'An outstanding series' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

A Bill Slider Mystery

Award-winning ex-Guardian hack Phoebe Agnew has a reputation for attacking the police in print. So when her strangled body is found in her chaotic flat, Detective Inspector Bill Slider must abide by the impartiality of the law and find her killer.

On the day of her death the seemingly undomesticated Agnew cooked an elaborate meal for someone. It may have been her old friend and reputed lover, the government advisor Josh Prentiss, but his powerful Home Office friends are pressuring Slider to look elsewhere.

Unidentified fingerprints, missing items, alibis offered when not required - Slider is under pressure to untangle this web of lies and hidden relationships. For Phoebe Agnew was concealing a secret, which someone ass willing to kill - and kill again - to protect ...

Praise for the Bill Slider series:

'Slider and his creator are real discoveries'
Daily Mail

'Sharp, witty and well-plotted'
Times

'Harrod-Eagles and her detective hero form a class act. The style is fast, funny and furious - the plotting crisply devious'
Irish Times

About the Author
Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is the author of the hugely popular Morland Dynasty novels, which have captivated and enthralled readers for decades. She is also the author of the contemporary Bill Slider mystery series, as well as her recent series, Ashmore Castle, and War at Home, which is an epic family drama set against the backdrop of World War I. Cynthia's passions are music, wine, horses, architecture and the English countryside.

Reviews
Harrod-Eagles unleashes an effective, dark-edged tale and serves up a truly nasty villain into the bargain... [She] gracefully builds upon her habitually elegant procedural stylings to deliver taut psychological suspense. * Publishers Weekly *
The books work so well because the author manages to infuse them with a warmth and wit that lingers on after the last page is turned. * Yorkshire Post *
Sharp, witty and well-plotted. * Times *
This is an excellent, solidly professional police story: well-written, with well-drawn characters and a neatly dovetailed plot. * Evening Standard *
Harrod-Eagles is a master of the telling phrase or the catchy put-down. Reading her is a joy. * Irish Times *
There are plenty of suspects for old Bill Slider and his team, and a whole fishmonger's full of red herrings. Harrod-Eagles is a wonderfully assured, compelling plotter, and her hero is as appealing as ever. * Yorkshire Post *
The charm oozed by Bill, who is a normal person with personal problems struggling to survive in a cruel world through humour and wit...a unique novel that gives readers a glimpse of an England rarely seen in this sub-genre. -- HARRIET KLAUSNER
The ebullient Detective Inspector Bill Slider is in good form in Cynthia Harrod-Eagles's new mystery. It's a good puzzle, with well-rounded characters and, fans will be happy to hear, plenty of the usual dreadful puns * Sunday Telegraph *
Each plot twist, including one devious turn that throws suspicion on a former member of Slider's murder squad, hangs on the testimony of complicated characters who are among the author's finest stock. Nobody is exactly what he or she seems: not the victim, not even Slider, who has reason to examine his own * New York Times Book Review *
Confident and lucid * Seattle Times *
Phoebe Agnew, hack journalist and no great fan of the police, is found dead. The army of suspects includes a plethora of police and politicians. Just what was Phoebe researching when she died and why were there no notes left in her pigsty of a flat? The writing is often atmospheric, entertaining us with keen character studies * SHOTS ON THE PAGE *
Harrod-Eagles delivers snappy prose and a ripping tour through the British music world. * Mostly Murder *
BLOOD SINISTER is stuffed with clues into the psychology of characters who think they are being oh-so-clever about guarding their secrets. Even so, the events leadings up to the murder of Phoebe Agnew, a beautiful, wild and untidy left-wing journalist with friends and lovers in London's highest political places, are a true puzzlement right to the end * NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW *
Her characters are deliciously droll, and she writes with all her customary biting wit and a complexity all too rare in mystery fiction. * KIRKUS REVIEWS *



Book Information
ISBN 9780751575392
Author Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint Sphere
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 200g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 126mm * 20mm