In North Devon, where two rivers converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his father's funeral takes place. Once loved and cherished, the day Matthew left the strict evangelical community he grew up in, he lost his family too. Now, as he turns and walks away again, he receives a call from one of his team. A body has been found on the beach nearby: a man with a tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to...

"Ann Cleeves-New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows-returns with the extraordinary follow-up to The Long Call, in the Two Rivers series, soon to be a major TV series too. North Devon is enjoying a rare hot summer with tourists flocking to its coastline. Detective Matthew Venn is called out to a rural crime scene at the home of a group of artists. What he finds is an elaborately...

Finding himself the man of the family, London dancing master Alec Valcourt moves his mother and sister to remote Devonshire, hoping to start over. But he is stunned to learn the village matriarch has prohibited all dancing, for reasons buried deep in her past. Alec finds an unlikely ally in the matriarch's daughter. Though wary of Julia Midwinter's reckless flirtation, he comes to realize her bold exterior disguises a vulnerable soul and hidden sorrows....

On a hunt for her family's treasure, orphaned and near penniless Emily Beauregard takes a position as an innkeeper for Jonas Tallent, Lucifer Cynster's brother-in-law, in the Devon town of Colyton. But someone else also has the Colyton treasure in their sights, and the closer Em draws to her family's legacy the greater the danger grows...to her, her family, and the treasure she's discovered in Jonas's arms.

"Winter 1917. As the First World War enters its most brutal phase, back home in England, everyone is seeking answers to the darkness that has seeped into their lives. At Blackwater Abbey, on an island off the Devon coast, armaments manufacturer Lord Highmount has arranged a spiritualist gathering to contact his two sons, both of whom died at the front. Among the guests, two have been secretly dispatched from the intelligence service: Kate Cartwright,...

Christopher Rowe is shipwrecked in Devonshire, where children are disappearing and a ghost is suspected, but even Tom and Sally's arrival may not cure his amnesia in time to help.

In England's stately manor houses, murder is not generally a topic for polite conversation. Mallowan Hall, home to Agatha Christie and her husband, Max, is the exception. And housekeeper Phyllida Bright delights in discussing gory plot details with her friend and employer. The neighboring village of Listleigh has also become a hub of grisly goings-on, thanks to a Murder Féte organized to benefit a local orphanage. Members of The Detection Club--a...

"Life hasn't been a bed of roses for Londoner Molly Taylor lately. Newly divorced and struggling to find a new home and a way to support her three boys, she's stunned when her beloved Aunt Helena dies and leaves her Harrington Hall, a three-hundred-year-old manor house on the Devon coast, where Molly grew up. But does Molly really want to run a bed-and-breakfast in an old house where the only thing that doesn't need urgent attention is Aunt Helena's...

"The Second World War is drawing to a close. Nicholas Vaughan, released from the army after an accident, takes refuge in Devon - renting a thatched cottage in the beautiful countryside at Mallory Fitzjohn. Vaughan sets to work farming the land, rearing geese and renovating the cottage. Hard work and rural peace seem to make this a happy bachelor life. On a nearby farm lives the bored, flirtatious June St Cyres, an exile from London while her husband...

"Jane Ferguson suffers from horrific nightmares which she claims not to be able to explain. And when her traumatised 6-year-old daughter finds Jane dead, hanging by the neck in the hallway of the family's seaside home, it is assumed she took her own life. But routine police enquiries reveal evidence indicating that Jane has been murdered, and her businessman husband Felix, commodore of the local yacht club, becomes the chief suspect. Called in to...