The Carfax Intrigue


Book Description

June 1820. Britain’s former prince regent, now George IV, is determined to divorce his estranged wife, Queen Caroline, and the coming trial is the talk of London, from Mayfair to Westminster to Seven Dials, dredging up scandalous details and pitting Whigs against Tories in a battle for power. When former spies Malcolm and Mélanie Rannoch learn their enemies in the mysterious Elsinore League are trying to sell letters that could prove key at the trial, the Rannochs are determined to intercept these vital papers before they can be used against Queen Caroline. The exchange is to take place in the candlelit splendor of Carfax House, at the first ball Malcolm and Mélanie’s friends Julien and Kitty are giving in their new roles as Lord and Lady Carfax. But Malcolm and Mélanie aren’t the only ones determined to intercept the letters. Amidst a night of champagne and waltzing, Mélanie and Malcolm find themselves entrapped in an intrigue that may be as deadly as any they faced in the Napoleonic Wars...




The Westminster Intrigue


Book Description

Autumn 1820. From Mayfair to Covent Garden to Seven Dials, London is in an uproar over George IV's (the former prince regent) attempts to divorce his wife Queen Caroline. And nowhere is the crisis more intense than in Westminster where the royal divorce is playing out in the House of Lords. In this tense atmosphere, former spies Malcolm and Mélanie Rannoch go on an undercover mission in a brothel that leads to a brawl--and the murder of the man they were tracking. The victim, Captain James Blayney, was selling the memoirs of a notorious courtesan, whose lovers may include Napoleon Bonaparte, the Duke of Wellington, and key noblemen involved in the royal divorce trial. The missing memoirs may also hold crucial information about the Elsinore League, the powerful organization the Rannochs have been battling for years. As revelations mount, Malcolm and Mélanie uncover the secretsof some of the most powerful people in Europe. The future of the British monarchy hangs in the balance. But as the Rannochs unravel the clues in the memoirs, they realize that the consequences for the royal family may be nothing compared to the consequences for their own...




Midwinter Intrigue


Book Description

Former spies Malcolm and Mélanie Suzanne Rannoch have fled Britain with their family to escape the exposure of Suzanne's past as a French agent in the Napoleonic Wars. The news that Malcolm's grandfather, the Duke of Strathdon, is dangerously ill makes them risk a secret voyage to Scotland in the depths of winter. But they arrive at the Rannoch castle on the Highland coast to find that all is not as expected. Dunmykel Castle holds dangerous mysteries beyond the sliding panel in the library, the hidden rooms, and the secret passage to the beach. As snow falls and the holiday season approaches, the Rannochs face smugglers and old enemies, and must race to uncover a deadly secret that could destroy their hard-won escape. "Shimmers like the finest salons in Vienna." —Deborah Crombie "Meticulous, delightful, and full of surprises." —Tasha Alexander "Glittering balls, deadly intrigue, sexual scandals. . .the next best thing to actually being there!"— Lauren Willig "A superb storyteller."— Deanna Raybourn




The Southcott Jewels


Book Description

A duke’s manor house party. Feuding spies. Stolen jewels. A ducal divorce. What could go wrong? An invitation to the country estate of the Duke of Bamford seems a welcome escape from London intrigues for former spies Malcolm and Mélanie Rannoch. They’ve just survived one of their most challenging and personal investigations ever. But the ducal house party is not quite the bucolic idyll they hoped for. Anthony and Henrietta Southcott, Duke and Duchess of Bamford, plan to announce their shocking plans to divorce to their friends and grown children. The ensuing scandal alone is enough to shake the Regency beau monde, but stolen treasure from the English Civil War, a secret passage, and stolen papers from the far more recent Napoleonic Wars plunge the Rannochs right back into the dangers they thought they had left behind. Soon they're racing to untangle a fiendish plot and prevent a disaster that would prove far more deadly than divorce...




The O’Roarke Affair


Book Description

In dazzling Regency London, married spies Malcolm and Mélanie Rannoch find their most challenging investigation may be uncovering the secrets of the cunning spymaster who shaped both their destinies. Spymaster. Revolutionary. Master of disguise. Raoul O’Roarke remains an enigma even to those closest to him. By the age of three, Malcolm Rannoch knew enough of Raoul's life that he wondered if every goodbye would be their last. Thirty years later, Malcolm, now a spy himself, understands a great deal more, but in many ways Raoul is still a mystery. Malcolm’s wife and fellow agent Mélanie has her own complicated relationship with Raoul, who was once her spymaster. When a contact at a dockside tavern warns the Rannochs that powerful forces want Raoul dead, Malcolm and Mélanie are shaken to the core. They’ve barely had time to absorb the revelation when a nearby ship explodes. Rushing to help fight the ensuing fire, the Rannochs find the body of the powerful Duke of Bamford amid the charred wreckage. Bamford, a Tory diplomat and Raoul, a revolutionary, knew each other far better than anyone realized. Their unlikely alliance leads from the French Revolution through Napoleon and Josephine’s glamorous court to the glittering Congress of Vienna, and the horrors of Waterloo. The clues from their past hold the key to Bamford’s murder. As Malcolm and Mélanie connect the pieces, they find as many questions as answers. Raoul has even more secrets than either of them guessed—secrets they need to uncover to prevent his meeting the same fate as the duke. But the process may shake their relationships with him to the core. And their next goodbye could be their final parting.




The Seven Dials Affair


Book Description

London, 1821. Former spies Malcolm and Mélanie Rannoch have been friends with Bow Street runner Jeremy Roth since they all met in the intrigues of the Peninsular War. Now settled in London, they frequently collaborate. On a chilly night, an urgent summons from Roth takes Malcolm to a tavern in the slums of Seven Dials. He finds Roth standing over the body of a murdered woman. Malcolm offers his assistance with the case, but Roth says Malcolm must investigate alone. When Malcolm asks why, Roth replies—because this is my wife. Malcolm and Mélanie plunge into the secrets of Roth’s estranged wife Allegra. Why did she disappear from England? Where has she been for five years? And why did she return now to the husband she abandoned? Their investigation is a race against time as another Bow Street runner is all too eager to arrest Roth for the murder. And though Malcolm and Mélanie are both convinced Jeremy Roth is not a killer, his story keeps changing. Secrets are nothing new for the Rannochs. But this investigation will force them to question everything they thought they knew about some of those closest to them. And to re-examine the secrets at the heart of their own marriage—before someone else they love falls victim...




The Mayfair Mistletoe Plot


Book Description

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the life of a former spy cannot remain quiet for long. London, December 1820. Former spies Malcolm and Mélanie Rannoch are hosting a small party and looking forward to an intrigue-free holiday season when their friend, Thomas Thornsby, turns up dripping wet on the doorstep of their Berkeley Square house. Not only is Thomas clearly overwrought, his arrival is particularly awkward. Thomas is newly betrothed to an heiress. Edith Simmons, the woman he wished to marry — if not for lack of fortune — is one of the Rannochs’ guests that evening. But Thomas says he had no one else to turn to. His fiancée, the decorous Marianne Schofield, has vanished without a trace from a Mayfair holiday ball. Always willing to help a friend, the Rannochs don evening attire and join the elegant gathering. Amidst the holiday revelry they find that Thomas's seemingly perfect betrothed has secrets of her own. As they uncover layers of mystery, Mélanie and Malcolm realize some of the plots being hatched beneath the mistletoe may prove deadly.




The Apsley House Incident


Book Description

A Rannoch Fraser Mysteries novella October 1820. As London simmers over the scandalous royal divorce trial, a pistol shot aimed at the Duke of Wellington's carriage shatters the peace of the autumn night. When Malcolm and Mélanie Rannoch learn their friend Robby Simcox has been arrested for the crime, they are convinced it is a miscarriage of justice, but it will require all their resources as former spies to uncover the truth. The race against time to save Robby from the gallows takes the Rannochs across the breadth of London, from the slums of St. Giles to elegant Mayfair to lively Covent Garden, and to Wellington's glittering home at Apsley House. But the culprit proves cleverly elusive. The consequences of their investigation could rip Robby's sister Bet from her aristocratic true love–and may also reveal secrets that threaten all Malcolm and Mélanie hold dear...




Dark Boundaries


Book Description

When Commander Herries of the Space Line began to sell the water of Mars as a 'potion' for lengthening life he had no idea that he was going to create the world's greatest thirst and produce havoc among the two social grades of Earth - the Inelligentsia and the Normals. But produce it he did. Among the confusion thus produced one man thinks clearly for his own ends - Vance Unthra, the leading scientist of the world - and he sees in the crisis which has hit Earth a way to be rid of all those who do not measure up to what he thinks as an intellectual standard. By his orders two synthetic worlds are created - Alpha and Omega - and to these are ruthlessly evacuated all the victims of the Martian water, there to rebuild there shattered fortunes and never cross the 'Dark Boundaries' which exist between those worlds and Earth. Despite his careful planning, however, Unthra makes one mistake. In destroying the power of the Martian water over the evacuated thousands he miscalculates the strength of cosmic radiation on Omega with the result that the leader - the Controllix - of this world, Sylvia Grantham, becomes a far greater power in the grand scheme of things than her former lover, Dexter Carfax. Through the machinations of the wily Unthra open hostility breaks out between Dexter Carfax and the girl, and eventually their worlds are destroyed through the influence of a deadly chain reaction 'disease' from the Great Red Spot of Jupoter. Both of them, however, through the various experiences they undergo, hold to one objective - to be avenged on Vance Unthra for his viciousness.




Dorrien Carfax


Book Description