Northumberland, November 1809: A menacing figure stalks women through Hareshaw Woods and a beautiful, young heiress disappears from her locked bedchamber at Linn Hagh. The townsfolk cry 'witchcraft' and the local constabulary are baffled. Fearing for her safety, Helen Carnaby's worried uncle sends out for help from Bow Street magistrates' court in London. Detective Stephen Lavender and Constable Woods now face their toughest and most dangerous case. The servants and the local gypsies won’t speak to them, Helen’s siblings are sly and uncooperative and the sullen local farmers are about to take the law into their own hands. Isolated in this beautiful but remote community, Lavender and Woods find themselves trapped in the middle of a simmering feud and are alarmed to discover a sinister world of madness and violence lurking behind the heavy oak door of the ancient pele tower at Linn Hagh. Helen Carnaby's disappearance is to prove one of the most perplexing mysteries of Lavender's career. Why did she flee on that wintry October night? How did she get out of her locked bed chamber? And where is she now? 'The Heiress of Linn Hagh' is the first in a series of Regency mysteries featuring Detective Stephen Lavender and Constable Edward Woods. First published as 'The Missing Heiress.' (Knox Robinson Publishing (2012) 'Worthy of Agatha Christie' - www.crimefictionlover.com 'Fabulous, rollicking tale of intrigue and family secrets' - B.A. Morton, author of 'Mrs. Jones', 'Molly Brown', 'Wildewood' &amp; 'Bedlam' 'Atmospheric mystery' - Cathy G. Cole Kittling Books 'A romp of a whodunit' - Moonyeen Blakey, Author of 'The Assassin's Wife.'

The Heiress of Linn Hagh: The First Detective Lavender Mystery (The Detective Lavender Series) (Volume 1)

Karen Charlton

Famelton Publishing

Easter Monday, 1809: Kirkley Hall manor house is mysteriously burgled. When suspicion falls on Jamie Charlton, he and his family face a desperate battle to save him from the gallows. When £1,157 rent money is stolen from Kirkley Hall, it is the biggest robbery Northumberland has ever known. The owner sends for Detective Stephen Lavender, a principal officer with the Bow Street magistrate’s court in London, to investigate the crime. Suspicion soon falls on impoverished farm labourer, Jamie Charlton, and the unpopular steward, Michael Aynsley. Jamie Charlton is a loving family man but he is hot-tempered and careless. As the case grows against him, it seems that only his brother, William, can save him from an impending miscarriage of justice. But William is struggling with demons of his own. Desperate to break free from the tangled web of family ties which bind him to their small community, he is alarmed to find that he is falling in love with Jamie’s wife. Set beneath the impenetrable gaze of a stray golden eagle whose fate seems to mirror that of Jamie's, 'Catching the Eagle' is a fictionalised account of a real trial that devastated a family and divided a community. A SUSPENSE-FILLED PAGE-TURNER "Told with gritty realism, ‘Catching The Eagle’ is a suspense-filled page-turner, which spares nothing in its descriptions of the hardships and injustices suffered by the poor at the turn of the 19th century. Its ending leaves the reader poised perfectly for the next volume – for which I can hardly wait." Kathy Stevenson, 'The Daily Mail' AN ENJOYABLE READ "It is a rollicking tale full of adultery, drinking, fighting, gambling. Rich imagery, suspense and some genuinely likeable characters – as well as plenty of murky ones – make this an enjoyable read. Karen is particularly strong at capturing the Geordie dialect and recreating the rural Northumbrian world of the 1800s, where the wealthy lived in comfort and the poor struggled to make ends meet." Laura Fraine, Culture Magazine, 'The Journal' (Newcastle)

Catching the Eagle

Literature & Fiction

Charlton, Karen

Genre Fiction

Seeking Our Eagle: The genealogical research behind Catching the Eagle

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Cambridgeshire, September 1813: Detective Stephen Lavender and Constable Ned Woods are lured to an isolated estate in the deadly marshland surrounding Ely to investigate a murder. But nothing is as it seems at the mysterious Willow Marsh Manor. They soon realise they’ve come across this feuding family before – in the direst of circumstances. With no dead body and no sign of the woman who summoned them, Woods fears someone has planned a murderous revenge. Meanwhile, Lavender dreads the disclosure of his greatest secret. A secret that, if revealed, will destroy both his career – and his relationship with Woods. Haunted by ghosts from the past, Lavender and Woods must tread a careful path through this watery and dangerous terrain in order to solve one of the most perplexing mysteries of their career.

The Willow Marsh Murder

British & Irish

York, England: 1940 
‘An unsuitable job for a woman…’ 
When her husband goes ‘missing in action’, Jemma James returns to the city of her birth to set up a private detective agency with her best friend, Roberta ‘Bobbie’ Baker, with whom she shares a passionate love of Golden Age crime fiction. 
These two enterprising young women soon find themselves embroiled in a series of mysterious cases, shadowing blackmailers and bigamists, and investigating the perplexing history of a wealthy young woman who seems determined to wipe out her past. And it’s not long before they stumble across an unsolved murder. 
But the dead don’t stay dead for long in historic York. 
As the ‘phoney war’ draws to a close, and the sky above the soaring twin towers of the twelfth century Minster darkens with menace, Jemma learns that even she is not above suspicion in wartime Britain.

Smoke & Cracked Mirrors (The York Ladies' Detective Agency Mysteries)

York, England: June 1940\nWhile Jemma continues to search for her missing husband, the citizens of historic York are shocked by a series of vicious crimes at the city’s two museums.\nA bungled break-in at the Yorkshire Museum is quickly followed by the brutal murder of Lance Richards, a sub-curator at the neighbouring Castle Museum.\nThe main suspect is Anthony Gill, a quiet and unprepossessing clerk. But Gill doesn’t have an alibi and is uncooperative with the police. His desperate lawyer hires Jemma and Bobbie from Smoke & Cracked Mirrors to prove his innocence.\nMeanwhile, the two women are led a merry dance by Jodie, a famous and spirited actress, whose aristocrat husband wants evidence for a divorce.\nAs the nation waits nervously to hear the fate of their sons and brothers trapped at Dunkirk, a twisting series of events whisk Jemma and Bobbie through the glamourous world of the starlet, down corridors of dusty fossils and into terrifying danger.\nVengeful passions and a dark crime lie beneath the civilised veneer of those elders who preserve our history.\nBut if Anthony Gill didn’t murder Lance Richards, who did – and why?

Dancing With Dusty Fossils (The York Ladies' Detective Agency Mysteries)

The Resurrection Mystery (The Detective Lavender Mysteries Book 7)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

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