYZANTIUM: At the heart of what is left of the Roman Empire, lies a city simmering with intrigue & treachery. Amid this maelstrom stands John, a slave who has risen to become the right hand of Justinian, the greatest of Byzantium's emperors. With violence and murder commonplace, it is John's skills as an investigator that the Emperor prizes the most. In this series prequel, John the Eunuch takes his first dangerous steps along the path that will lead him to hold office as Lord Chamberlain. In the unnaturally cold winter of 525, the city is convulsed by doubt and riots, Emperor Justin is dying and the streets are terrorized alternately by a group of thugs and forces under the City Prefect. When a wealthy philanthropist is murdered, rumours abound that the heir to the throne, Justinian, is trying to sway the succession. In an attempt to clear his name, Justinian engages an anonymous slave called John to investigate what many believe could be part of a succession conspiracy.

DEATH IN BYZANTIUM: At the heart of what is left of the Roman Empire, lies a city simmering with intrigue & treachery. Amid this maelstrom stands John, a slave who has risen to become the right hand of Justinian, the greatest of Byzantium's emperors. With violence and murder commonplace, it is John's skills as an investigator that the Emperor prizes the most. THREE FOR A LETTER: It is 539 AD and as the reconquest of Italy draws toward its close, a pair of eight-year old twins descended from the last Ostrogothic king have become valuable pawns in Emperor Justinian's plans to restore the glory of Rome. Unfortunately, during the performance of a play at a banquet honoring the two young diplomatic hostages, death upstages the occasion and claims one brother. Then Empress Theodora's favourite actor vanishes and John, Lord Chamberlain to Justinian, is ordered to find both the missing actor and the murderer… and to protect the life of the remaining twin. With Justinian's dreams of Empire at stake, John will need all his wits to keep his job… and his head.

DEATH IN BYZANTIUM: At the heart of what is left of the Roman Empire, lies a city simmering with intrigue & treachery. Amid this maelstrom stands John, a slave who has risen to become the right hand of Justinian, the greatest of Byzantium's emperors. With violence and murder commonplace, it is John's skills as an investigator that the Emperor prizes the most. TWO FOR JOY: It is AD 537 and Constantinople is a city simmering on the edge of chaos, a maelstrom of creeds, cults and cultures. At is heart lies the Great Palace and the imperial court of the Roman Empire, a seething knot of ambition, competition, intrigue and treachery. John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberlain to the Emperor Justinian, is faced with a particularly byzantine problem: he must discover why three of Constantinople's holy stylites have burned to death as they stand atop their pillars — just as a heretical preacher foretold they would. The hand of God or mortal? John must find out before hell is unleashed.

MEDIEVAL MYSTERY: On a remote East Anglian coast stands Tyndal Priory, home to a rare monastic order where men and women live and work together in close proximity. Twenty-year-old Eleanor of Wynethorpe has been appointed prioress by Henry III over the elected choice of the priory itself. Young and inexperienced, Eleanor will face a grave struggle – in a place dedicated to love and peace, she will find little of either.
CHAMBERS OF DEATH: Autumn, 1273: Waylaid by bitter storms and illness, Eleanor accepts lodging at a manor. Eleanor and her companions receive a warm welcome, but they soon realize all is not well. When a groom is found butchered, the sheriff arrests a servant, who is herself murdered before she can either prove her innocence or be led to the gallows. As strangers in this place, Eleanor and Thomas know nothing of motives or past history, yet God's justice demands that they do what they can…

MEDIEVAL MYSTERY: On a remote East Anglian coast stands Tyndal Priory, home to a rare monastic order where men and women live and work together in close proximity. Twenty-year-old Eleanor of Wynethorpe has been appointed prioress by Henry III over the elected choice of the priory itself. Young and inexperienced, Eleanor will face a grave struggle – in a place dedicated to love and peace, she will find little of either.
VALLEY OF DRY BONES: In the late summer of 1274, King Edward I has finally been anointed England's ruler. His queen is contemplating a pilgrimage in gratitude, and emissaries have been despatched to Tyndal Priory to assess its suitability as a royal waypoint. But Death travels with them and Eleanor is soon embroiled in the dangerous world of power games, both secular and religious. After years of strife, a new king on the throne should promise the land a new beginning, but as Eleanor is going to discover, the ghosts of the past are not so easily laid to rest.