Search Results for: school of detection

It’s 1890. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson return to Baker Street after a night pursuing a vicious criminal. Inspector Lestrade is waiting for Holmes with a proposition of national importance.

Lestrade tells Holmes that a school of detection has been formed to train a new breed of modern investigators that will serve in Great Britain and the Empire. Most students will become police officers. Some, however, will become bodyguards and spies. Holmes begins instructing his decidedly curious assortment of students from home and abroad. He does so with his customary gusto and inventiveness.

Scotland Yard, in the main, allocates crimes to solve and Holmes mentors his students. Occasionally, he shadows them in disguise in order to assess or even directly test their abilities with creative scenarios he devises. Certain crimes investigated by the students might appear trivial, such as the re-positioning of an ornament atop a garden wall, yet it will transpire an assassin has moved the ornament to create good sightlines in order to commit murder with a sniper’s rifle.

Other mysteries are considered outside the domain of the police. For example, the inexplicable disappearance of a stone gargoyle, which is linked to an ancient family curse. Or a man suffering from amnesia who discovers that not only has he acquired a secret life but also gained an implacable enemy, too. Holmes, with the ever- trustworthy Doctor Watson in his wake, is kept busy with his students’ cases, ranging from minor to serious, sometimes rectifying their mistakes and saving them from a variety of disasters.

These eleven wonderful new adventures and intrigues include tales such as ‘The Gargoyles of Killfellen House’, ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Four Kings of Sweden’ and ‘The Case of the Cannibal Club’.

The fourth book in the multi-million copy bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series

The one with the rival detective

Mma Ramotswe faces the unexpected and unwelcome appearance in town of a new private detective, Mr Cephas Buthelezi. To ensure she does not lose clients to him, she takes on several cases at once, including those of an errant husband and of a man targeted by ostrich rustlers. Meanwhile, Mma Makutsi has decided to set up a typing school to teach men some useful skills – but Mma Ramotswe fears her secretary is falling under the spell of a man who does not have her best interests at heart…

‘A glorious creation’ Mail on Sunday

‘Happiness and quiet wisdom’ Daily Telegraph

‘Sparkles with African sunshine and Mma Ramotswe’s wit’ Dallas Morning News

‘It’s hard to find fault with such good-natured and pleasurable optimism’ Observer

‘Her detective novels are hilarious – less about detecting than delighting, with absurd farce and a wonderful turn of phrase . . . Nancy Spain was bold, she was brave, she was funny, she was feisty’ SANDI TOKSVIG

Miriam Birdseye, ex-revue star and now professional sleuth, is intrigued when the headmistress of Radcliff Hall arrives at her Baker Street detective agency. A series of bizarre stunts that at first seemed like pranks have taken a sinister turn, and since Mis Lipscoomb found her gym rope half sawn through, she’s begun to fear not only for her school, but for her life.

This is how Miriam and her friend, Russian ballerina Natasha Nevkorina, find themselves on board the train to a Sussex girls’ school, in the unlikely guise of teachers. Before long the detective duo uncovers a blackmail plot, infidelity and a dizzying array of school schisms. And then a teacher is poisoned during the school play; can they discover the culprit before the body count rises?

From the pen of Nancy Spain, for whom farce and humour are a lot more fun than a conventional detective novel, the result is a deliciously wild ride.

‘An either intense or sombre approach to crime is to Miss Spain foreign: in her world an inspired craziness rules . . . Her wit, her zest, her outrageousness, and the colloquial stylishness of her writing are quite her own’
Elizabeth Bowen

All Charlie Tickler wants is for his parents to listen.

All Francine (a.k.a Frog) Castle wants is to be the world’s greatest detective.

So begins the friendship of Charlie and Frog, who soon become a crime-solving duo, restoring order to Castle-on-the-Hudson.

Charlie, the new kid at the Castle School for the Deaf continues to find unexpected mysteries in the sleepy town of Castle-on-the-Hudson with Frog, his new friend and crime-solving partner. Just when Charlie thinks everything has settled down, a piece of the school’s famous history goes missing, and it’s up to the Charlie and Frog to solve the case, before it’s too late.

An original short story taken from the anthology Motives for Murder, by members of The Detection Club

Liza Cody, author of the Anna Lee and Eva Wylie series, tells a take of modern policing.

Bath no longer has a proper police station, so when there is a stabbing, disgruntled officers from the surrounding areas are sent in. Shareen Manasseh breaks away from her old-school Sergeant and goes sleuthing on her own, with the help of some locals.

An original short story taken from the anthology Motives for Murder, by members of The Detection Club

When an odd-job boy is killed at one of Britain’s top schools, Sergeant Cribb and Inspector Thackeray are on the case.

Called in to investigate what is a clear case of murder, Sergeant Cribb finds himself up against the establishment in trying to get justice for poor boy Tom Sayers. Can the rich really get away with murder? Not if Cribb can help it.

When the exuberant president of Ng’ombwana proposes to dispense with the usual security arrangements on an official visit to London, his old school mate, Chief Superintendent Alleyn, is called in to persuade him otherwise.
Consequently, on the night of the embassy’s reception the house and grounds are stiff with police. Nevertheless, an assassin does strike, and Alleyn finds he has no shortage of help, from Special Branch to a tribal court – and a small black cat named Lucy Lockett who out-detects them all…

Fourth-grade detectives Logan Lang and Gustavo Muchomacho have established themselves as Murkee City’s premier private eyes, but are they ready for the smelliest case yet? Their school lunches have been infested with stink bugs, and Lunch Lady Chives has been hauled off to Salisbury State Prison for the crime! Logan is convinced Chives has been framed, but who could come up with a plot so nefarious? Find out in this third installment of the wildly wacky Snoop Troop series! Over a dozen pages of bonus backmatter are loaded with extra puzzles and doodle activities!

This book is a godsend , a moving portrait for anyone wanting to go beyond the simplified labels and metrics and really understand an urban high school, and its highly individual, resilient, eager and brilliant students and educators.” ,Dave Eggers, co-founder, 826 National and ScholarMatchDarrell is a reflective, brilliant young man, who never thought of himself as a good student. He always struggled with his reading and writing skills. Darrell’s father, a single parent, couldn’t afford private tutors. By the end of middle school, Darrell’s grades and his confidence were at an all time low. Then everything changed.When education journalist Kristina Rizga first met Darrell at Mission High School, he was taking AP calculus class, writing a ten-page research paper, and had received several college acceptance letters. And Darrell was not an exception. More than 80 percent of Mission High seniors go to college every year, even though the school teaches large numbers of English learners and students from poor families.So, why has the federal government been threatening to close Mission High,and schools like it across the country?The United States has been on a century long road toward increased standardization in our public schools, which resulted in a system that reduces the quality of education to primarily one metric: standardized test scores. According to this number, Mission High is a low-performing” school even though its college enrollment, graduation, attendance rates and student surveys are some of the best in the country.The qualities that matter the most in learning,skills like critical thinking, intellectual engagement, resilience, empathy, self-management, and cultural flexibility,can’t be measured by multiple-choice questions designed by distant testing companies, Rizga argues, but they can be detected by skilled teachers in effective, personalized and humane classrooms that work for all students, not just the most motivated ones.Based on four years of reporting with unprecedented access, the unforgettable, intimate stories in these pages throw open the doors to America’s most talked about,and arguably least understood,public school classrooms where the largely invisible voices of our smart, resilient students and their committed educators can offer a clear and hopeful blueprint for what it takes to help all students succeed.

In her highly acclaimed first novel, Anywhere But Here, Simpson created one of the most astute yet vulnerable heroines in contemporary fiction. Now Mayan Atassi–once Mayan Stevenson–returns in an immensely powerful novel about love and lovelessness, fathers and fatherlessness, and the loyalties that shape us even when they threaten to destroy us.

Now a woman of twenty-eight and finally on her own in medical school, Mayan becomes obsessed with the father she never knew, leading her to hire detectives to dredge up the past, thus eroding her savings, ruining her career, and flirting with madness in a search spanning two continents.

When a girl in the neighboring town of Ryme is found brutally murdered, the community seeks help from criminal psychologist Audrey Harte.

The media wants Audrey’s insight into the mind of a killer, and the school and parents hope she can help the students properly process the crime.

But Audrey can’t resist assisting her friend Detective Neve Graham in the quest to find the killer. A killer who seems willing do anything to avoid going to jail, even killing a cop — or a psychologist.


Four of a Kind is the latest novel in the Audrey Harte series, in which a criminal psychologist uses her own dark past to help stop dangerous killers.

Lorna has been dead long enough to know the Rules. But that doesn’t stop her showing up at her little sister’s high school production of Hipster Hamlet. But when she arrives, a lighting rig comes crashing down on the lead cast member mid-performance. All fingers point to Lorna’s little sister, Emma, and it’s up to The Dead Girls Detective Agency to find the real culprit. Unless Em’s not as innocent as she looks?

Charlotte wants to help Lorna prove her sister’s innocence, but she’s completely distracted. Not only is her ghostly-self suspended in this New York-limbo-hotel, she is having to deal with the fact that the very alive love of her life has moved on. And then there’s the cute dead boy Edison, who seems to be acting nice all of a sudden. But is Charlotte ready for a new boyfriend, and one with such a murky past?

Praise for The Dead Girls Detective Agency:

‘Mean Girls meets The Lovely Bones.’ Grazia
‘Full of smart, funny one-liners and observations that had me giggling like a teenager.’ – Sunday Express
‘A spooky teen thriller with the glam of Gossip Girl‘ Cosmopolitan

Acclaimed bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is found brutally murdered in his home on the night before he’s planning to leave Japan and relocate to Vancouver. His body is found in his office, in a locked room, within his locked house, by his wife and his best friend, both of whom have rock solid alibis. Or so it seems.

Police Detective Kyochiro Kaga recognizes Hidaka’s best friend. Years ago when they were both teachers, they were colleagues at the same high school. Kaga went on to join the police force while Osamu Nonoguchi left to become a full-time writer, though with not nearly the success of his friend Hidaka. But Kaga thinks something is a little bit off with Nonoguchi’s statement and investigates further, ultimately executing a search warrant on Nonoguchi’s apartment. There he finds evidence that shows that the two writers’ relationship was very different than the two claimed. Nonoguchi confesses to the murder, but that’s only the beginning of the story.

In a brilliantly realized tale of cat and mouse, the detective and the writer battle over the truth of the past and how events that led to the murder really unfolded. Which one of the two writers was ultimately guilty of malice?

Charlie is the new kid at Castle School for the Deaf and one of the few students who is hearing. It’s hard to keep up (and fit in) when you don’t know American Sign Language. That’s why Charlie missed the most important detail of all about the Legend of the Boney Hand. It’s real! And when the Boney Hand goes missing, outsider Charlie is suspect number one.

Francine (aka Frog) Castle wants to be understood. Frog has been at Castle School for the Deaf her entire life. It’s hard to break away (and stand out) when people don’t take you seriously. That’s why Frog desperately wants to solve a mystery and show the world who she really is: a detective. But when the Boney Hand goes missing, insider Frog is suspect number two.

Together, Charlie and Frog must uncover the facts about an old legend and solve their latest case before the trail goes cold. It will take the help of unexpected friends and a daring race against the clock to finally reveal the truth. Explore what it means to be seen in this thrilling Charlie & Frog mystery from Edgar Award-nominated author Karen Kane.

Born into a family of migrant workers, toiling in the fields by the age of six, Jose M. Hernàndez dreamed of traveling through the night skies on a rocket ship. REACHING FOR THE STARS is the inspiring story of how he realized that dream, becoming the first Mexican-American astronaut.

Hernàndez didn’t speak English till he was 12, and his peers often joined gangs, or skipped school. And yet, by his twenties he was part of an elite team helping develop technology for the early detection of breast cancer. He was turned down by NASA eleven times on his long journey to donning that famous orange space suit.

Hernàndez message of hard work, education, perseverance, of “reaching for the stars,” makes this a classic American autobiography.
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‘Shocking and perceptive’ Guardian

‘It was easy to stay up well past lights out to read just one more chapter – and then one more…’ James Oswald

‘Engaging’ Sunday Times

LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER

Meet Weston Kogi, a London supermarket store detective. He returns home to his West African home country for his aunt’s funeral. He sees his family, his ex-girlfriend Nana, his old school mate Church. Food is good, beer is plentiful, and telling people he works as a homicide detective seems like harmless hyperbole, until he wakes up in hell.

He is kidnapped and forced by two separate rebel factions to investigate the murder of a local hero, Papa Busi. The solution may tip a country on the brink into civil war.

Making Wolf is the outrageous, frightening, violent and sometimes surreal homecoming experience of a lifetime.

Praise for Tade Thompson:

‘Breathtaking landscapes and intoxicating food and drink . . . endemic corruption, sultry sexuality and casual, slapdash violence . . . A rock-and-roll edge’ The Financial Times

‘Brutal, uncompromising and thought-provoking . . . superb’ M. W. Craven

‘A magnificent tour de force’ Adrian Tchaikovsky

‘Smart. Gripping. Fabulous!’ Ann Leckie

‘Mesmerising’ M. R. Carey

‘Quirky, compelling and thoroughly enjoyable’ Kate Ellis

‘A super start to the series’ Frances Brody

‘An entertaining murder mystery . . . witty’ L C Tyler

Buddhism, love, art and murder – welcome to the world of the Mindful Detective

When a famously narcissistic performance artist is found floating in a tank of formaldehyde at her own private view, suspicion falls on those closest to her . . .

Leading the murder investigation is DI Shanti Joyce, recently transferred from London to Yeovil following the collapse of her marriage and a case that went wrong. She soon concludes that the mystery requires left-field thinking, and when a colleague at the station suggests Vince Caine, aka the Mindful Detective, Shanti tracks him down to his remote cabin on the Undercliff at Lyme Regis.

The pair delve into the artist’s Bohemian circle and discover a hotbed of resentment and jealousy stretching all the way back to her scandalous art school days in Falmouth. But as they soon realise, the murderer is both canny and elusive – someone with a complex, warped motive who will do anything to point them elsewhere.

Has Shanti made the wrong decision enlisting the unconventional and enigmatic Caine? Can the unlikely mix of her down-to-earth pragmatism and his otherworldly intuition really prove a winning combination?

Or will a killer escape justice and leave Shanti’s reputation in tatters?

Alisha Barba’s dreams of being a detective were shattered when a murder suspect broke her back across a brick wall. Now on her feet again, with her police career in limbo, she receives a message from an old school friend, Cate Beaumont, who is eight months pregnant and in trouble.

On the night they arrange to meet, Cate is mown down by a car that kills her husband instantly. As paramedics fight to save her life they discover there is no baby. Her pregnancy is an elaborate lie, a cruel deception.

Why? What happened? As Alisha sets out to answer these questions she is drawn deeper and deeper into a dangerous quest that will take her from the East End of London to Amsterdam’s red light district and into a murky underworld of sex trafficking, slavery and exploitation.

A gripping thriller, with twists at every turn, The Night Ferry is Michael Robotham’s finest novel yet.

Every newly independent reader will be rolling on the floor – and has a chance to solve the mystery – in this wildly wacky mash-up of chapter book and graphic novel, with art on every page, interactive seek-and-find elements and more!

In this first book of the series, fifth-grade detective Logan Lang is facing the biggest case of her career. Someone – or something – is stealing everything that kids love. Toys! The amusement park carousel! Even the school playground! All of them sucked underground without a trace. Logan will have to team up with her longtime nemesis and super cop wannabe Gustavo Muchomacho if she wants to stop this subterranean scoundrel. With her serious doodling skills and his arsenal of high-tech sky mustaches, they’ll race against the clock to unearth a master criminal.

Bonus backmatter is loaded with extra puzzles, word jumbles, interactions for drawing suspects, and doodle activities!

***Discover your next reading obsession with Alex Gray’s bestselling Scottish detective series***

***Don’t miss the latest from Alex Gray. Book 20 in the Lorimer series, QUESTIONS FOR A DEAD MAN, is out now and Book 21, OUT OF DARKNESS, is available to pre-order.***

Whether you’ve read them all or whether this is your first Lorimer novel, GLASGOW KISS is perfect if you love Ian Rankin, Val McDermid and Ann Cleeves

Don’t miss the latest thrilling series instalment – BEFORE THE STORM IS OUT NOW

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING ABOUT THE LORIMER SERIES:

‘Warm-hearted, atmospheric’ ANN CLEEVES
‘Relentless and intriguing’ PETER MAY
‘Move over Rebus’ DAILY MAIL
‘Exciting, pacey, authentic’ ANGELA MARSONS
‘Superior writing’ THE TIMES
‘Immensely exciting and atmospheric’ ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH
_______________

Eric Chalmers is one of the most popular teachers at Muirpark Secondary School in Glasgow. So when precocious teenager Julie Donaldson accuses Chalmers of rape, the school goes into shock.

With some students and teachers supporting Julie, and others standing by Chalmers, life at Muirpark is far from harmonious. And then Julie Donaldson goes missing, and the police are called in.

For DCI William Lorimer, this is the second missing persons case in a week. He’s been having sleepless nights about a toddler who has been missing for several days. With hope fading, it becomes a breakneck race against time to find both missing girls.

Even the mysterious world of Harmony has people who don’t quite fit in. They’re drawn to places like Rainshadow Island, a beautiful sanctuary where anyone can feel safe – and where secrets are closely guarded. Schooled in an exotic form of martial arts and with the ability to detect the auras of dangerous psychic criminals, Rachel Bonner and her dust bunny companion have found peace and quiet on Rainshadow Island, operating a bookstore and café. But her tranquil new life is thrown into chaos when Harry Sebastian, the descendant of a notorious pirate, arrives to investigate strange developments in the privately owned woods known as the Preserve.

Immediately drawn to the amber-eyed woman, Harry must tread carefully. While Rachel’s special talents can help him track down dangerous rogues who have violated the Preserve, they can also sense the heart of darkness within him. But desire can weaken the strongest of defenses – and leave even the strongest man wanting more . . .

‘Thought-provoking and entertaining, this highly original first-contact story should please any science fiction reader.’ – School Library Journal

‘Mind-expanding science fiction at its best; it is no surprise that it has been shortlisted for all the main science fiction awards.’ – THE TIMES

The great sunliner ‘But the Sky, My Lady! The Sky!’ is nearing the end of a four-hundred-year journey. A ship-born generation is tense with expectation for the new system that is to be their home. Expecting to find nothing more complex than bacteria and algae, the detection of electronic signals from one of the planets comes as a shock. In millennia of slow expansion, humanity has never encountered aliens, and yet these new signals cannot be ignored. They suspect a fast robot probe has overtaken them, and send probes of their own to investigate.

On a world called Ground, whose inhabitants are struggling into the age of radio, petroleum and powered flight, a young astronomer searching for distant planets detects an anomaly that he presumes must be a comet. His friend, a brilliant foreign physicist, calculates the orbit, only to discover an anomaly of his own.

The comet is slowing down …

Reminding us that the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we CAN imagine, LEARNING THE WORLD is a stunning novel of exploration, discovery and Mankind’s destiny amongst the stars.

Books by Ken MacLeod:

Fall Revolution
The Star Fraction
The Stone Canal
The Cassini Division
The Sky Road

Engines of Light
Cosmonaut Keep
Dark Light
Engine City

Corporation Wars Trilogy
Dissidence
Insurgence
Emergence

Novels
The Human Front
Newton’s Wake
Learning the World
The Execution Channel
The Restoration Game
Intrusion
Descent

The Honorable Daisy Dalrymple-Fletcher is on a convalescent trip in the countryside, visiting old school friends. The three of them, all unmarried, have recently bought a house together. They are a part of the generation of ‘superfluous women’, brought up expecting marriage and a family, but left without any prospects after more than 700,000 British men were killed in the Great War.

Daisy and her husband Alec – Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher, of Scotland Yard – are invited for Sunday lunch, where one of the women mentions a wine cellar below the house which remains resolutely locked. Alec picks the lock but when he eventually opens the door, what greets them is not a cache of wine, but the stench of a dead body.

And with that, what was a pleasant Sunday lunch becomes a much darker affair. Now Daisy’s three friends are the suspects in a murder and her husband Alec is a witness.. So before the local detective, DI Underwood, can officially bring charges against her friends, Daisy is determined to use all her resources and skills to solve the mystery behind this perplexing locked-room crime.

Critical Praise for The Daisy Dalrymple novels by Carola Dunn:

“The period sense remains vivid, the characterizations are excellent, and the mysteries are, if anything, more perplexing than ever.” The Oregonian on Rattle His Bones

“Styx and Stones is a swift, deeply enjoyable read. While Dunn’s influences are many, she ultimately makes this territory her own.” The Register-Guard

“Reading like an Agatha Christie thriller, Rattle His Bones is a charming look at life after the first World War.” Romantic Times

“Dunn captures the melting pot of Prohibition-era New York with humorous characterizations and a vivid sense of place, and with careful plotting lays out an enjoyable tale of adventure.” Publisher’s Weekly on The Case of the Murdered Muckraker

Charlie Tickler has been unceremoniously dumped with his sedentary, tv-obsessed grandparents in the village of Castle-on-the-Hudson, while his parents are off to Africa to save gorillas. Castle-on-the-Hudson may not have cell phone or Internet service, but it does have murder, intrigue, and a school for the deaf. Lonely and bored, Charlie decides to visit the library, where he meets an elderly deaf woman who looks frightened and tries to tell him something. But Charlie doesn’t understand, and when it looks like the woman has disappeared, he searches for an answer. The answer comes by way of Frog-a local girl who is deaf. She reveals the woman’s desperate message: dead. Charlie has no idea what this could mean, but Frog sees this as a chance to solve a real life mystery, just like her favorite fictional detective character, Dorrie McCann.


Now, Charlie must learn sign language to fully communicate with Frog, who despite being deaf interacts easily with everyone she meets. Charlie is a fast learner, and not only finds new ways to communicate his feelings, but also forges a lasting friendship.