Books by Miles Craven

Cheshire 1813. A tale set against the turbulent backdrop of Luddite riots and the final years of the Napoleonic Wars. Robbie Enright is a teenage orphan indentured at a remote cotton-spinning mill called Providence, owned by the eminent Samuel Stead. In this highly-successful enterprise reliant on child labour all is not as it seems, however. Several of the female hands have disappeared, supposedly escaping from the mill¿s harsh discipline. Robbie, suspecting a terrible secret, is forced to contend with the mill¿s authorities, not least Titus Bredlow, the sadistic overlooker. Bright and courageous, Robbie has no resources and only one friend: Ned Wainwright, a notorious Luddite and a wanted man. Against the odds he is determined to expose the truth ¿ not least because he¿s fallen in love with the mill¿s newest arrival ¿ pretty Mary Pepper.

January 1793. France has executed its king, and war on Britain is declared one month later. Set against this volatile backdrop is the first in a series of cases and adventures for 26 year-old Yorkshire attorney, John Eagle. Struggling to establish his practice after the death of his curmudgeonly partner, John balances mainstream legal business with assisting local magistrate, Sir Walter Stanhope, who relies on his brains when dealing with weighty matters. Sir Henry Ibbetson, prominent Leeds merchant and fellow JP, has been found mysteriously dead, run through with his own sword on Sir Walter¿s land. It¿s a case for the Leeds authorities, yet Sir Walter, using John¿s talents, insists on investigating the murder himself. But what does he have to hide and why is he pushing his sleuthing prodigy in a single direction which John discovers to be false? It soon transpires that a number of individuals have cause for wanting the rich merchant dead. Among an overlapping mosaic of suspects, including the murdered man¿s son, disgruntled relatives of sentenced felons, local radicals hell-bent on fermenting revolution, the young attorney, thwarted on all sides, resolves to go it alone.

Becky O'Donovan, an attractive young weather presenter, abruptly walks out of a family function at a country hotel near York. Leaving friends and loved ones behind, she heads west on foot. She walks many miles in the same direction, drawn by a force that she doesn't understand and can't resist. It soon turns out that west is west in more senses than one and Becky's life will never be the same again.

A young girl named Kitty, only daughter of Charles and Jane Evermore, a rich and respected couple, mysteriously disappears one afternoon from the family home in the Gloucestershire countryside. The police are baffled, as there are no traces of Kitty¿s whereabouts or clues as to how or why she vanished. Increasingly obsessed by a deep pond on a neighbour¿s land and the ramblings of a mysterious Irishman, her father is determined to search on alone.

In 1777 the young John Eagle moves to Yorkshire from London to begin his career as a junior attorney with senior partner, Abraham Balme, a curmudgeonly man who lives only for money and his spiteful elderly mother. John finds himself taking sides, not with Balme but with the ill-treated managing clerk, Tom Gill, and the downtrodden maid, Sukey. As he goes about his business, John proves an able attorney and is soon handling several delicate and, it transpires, connected cases. There is the death of his old friend, Richard Hudson, mysteriously found drowned in the Aire. He soon suspects it was no accident and may be linked to a renegade character, Long Larkin, who from his grim mansion on the moors is engaged in illegal coining activities and terrorises the locality. John forms a friendship with Sir Walter Spencer-Stanhope, a magistrate and prominent landowner. As the main authority in these parts, Sir Walter ought to be prosecuting Larkin without hesitation. But he argues that the time is not right and that Larkin serves a purpose as the War of American Independence is raging, with harmful economic effects. As John struggles he wonders if he has bitten off more than he can chew.

In late 1999 parts of a dismembered body are found in a bin-bag by a jogger. DS Nick Thomas, whös assigned the case, feels there is no one he can trust. Meanwhile on one of the roughest council estates in Leeds, teenager Jamie Winn, known simply as J, steals and extorts on behalf of his criminal father, while elder brother Ricky is on the payroll of powerful mobster, William Maloney, whose tentacles reach to the very top of the city¿s hierarchy. More a howcatchem than a whodunit or a whydunnit, A Hiding to Nothing is a story of courage and redemption in the face of the gravest danger.

It is 1778 in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Sixteen-year-old Nell Cooper is doted on by her baronet father, Sir Patrick, a man acutely status conscious and highly susceptible of slights. He is a rich West India planter who brings home from Barbados a slave girl, Olu, as a ¿pet¿ for his daughter. The two girls are uneasy companions, each in their own way strong and defiant. Nell, through whose eyes the story is told, expects Olu to be a grateful, submissive slave happy with her lot, but, as she quickly discovers, this is far from being the case. Yet in spite of everything the two girls grow close, a development not lost on Sir Patrick who starts to regret bringing Olu home. Soon the baronet is having the pair watched, using as a spy his evil steward and attorney, Archibald Vine.

When mystery girl Perdita arrives in the small Welsh village of Pont Wan in 1959 the lives of its inhabitants, good, bad and downright evil, will never be the same again. While a few people grow to like the plucky young stranger, most remain hateful, laying all their ills at her door. Darkening the atmosphere further is the shadow of fifteenth-century witch and wisewoman, Mother Olwyn, who prophesied that the weak bridge from which the village took its name would one day fall for a third time, marking the end of the world. Judging by the poor state of the bridge, that time looks imminent.

Joe and Tess have spent seven years married, but not in bliss. Each fiercely proud and unwilling to be first to give in, their love becomes a cancerous war of worsening proportions as they deny each other affection and refuse to communicate. Miserable and hurt by Tess¿s drunken actions at a party, Joe leaves and drives away ¿ drives anywhere, as long as it¿s far from her. When he finds himself literally on a cliff edge, his pride leads to a strange chain of events that will have terrible consequences for them both.

It¿s Halloween 1793 and a teenage prostitute is found murdered, her body horribly mutilated. A new type of killer is stalking the muddy streets of Leeds and the authorities are perplexed. Worried about the loss of trade, the town corporation hires John Eagle to investigate. But other murders soon follow, each preceded by a cryptic note. The killer is clever and resourceful, challenging John to find him and break the chain of deaths. A battle of wits ensues in which the stakes for the young attorney have never been higher.

A six-level American English course that empowers adult learners to join any conversation, and say the right thing at the right time.

A six-level American English course that empowers adult learners to join any conversation, and say the right thing at the right time.

A six-level American English course that empowers adult learners to join any conversation, and say the right thing at the right time.

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