Cora Harrison

"November, 1853. Inspector Field has summoned his friends Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins to examine a body found in an attic studio, its throat cut. Around the body lie the lacerated fragments of canvas of a painting titled A Winter of Despair. On closer examination, Wilkie realizes he recognizes the victim, for he had been due to dine with him that very evening. The dead man is Edwin Milton-Hayes, one of Wilkie's brother Charley's artist friends....

"August, 1856. Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens are spending the summer at Knebworth House, the magnificent Hertfordshire home of fellow writer Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton, where they are putting on a charity performance of one of Lord Edward's most successful plays, The Lady of Lyon. But the dress rehearsal is disrupted by the discovery of a body lying in the centre of the stage, shot to death. With everyone involved in the play coming under suspicion,...

"Ireland 1923. Reverend Mother Aquinas is buying buttered eggs in the Cork city market at the very moment when the city engineer, James Doyle, is assassinated. Although no one saw the actual killing, a young reporter named Sam O'Mahony is found standing close to the body, a pistol in his hand, and is arrested and charged. Following a desperate appeal from Sam's mother, convinced of her son's innocence, the Reverend Mother investigates--and, in this...

The Reverend Mother's investigative skills are called into action again when one of her young pupils is found murdered at St Fin Barre's Cathedral. 1920s. Cork, Ireland. The Reverend Mother's Christmas Day festivities are shattered when the protestant bishop of Cork arrives at the convent with terrible news: one of the Reverend Mother's pupils, the troublesome seven-year-old Edna O'Sullivan, has been found murdered in St Fin Barre's Cathedral. Furthermore,...

In 1510 Ireland, a great feast is being held. Into a crowd listening to the story of Balor, the one-eyed god, come two strangers. The younger of the two, Iarla, bears a letter that claims that the wealthy Ardal O'Lochlainn is his true father, which Ardal vociferously denies. So when Iarla is found dead, with one eye missing, some think he was killed by the god--but most suspect Ardal. Mara, the Brehon--or lawgiver--of the Burren, is called to investigate....

"Wilkie Collins is looking forward to spending Christmas at Gads Hill, Charles Dickens' Kentish country home, but the festivities are cut short when a body is found on the snowy marshland. Timmy O'Connor was invited to the gathering with his four nephews after a chance encounter with Dickens, but is now dead. Dickens is convinced the murderer is one of the convicts from a nearby prison ship, but Collins is not so sure. Who was this mysterious and...

June, 1510: the Burren, west coast of Ireland - Upon going unexpectedly into an early labour, Mara is alerted to the disappearance of Malachy, the local physician. Mystery follows birth, as shortly after the entrance of her son into the world the body of Malachy is discovered. But who stands to profit from this death and who therefore are Mara's lead suspects? For starters there is Malachy's new wife and her two sons, not to mention the very daughter...

Mara the Brehon investigates the death of a clan leader in this historical mystery set in sixteenth-century Ireland by the acclaimed author of Laws in Conflict. In the western Irish kingdom of Burren, Mara is an investigating magistrate charged with upholding the ancient laws. When the leader of clan MacNamara dies under suspicious circumstances, she is called upon to determine truth from lies among conflicting reports. Garrett MacNamara's body...

February, 1512. Mara, Brehon of the Burren, judge and lawgiver, has been invited to the city state of Galway, which is ruled by English laws and a royal charter originally granted by Richard III. Mara wonders whether she can use her legal knowledge to save the life of a man from the Burren who's been caught stealing a meat pie, but events soon take an even more dramatic turn when the mayor's son is charged with a heinous crime.

In a series of journal entries, Jenny Cooper describes her stay with cousin Jane Austen in the 1790s, and her entrance into Jane's world of beautiful dresses, dances, secrets, gossip, and romance.