Frances Fyfield Books In Order

A Question of Guilt

Cunning and evil, poisoned by a lifetime of love withheld, Eileen Cartwright has an unrivaled passion for revenge. When the rich middle aged widow falls in love with her solicitor, she cold bloodedly arranges for his wife’s murder, and Helen West and Geoffrey Bailey are assigned to investigate the case. HC: Pocket.

Deep Sleep

Pip Carlton is a high street pharmacist a good son and a devoted husband, cherished by his loyal customers. He is distraught when, very suddenly, his wife Margaret dies. But not everyone believes that she simply slipped away. The author won a CWA Silver Dagger Award for ‘Trial by Fire’.

Shadow Play

A brilliant suspense novel of the London courts from the ‘splendidly accomplished’ Frances Fyfield Chicago TribuneIn Shadow Play, Frances Fyfield hones her powers of writerly suspense to give us a sophisticated, psychologically gripping tale about crimes of the most twisted passions. The odd, vaguely menacing little man called Mr. Logo is a familiar figure in the old court building in London. Although frequently brought before the magistrate for indecent assault, he is invariably acquitted due to lack of evidence. He is especially familiar to Helen West, the take no prisoners Crown Prosecutor who has just failed for the fifth time to prosecute him. Now he is off limits to her until his next appearance in court. Yet, when she befriends Rose, the young, compulsively secretive and promiscuous clerk in the office, Helen West unwittingly sets in motion events that will dangerously complicate her connection to Mr. Logo and push his rage and dark passion to lethal extremes.’There are crime writers whom we think of primarily as novelists…
. There is no one higher on this list than Frances Fyfield.’ P. D. James

A Clear Conscience

Helen West, Crown prosecutor in domestic violence court, is working up a good case of burnout: justice by the book doesn’t seem to be working for the women she represents. Plus, Helen’s love affair with Police Superintendent Geoffrey Bailey is losing its fire. Things suddenly heat up when Helen learns that humble Cath, her cleaning woman, is being beaten by her husband. Cath has no family her beautiful brother, Damien, has recently been brutally murdered and needs all the help she can get. But as the truth of Cath’s young life, marriage, and her brother’s murder begin to take shape, help and justice seem hard to come by…
and may prove forever beyond reach.

Without Consent

Frances Fyfield’s writing has been called ‘brilliant’ The Cleveland Plain Dealer, ‘elegant and unnerving’ The New York Times Book Review, and ‘splendidly accomplished’ Chicago Tribune. Now, in this stylish mystery she hones her powers of writerly suspense and keen characterization to a new edge. No nonsense attorney Helen West possesses a rare combination of jaded pragmatism and well guarded vulnerability. Yet, rape is a crime that haunts her particularly her latest case where all the evidence all points to D. S. Ryan, the fellow police officer and best friend of her lover, Superintendent Geoffrey Bailey. But slowly, as West and Bailey delve into this seemingly open and shut crime, there emerges a man whose cold blooded intuition about women guarantees him a ready welcome and rape, even murder, without a trace.

Shadows On the Mirror

By day, Sarah Fortune works as a lawyer in a prestigious firm in Mayfair, but by night she provides lonely men with intimate company an arrangement with which she is happy until she becomes implicated with a dead body found off the English coast.

Perfectly Pure and Good

Sarah Fortune’s name belies her recent life. A beautiful red haired attorney, she’s still recovering from a macabre attack by a now deceased client, Charles Tysall, who became obsessed with her. Now the senior partner in her firm has asked her to travel to the seaside town of Merton to sort out a legacy left to the feuding Pardoe family. It is the same town where Tysall spent his summer holidays. Sarah arrives in Merton to find there is more to sort out than the huge, convoluted estate. And as she moves closer to the heart of the Pardoe family secrets, she also moves toward a confrontation with a tall, white haired vagrant who has begun to haunt the quay a malevolent and cunning ‘ghost’ out of Sarah’s own past.’Elegant and unnerving…
Another haunting story of romantic obsession.’ The New York Times Book Review

Staring At the Light

Someone has stolen the only person John Smith has ever loved his twin brother Cannon. Johnny will stop at nothing to get him back but Cannon doesn’t feel the same way any more. He’s married now, and he loves his wife. In a desperate effort to avoid Johnny’s destructive brotherly affections, Cannon enlists the aid of Sarah Fortune, a lawyer who has turned helping the needy and eccentric into something of an art form. Sarah hides Cannon’s wife for him, but she cannot quite trust Cannon’s judgement. Is Johnny really intent on inflicting unendurable pain on the woman who has hi jacked his brother’s affections? Sarah doesn’t really believe in evil, and it is that lack of faith which makes her shockingly vulnerable…

Half Light

When art restorer Elisabeth Young vanishes after accepting a commission from a mysterious wealthy collector, her lover, Francis Thurlow, and antiques dealer Annie Macalpine race against time to find her. By the author of The Playroom.

Blind Date

Frances Fyfield’s latest hero*ine, Elisabeth Kennedy, is a complicated, prickly ex-police detective, haunted by the memory of her younger sister’s murder, and recovering from a senseless, brutal attack that left her with physical scars and a fractured spirit. Determined to fight back, Elisabeth flees the safe confines of her mother’s seaside home to her life in an apartment atop a crumbling London bell tower, where she assumes she will be safe and anonymous. But she finds that even the most cloistered places are not sacrosanct–especially the human heart. As she tracks her quarry, Elisabeth is headed for something far more chilling than loneliness, more savage than self doubt…
.

‘A master of the art of claustrophobic suspense’– Boston Globe

‘An elegantly written and…
genuine whodunit’– San Francisco Chronicle

‘Fyfield writes vividly, with some of the Gothic quality of Dorothy L. Sayers and P. D. James…
irresistible.’– John Mortimer, Mail on Sunday

‘There are crime writers whom we think of primarily as novelists. They provide the psychological subtlety, intelligence, and excellent writing which are the hallmarks of first-class fiction. There is no one higher on this list than Frances Fyfield.’– P. D. James

Undercurrents

For twenty years, Henry Evans has been haunted by a blurred but shining memory of his lost love, Francesca Chisholm. Now this shy American has come looking for her, in her hometown on the English coast. What he discovers is not what he expects Francesca is in prison for murdering her five year old son. The verdict was never in doubt. Francesca confessed, and admitted to pushing her own son off the pier to drown in the dark Undercurrents of the sea. Henry, though, can’t believe it; it just doesn’t tally with the woman he knew. He decides to stay to discover the truth. In Undercurrents, Francis Fyfield plumbs the workings of the human soul in a masterful mix of brooding suspense, delicious characterization, precise plotting, and…
love. ‘Psychologically astute yet eminently readable, Undercurrents offers the tug of true suspense while probing the eerie confluence of love and loss.’ The Washington Post

The Nature of the Beast

Different people react to disasters in different ways. When an Intercity service traveling from Kent to London joins Paddington, Hatfield, and Selby in a deadly list of notoriety, it isn’t only fate who decides who is killed: one passenger uses the opportunity for argument to spill over into murder. Another blonde, beautiful Amy Petty sees the train crash as an opportunity to leave her life behind…

Seeking Sanctuary

When Theo Calvert was driven out of the family home by his wife’s cloying piety he had determined that his daughters would follow him, but in the face of the law, the girls’ health and his wife’s intransigence, he failed. But, if he lost the battle for their souls in life, he would make amends in death, craftily shaping his will to benefit them so long as they did not follow their mother’s example. His daughters felt they had lost either way, especially Anna. She had promiscuously turned her back on her mother’s teachings, but watched in horror as her sister Therese followed those same lessons and blindly accepted the faith which Anna was certain had ruined their lives. In her rebellion against such blind belief she at first doesn’t notice the worm in their midst when the convent where Therese has settled employs a new gardener. And when she does wake up to the danger she realises she may have left it too late to save their legacy and their lives.