April, 1914. Against his better judgement, Detective Inspector Silas Quinn is attending the premiere of the new motion picture by notorious Austrian film-maker Konrad Waechter. But the glamorous event is interrupted by the piercing screams of a young woman in the street outside. She has been viciously mutilated in a horrific attack which eerily echoes a macabre act of violence in Waechter's film. As he questions those who attended the premiere, Quinn's jaundiced view of the fledgling film industry as a business based on illusion and pretence, where no one is what they seem, appears to be justified. But when members of London's Establishment start to receive bizarre hand-delivered parcels containing the strangest of contents, the investigation takes a disturbing twist.

Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award. 'Any of Frank Moorhouse's books are rewarding and stimulating. But his trilogy following a young Australian diplomat at the founding of the League of Nations is a masterpiece. In Edith Campbell Berry, his heroine, he created one of the enduring characters in literature. The trilogy is Grand Days, Dark Palace and Cold Light. All are must reads.' - Michael Williams, Qantas magazine Five years have passed since Edith Campbell Berry's triumphant arrival at the League of Nations in Geneva, determined to right the wrongs of the world. The idealism of those early Grand Days has been eroded by a sense foreboding as the world moves ever closer to another war. Edith's life too, has changed: her marriage and her work are no longer the anchors in her life – she is restless, unsure, feeling the weight of history upon her and her world. As her certainties crumble, Edith is once again joined by Ambrose Westwood, her old friend and lover. Their reunion is joyful, and her old anxiety about their unconventional relationship is replaced by a feeling that all things are possible – at least in her private life. But World War II advances inexorably, and Edith, Ambrose and their fellow officers must come to terms with the knowledge that their best efforts – and those of the well-meaning world – are simply useless against the forces of the time. Moving, wise and utterly engrossing, this is a profound and enriching novel. Grand Days and Dark Palace confirm Frank Moorhouse as one of our greatest writers – a master of tone and timing, an elegant and exuberant stylist, and an unerring chronicler of the human spirit.

THE BEGINNING OF END ​When a sickly boy succumbs t illness only to awaken as a lowly undead named End, his initial reaction is not horror but joy. No longer weak and bedridden, he is eager to experience the freedom of a properly functioning body. Sadly, his delight is cut short when he realizes the shackles of his previous life have simply been replaced by new ones—specifically, the powerful necromancer who revived him. To gain true freedom, he’ll need to overcome the many obstacles in his way...starting with his dark master!

A police inspector investigates a grisly murder at a movie premiere in this dark historical mystery set in pre–World War I London. London, April 1914. Against his better judgement, Detective Inspector Silas Quinn is attending the premiere of the new motion picture by notorious American film-maker Konrad Waechter. But the glamorous event is interrupted by the piercing screams of a young woman in the street outside. She has been viciously mutilated in a horrific accident which eerily echoes a macabre act of violence in Waechter’s film. As he questions those who attended the premiere, Quinn’s jaundiced view of the fledgling film industry as a business based on pretense, where no one is what they seem, appears to be justified. But soon the investigation takes a disturbing twist that has him questioning everything he thought he knew . . . An excellent choice for fans of C. J. Sansom, Rory Clements and S. G. MacLean. Praise for The Dark Palace “Stellar. . . . [Quinn’s] most bizarre case yet. . . . Ruth Rendell fans open to stories set a century ago will be well satisfied.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A lively cast of supporting characters . . . adds Dickensian zest. Quinn’s third case . . . benefits greatly from Morris’ colorful period-flavor prose.” —Kirkus Reviews

Field agent, DiFranco, of the Witchfinders Union leads her SWAT team on a raid to the Black Palace to find one of their own.

A sweeping yet intimate narrative about the last hundred years of turbulent European history, as seen through one of Mitteleuropa’s greatest houses—and the lives of its occupants When Norman Eisen moved into the US ambassador’s residence in Prague, returning to the land his mother had fled after the Holocaust, he was startled to discover swastikas hidden beneath the furniture in his new home. These symbols of Nazi Germany were remnants of the residence’s forgotten history, and evidence that we never live far from the past. From that discovery unspooled the twisting, captivating tale of four of the remarkable people who had called this palace home. Their story is Europe’s, and The Last Palace chronicles the upheavals that transformed the continent over the past century. There was the optimistic Jewish financial baron, Otto Petschek, who built the palace after World War I as a statement of his faith in democracy, only to have that faith shattered; Rudolf Toussaint, the cultured, compromised German general who occupied the palace during World War II, ultimately putting his life at risk to save the house and Prague itself from destruction; Laurence Steinhardt, the first postwar US ambassador whose quixotic struggle to keep the palace out of Communist hands was paired with his pitched efforts to rescue the country from Soviet domination; and Shirley Temple Black, an eyewitness to the crushing of the 1968 Prague Spring by Soviet tanks, who determined to return to Prague and help end totalitarianism—and did just that as US ambassador in 1989. Weaving in the life of Eisen’s own mother to demonstrate how those without power and privilege moved through history, The Last Palace tells the dramatic and surprisingly cyclical tale of the triumph of liberal democracy.