Halloween in Essex, and things are going well for the writers on the Mystery and Suspense course at old Ratchette Hall. Things however take a turn for the downright nasty when early on All Saints Day the course administrator is discovered dead in the hall. Lips drawn back, eyes wide open, his face a mask of utter terror, it looks to all intents and purposes that Graham has been scared to death. When he is found to be clutching a cold stone finger the writers are thrown into confusion and fear, convinced the long dead knights have claimed his soul.But how could the marble effigies have come back to life on Halloween? And why would anyone, dead or alive, want to kill mild-mannered Graham?There is only one way to get to the bottom of the mystery and the Essex Witch Museum investigators are quickly drafted in.Very soon, however, Rosie and Sam realise not everything, and everyone are what they seem at Ratchette Hall, appearances can be deceiving, someone certainly has a grudge. As their investigation progresses they find more questions than answers: who is making the unearthly howling noises late into the night? What is the strange glimmering glimpsed in the woods about the Hall? Why is one of the church crusaders missing a finger? And what of the enigma of the ancient empty tomb?When another one of the writers turns up dead Rosie and Sam realise strange forces are at play. The pair must use their experience of folklore, mystery and magic as well as their wits to solve the mystery before the body count grows.

Halloween in Essex, and things are going well for the writers on the Mystery and Suspense course at old Ratchette Hall. Things however take a turn for the downright nasty when early on All Saints Day the course administrator is discovered dead in the hall. Lips drawn back, eyes wide open, his face a mask of utter terror, it looks to all intents and purposes that Graham has been scared to death. When he is found to be clutching a cold stone finger the writers are thrown into confusion and fear, convinced the long dead knights have claimed his soul.But how could the marble effigies have come back to life on Halloween? And why would anyone, dead or alive, want to kill mild-mannered Graham?There is only one way to get to the bottom of the mystery and the Essex Witch Museum investigators are quickly drafted in.Very soon, however, Rosie and Sam realise not everything, and everyone are what they seem at Ratchette Hall, appearances can be deceiving, someone certainly has a grudge. As their investigation progresses they find more questions than answers: who is making the unearthly howling noises late into the night? What is the strange glimmering glimpsed in the woods about the Hall? Why is one of the church crusaders missing a finger? And what of the enigma of the ancient empty tomb?When another one of the writers turns up dead Rosie and Sam realise strange forces are at play. The pair must use their experience of folklore, mystery and magic as well as their wits to solve the mystery before the body count grows.

Rosie Strange is back in the latest of the fabulously creepy Essex Witch Museum Mysteries Secretly Rosie Strange has always thought herself a little bit more interesting than most people – the legacy her family has bequeathed her is definitely so, she’s long believed. But then life takes a peculiar turn when the Strange legacy turns out not just to be the Essex Witch Museum, but perhaps some otherworldly gifts that Rosie finds difficult to fathom. Meanwhile Sam Stone, Rosie’s curator, is oddly distracted as breadcrumb clues into what happened to his missing younger brother and other abducted boys from the past are poised to lead him and Rosie deep into a dark wood where there lurks something far scarier than Hansel and Gretel’s witch…

Rosie Strange doesn’t believe in ghosts or witches or magic. No, not at all. It’s no surprise therefore when she inherits the ramshackle Essex Witch Museum, her first thought is to take the money and run. Still, the museum exerts a curious pull over Rosie. There’s the eccentric academic who bustles in to demand she help in a hunt for old bones, those of the notorious Ursula Cadence, a witch long since put to death. And there’s curator Sam Stone, a man about whom Rosie can’t decide if he’s tiresomely annoying or extremely captivating. It all adds up to looking like her plans to sell the museum might need to be delayed, just for a while. Finding herself and Sam embroiled in a most peculiar centuries-old mystery, Rosie is quickly expelled from her comfort zone, where to her horror, the secrets of the past come with their own real, and all too present, danger as a strange magic threatens to envelope them all.

It’s summer in Adders Fork. The sun is out, the sky is blue and things are going swimmingly for Rosie Strange, thank you very much. The Essex Witch Museum has been relaunched with a new Ursula Cadence wing and picnic grounds. Then developers roll into the sleepy village to widen the road. When the centuries-old Blackly Be boulder, said to mark the grave of a notorious witch but now in the car park of the Seven Stars, is moved, all hell breaks out. Within hours a slew of peculiar phenomena descends and, when a severed head is discovered atop the boulder, the locals can take no more and storm the Museum to demand someone take action. Can Rosie and Sam unravel the mystery? And what of the ancient treasure that could drastically change someone’s fortunes and offer a motive for murder?

The La Fleur restaurant has a slew of unusual phenomena. Bonnet-clad apparitions pass through walls, blood leaks from ceilings and rats besiege the dining room. Experts from the Great Essex Witch Museum are called in to quell these strange sights. But before Rosie Strange and Sam Stone can do their thing events turn darker. For La Fleur’s chef has been strung up and slaughtered like a pig. More oddly, the only witness, the owner’s daughter Mary, swears blind a ghost did it. Rosie and Sam must find out what’s happening before Mary takes the fall. But intuitions and tip-offs lead them stumbling into the dark waters of the past, exposing secrets of a wider conspiracy, as well as secrets all Rosie’s own. With strange chills Rosie and Sam learn that seeing isn’t always believing, while thoughts of truth may be just as illusory.

Stop Press: Two stories, ‘Easily Made’ and ‘Death Becomes Her’, were nominated for a Crime Writers Association Short Story Dagger! Nothing says Christmas more than a good old fashioned ghost story on a dark winter’s night, so sit back and enjoy a little pinch of Yuletide mayhem. These extraordinary tales, one for each day of Christmas, explore the odd, the peculiar and the downright chilling, from a Strange encounter with an Icelandic Shaman, to a psychic policewoman, lively winged beasts and warnings from the recently departed.

A hugely gripping, fast-paced mystery adventure, with brilliant twists and turns, from a fresh and exciting new voice in children’s books. When twelve-year-old Lily moves to the sleepy seaside town of Edge, she’s sure that nothing exciting is ever going to happen to her again. But when she stumbles upon a secret museum hidden in the middle of town, she realises that there might be more to her new home than meets the eye. The Museum of Emily is filled with the belongings of one seemingly ordinary girl – a girl who, many years ago, disappeared from the town without a trace. With the help of her new friends Sam and Jay, Lily is determined to solve the mystery and find out who Emily was, why she disappeared and who has created the strange, hidden museum. With a one-of-a-kind mystery, a brilliant trio of protagonists, and an action-filled story, Looking for Emily is the unmissable middle grade debut of 2022.

Recently divorced and staring down the barrel of moving back in with her parents, Carrot really needs a break. And a place to live. So when her Uncle Earl, owner of the eclectic Wonder Museum, asks her to stay with him in exchange for cataloguing the exhibits, of course she says yes. The Wonder Museum is packed with taxidermy, shrunken heads, and an assortment of Mystery Junk. For Carrot, it's not creepy at all: she grew up with it. What's creepy is the hole that's been knocked in one of the museum walls, and the corridor behind it. There's just no space for a corridor in the museum's thin walls - or the concrete bunker at the end of it, or the strange islands beyond the bunker's doors, or the whispering, unseen things lurking in the willow trees.

Recently divorced and staring down the barrel of moving back in with her parents, Carrot really needs a break. And a place to live. So when her Uncle Earl, owner of the eclectic Wonder Museum, asks her to stay with him in exchange for cataloguing the exhibits, of course she says yes. The Wonder Museum is packed with taxidermy, shrunken heads, and an assortment of Mystery Junk. For Carrot, it's not creepy at all: she grew up with it. What's creepy is the hole that's been knocked in one of the museum walls, and the corridor behind it. There's just no space for a corridor in the museum's thin walls - or the concrete bunker at the end of it, or the strange islands beyond the bunker's doors, or the whispering, unseen things lurking in the willow trees.

The finale to the New York Times bestselling Secret Series!A class trip to the local natural history museum turns dangerous when Cass accidentally breaks a finger off a priceless mummy. This "crime" of vandalism leads her and her friends Max-Earnest and Yo-Yoji on an expedition into a land of majestic pyramids, dusty tombs, and the walking dead. Is it Egypt? Or somewhere much stranger... . . . . . . . . .

The finale to the New York Times bestselling Secret Series!A class trip to the local natural history museum turns dangerous when Cass accidentally breaks a finger off a priceless mummy. This "crime" of vandalism leads her and her friends Max-Earnest and Yo-Yoji on an expedition into a land of majestic pyramids, dusty tombs, and the walking dead. Is it Egypt? Or somewhere much stranger... . . . . . . . . .

Agatha Christie called her 'a shining light'. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? In Hide My Eyes, private detective Albert Campion finds himself hunting down a serial killer. A spate of murders leaves him and his friend and colleague Inspector Luke, with only two baffling clues: a left-hand glove and a lizard-skin lettercase. However, a chain of strange events leads them to an odd museum of curiosities hidden in a quiet London neighbourhood where more is going on than meets the eye. As urbane as Lord Wimsey…as ingenious as Poirot… Meet one of crime fiction's Great Detectives, Mr Albert Campion.

When Lyra is given the strange and secret alethiometer, she begins an extraordinary journey that will take her to the frozen lands of the Arctic, where witch-clans reign and ice-bears fight. The destiny that awaits her will have immeasurable consequences far beyond her own world...

Geoffrey Braithwaite is a retired doctor haunted by an obsession with the great French literary genius, Gustave Flaubert. As Geoffrey investigates the mystery of the stuffed parrot Flaubert borrowed from the Museum of Rouen to help research one of his novels, we learn an enormous amount about the writer's work, family, lovers, thought processes, health and obsessions. But we also gradually come to learn some important and shocking details about Geoffrey himself.