‘I think it will comfort her,’ Gus answered. ‘My dear Cousin Vicky, I wish to raise a stone to the memory of the brave man who gave his life for us. Here, on the shore, or on the headland in front of the house – we have not decided.’
‘How about outside the bedroom windows?’ I suggested.
They were used to my frivolous comments; they had decided to treat them as instances of stiff upper lip.
‘We have been discussing the epitaph,’ Schmidt said. ‘I favour something like “
‘“To die for one’s country”? Not too appropriate, Schmidt.’
‘But it sounds so well in Latin.’
‘It is all wrong,’ Gus insisted. ‘There is a verse in the Bible – in English it is like this: “Greater love hath no man . . .”’
‘Something from Shakespeare,’ Schmidt exclaimed. ‘He is full of excellent quotations, and what could be more fitting for an English nobleman than the great English poet?’
They went on arguing. Neither of them really gave a damn for my opinion, and I didn’t offer it. They would have been scandalized at the quotation I favoured as most apropos.
I couldn’t be absolutely certain; but Max shared my doubts, and Max knew him well. The opportunity had been too good to pass up – a chance to vanish in a cloud of glory, avoiding awkward questions that might be asked by unsentimental parties on shore, such as the police and the surviving members of Leif’s organization. Nobody but me had seen any significance in the disappearance of certain articles of old clothing from Axel Foger’s storage shed. In the confusion and excitement of that eventful evening, things were bound to be mislaid.
‘Of his bones are coral made?’ Not bloody likely. But it reminded me of another quotation from the great English poet – from the same play, in fact. John would have been the first to appreciate it.
‘He hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows.’
Borrower of the Night
by Elizabeth Peters
A missing masterwork in wood, the very last creation of a master carver who died during the turmoil of sixteenth-century Germany, may be hidden in the medieval castle in the town of Rothenburg. This mystery is just too tempting for Vicky Bliss, art historian extraordinaire, to resist. Soon Vicky and her arrogant male colleague become immersed in the forbidding citadel and its dark secrets.
The treasure hunt quickly turns deadly. Here, where the blood of the long dead stains ancient stones, Vicky faces two possibilities: either a powerful supernatural evil inhabits the place, or a human enemy all too real and willing to kill for what Vicky may uncover.
?6.99 paperback
Street of the Five Moons
by Elizabeth Peters
What does it all mean? The note with the hieroglyphs was found in the pocket of a man lying dead in an alley. The man also possessed a small piece of jewellery, a reproduction of the Charlemagne talisman. The reproduction is so exquisite that expert art historian Vicky Bliss thought she was being shown the real thing . . .
Vicky doesn’t know what to make of it all yet. She packs her bags for the sun-drenched streets and moonlit courtyards of Rome determined to find the answers, even if it kills her. But that dangerously exciting Englishman might just get in her way before she gets the answers she wants.
?6.99 paperback
Trojan Gold
by Elizabeth Peters
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but the photograph Vicky Bliss has just received gives rise to a thousand questions instead. The blood-stained envelope is all the proof she needs that something is horribly wrong.
The photograph itself is very familiar: a woman dressed in the gold of Troy. Yet this isn’t the famous photograph of Frau Schliemann – this photograph is contemporary. And the gold, as Vicky and her fellow academics know, disappeared at the end of the Second World War.
Vicky and her fellow experts gather to renew the search and enjoy a festive Bavarian Christmas together. Their efforts are soon marred by a determined killer in their midst . . .
?6.99 paperback
Night Train to Memphis
by Elizabeth Peters
Vicky Bliss is the first to admit she doesn’t know a thing about Egyptology. But her familiarity with criminality brings an intelligence agency to her office with an offer she can’t refuse: they want her as an undercover operative on a luxury Nile cruise because certain information has come their way that a major theft of Egyptian antiquities is in the works.
Vicky suspects the man they are seeking is her occasional lover and frequent adversary, Sir John Smythe. Then, on the first day of her Nile cruise, she spots him – with a beautiful woman clinging to his arm.
Stunned and furious, Vicky is too preoccupied with her own feelings to concentrate on crime – but then one of the crew is brutally murdered and Vicky finds she must put all her emotions aside and join forces with her duplicitous lover if she wants to solve the case . . .
Published April 2008
?6.99 paperback
