The Chelsea Murders (1978) was Lionel Davidson's seventh novel, earning him the Crime Writer's Association Gold Dagger Award and prompting the Daily Telegraph to declare, 'Lionel Davidson is one of the best and most versatile thriller writers we have.' A terrifying, grotesque figure bursts into a young art student's room. Head covered with a clown's wig, face concealed by a smiling mask, it wears the rubber gloves of a surgeon. The girl is seized, chloroformed, suffocated and - horrifyingly - beheaded. This is only the beginning of a series of murders terrorising London's fashionable bohemia. The police target three avant-garde filmmakers. One of them is mocking the other two, and openly taunting the police as well. But which of them is behind these appalling crimes? Fast paced, terrifying and gripping, this is a page-turning thriller from a master.

Reporter-turned–television executive Robin Hudson is living it up at New York’s legendary Chelsea Hotel—until murder gets her down in award-winning author Sparkle Hayter’s dazzling comic mystery After a neighbor’s electric wall-hanging short-circuits and sets Robin Hudson’s East Village apartment building on fire, the TV newswoman and her cat are forced to temporarily relocate. Their new digs are in the Chelsea Hotel, home to bohemian artists both famous and infamous. But people have a habit of dying on Robin—this time literally. Who shot controversial bad-boy art dealer Gerald Woznik? His wife tells the world he was a great connoisseur and a real bastard. The heiress he was living with calls him a misunderstood genius. With suspects coming out of the woodwork, Robin is drawn into a homicide investigation that forces her to brave the downtown scene: guerrilla performance artists, fiery revolutionaries, handcuffed nuns, and the ex-lover of her current beau. She must scramble to find a missing woman and track the last stops of a modern-day underground railroad before she loses her life—and her last chance for romance. The Robin Hudson Mystery series is a winner of the Sherlock Award for Best Comic Detective. The Chelsea Girl Murders is the 5th book in the Robin Hudson Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

A terrifying, grotesque figure bursts into a young art student's room. Head covered with a clown's wig, face concealed by a smiling mask, it wears the rubber gloves of a surgeon. The girl is seized, chloroformed, suffocated and - horrifyingly - beheaded. This is only the beginning of a series of murders terrorising London's fashionable bohemia.

Unsolved crimes have a special fascination, none more so than unsolved murders. The shock of the crime itself and the mystery surrounding it, the fear generated by the awareness a killer on the loose, the insight the cases give into outdated police methods, and the chance to speculate about the identity of the killer after so many years have passed - all these aspects of unsolved murder cases make them compelling reading. In this companion volume to his best-selling Unsolved Murders of Victorian and Edwardian London, Jonathan Oates has selected over 20 haunting, sometimes shocking cases from the period between the two world wars. Included are the shooting of PC James Kelly in Gunnersbury, violent deaths associated with Fenian Conspiracies, the stabbing of the French acrobat Martial Lechevalier in Piccadilly, the strychnine poisoning of egg-seller Kusel Behr, the killing by arsenic of three members of a Croydon family, and, perhaps most gruesome of all, the case of the unidentified body parts found at Waterloo Station. Jonathan Oates describes each of these crimes in precise, forensic detail. His case studies shed light on the lives of the victims and summon up the ruthless, sometimes lethal character of London itself.

Victorian Chelsea was a thriving commercial and residential development, known for its grand houses and pleasant garden squares. Violent crime was unheard of in this leafy suburb. The double murder of an elderly man of God and his faithful housekeeper in two ferocious, bloody attacks in May of 1870 therefore shook the residents of Chelsea to the core. This volume examines the extraordinary case, one which could have leapt straight from the pen of Agatha Christie herself: the solving of the crime relied on the discovery of a packing box dripping with blood, and the capture of a mysterious French nephew. Compiled by a former detective, it looks at the facts: no direct evidence to place the suspect at either of the crime scenes; no weapon recovered; no motive substantiated. It lets you, the reader, decide: would you, on the evidence presented, have sent the same man to the gallows?

Over 40 crime cases featuring female killers. Includes, among many others: Kim Edwards - the disturbed fourteen year-old English schoolgirl who conspired with her boyfriend to brutally murder her mother and younger sister. Maria Rossi and Christina Molloy, two evil teenage girls who tortured and murdered the pensioner who lived next door in South Wales. Irina Gaidamachuk, a seemingly ordinary Russian housewife who was in secret a barbaric serial killer. Sarah Marie Johnson, an ordinary American teenager who shot her own parents to death because they didn't like her choice of boyfriend. Yolanda Saldívar, the woman who ran the official fan club for the pop star Selena Quintanilla and tragically ended up murdering the singer. Jeanne Weber, the prolific strangler who became known as The Ogress of the Goutte-d'Or Street. You can read about all of these cases and many more in Women Who Kill - Deadly Female Murderers.

'JOYOUS . . . READERS WILL LOVE THIS FASCINATING BOOK' CATHY RENTZENBRINK 'A GODSEND WITH THE PRESENT SEASON APPROACHING' IRISH INDEPENDENT 'THE PERFECT GIFT FOR A BOOK-OBSESSED FRIEND' STYLIST, 50 UNMISSABLE BOOKS FOR AUTUMN 2017 'EXCELLENT . . . SHOULD BE READ BY ANYONE WHO LOVES BOOKS' EVENING STANDARD Absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder. It makes people think you're dead. So begins Christopher Fowler's foray into the back catalogues and backstories of 99 authors who, once hugely popular, have all but disappeared from our shelves. Whether male or female, domestic or international, flash-in-the-pan or prolific, mega-seller or prize-winner - no author, it seems, can ever be fully immune from the fate of being forgotten. And Fowler, as well as remembering their careers, lifts the lid on their lives, and why they often stopped writing or disappeared from the public eye. These 99 journeys are punctuated by 12 short essays about faded once-favourites: including the now-vanished novels Walt Disney brought to the screen, the contemporary rivals of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie who did not stand the test of time, and the women who introduced us to psychological suspense many decades before it conquered the world. This is a book about books and their authors. It is for book lovers, and is written by one who could not be a more enthusiastic, enlightening and entertaining guide. 'A BIBLIOPHILE'S DREAM' FINANCIAL TIMES 'WILL HAVE READERS SCURRYING INTO SECONDHAND BOOKSHOPS' GUARDIAN