Central Kansas Library System

A New York Times Notable Book: CWA Gold Dagger winner Peter Dickinson revisits his alternate British monarchy, ensnaring the imagined royal family in a dark conspiracy of kidnapping, politics, scandal, and murder Britain's beloved Princess Louise is a grown woman now, married to commoner Piers Chandler and enchanted by their infant son, Davy. While visiting a certain Mrs. Walsh-a mysterious old woman claiming to be a royal relation, a Romanov who...

Scotland Yard detective James Pibble is known for accepting any case, no matter how strange. Taking him to every corner of England, his job throws him into the most curious circumstances. The Glass-Sided Ants' Nest: Detective Pibble is on the case when the revered elder of a New Guinea tribe is bludgeoned to death. All the suspects-including a real estate agent, a professional escort, and an anthropologist who married into the tribe-have alibis....

Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year: Peter Dickinson targets England's upper classes in this murderous and strikingly original theme-park mystery Tourists are waiting in line for entry into the world of Old England, a graceful, elegant country house run as a theme park, complete with wrought-iron gates, pet lions, and maids in white caps greeting visitors with a bob and a curtsy. But this fantasy world turns very real when...

In this mystery from CWA Gold Dagger winner Peter Dickinson, a landlady discovers a corpse beneath her crowded London boardinghouse A sturdy young woman with a knack for home repair and a practical sense of Marxism, Lydia is renovating her London townhouse while her husband finishes law school. To bring in extra money, she rents her upper floors to the exiled government  of Livonia, a Baltic state that was long ago absorbed into the Soviet Union....

The twisted circumstances surrounding an unspeakable crime, an old man's fortune, and a production of Shakespeare's The Tempest come to light four decades on in this masterful tale of greed, deception, and murder by CWA Gold Dagger winner Peter Dickinson Behind his practiced facade of cheerful sophistication, the renowned actor Adrian Waring is a haunted man. The ghost that torments him is from an earlier era, when a world war raged and Adrian was...

In this gripping novel by CWA Gold Dagger winner Peter Dickinson, the survivor of a manor-house crime delves into the past to solve a mystery At the elegant English manor known as Snailwood, tourists come daily to hear decades-old gossip about the second wife of the sixth earl. Zena was a remarkable young woman whose scandalous reputation has been dimmed neither by time nor by her bizarre death. In the 1930s, Zena was the star of a notorious party...

Four children embark on a quest for a new land at the dawn of human history   Africa, two hundred thousand years ago: Suth and Noli were orphaned the night the murderous strangers came, speaking an unfamiliar language and bringing violence to the peaceful Moonhawk tribe. Determined not to die in the desert, Suth and Noli slip away with Ko and Mana. Suth, the eldest, leads them; Noli's dreams of the future guide them. Ko gives them courage; Mana gives...

When the town clock stops, a colony of telepathic mice comes to the rescue. Unthinkable! The Branton Town Hall Clock has stopped! The intricately carved turret clock had attracted tourists from all over the world. Every day six small bells would chime at precisely fourteen minutes and twenty seconds past the hour. And out would come a procession of prancing lambs followed by a shepherd playing Pan-pipes and, finally, old Father Time himself. The impressive...

A blind boy and his brother set out on a motorcycle in search of their ghost-hunting grandfather. It all starts with the postman. Jake cannot see the mail, but he is an excellent listener, and he can tell by the sound the mail makes when it hits the floor that bad news is coming. At the top of the pile is a very thin letter rejecting Jake's brother, Martin, from every college he applied to. Even worse, there is no news from their grandfather, an eccentric...

In a far-off kingdom, an English boy befriends the mad ruler's daughter The Khan of Dirzhan is a monster. Nigel, the son of the English ambassador to a backward Asian country, is transfixed by stories of the Khan's brutality. It is said that he had his own brother strangled, that he once shot two cabinet ministers to death during a government meeting, and that he will stop at nothing to keep his daughter safe. At first, these are nothing but stories,...