Asking for Trouble: (Fran Varady 1)
When you create an account with us, you'll be able to save your favourite books, make a wishlist of upcoming titles, receive newsletters about books you'll love, get recommendations tailored to you and order our books directly.
Join us by creating an account and start getting the best experience from our website! Ann Granger introduces the unemployed and soon-to-be-homeless amateur sleuth Fran Varady in the first of this riveting crime series. Fran Varady is insolvent, unemployed and, though for the moment she's got the leaky roof of the squat she shares in Jubilee Street over her head, she'll very soon be homeless thanks to the council eviction department.
Her dreams of becoming an actress, nurtured when her father and grandmother were still alive, seem a long way off. But Fran is a survivor Terry, secretive and selfish, was far from popular with the rest of the household, but her death shakes the Jubilee Street Creative Artists' Commune, as the squat residents half-jokingly call themselves. And, the more Fran discovers about the death of the young woman whose life briefly intersected with her own, the more she begins to see it was not all it first seemed.
What good news to learn that there is a series! Ann Granger has lived in cities all over the world, since for many years she worked for the Foreign Office and received postings to British embassies as far apart as Munich and Lusaka.
Paperback Editions
She is now permanently based in Oxfordshire. Murder and mayhem prowl the highways and coffin paths of Medieval England. Hugh Corbett returns in the twentieth gripping mystery in Paul Doherty's ever-popular series. If you love the historical mysteries of C. Powell and Bernard Cornwell you will love this. It is four years since the death of King Edward I, but his reign of terror has cast long shadows over the kingdom.
At Holyrood Abbey, sheltered in the depths of the Welsh march, the old king's former bodyguards protect his secret relics and watch over a mysterious prisoner who is kept in the abbey's dungeon. But their peaceful existence is shattered when Abbot Henry is poisoned. Brothers Anselm and Richard have been brutally slain by nails driven deep into their skulls. No one knows who could be behind the gruesome killings and the news attracts the attention of two unwanted guests: As more mysterious deaths occur, and a violent snow storm sweeps through the valley, Corbett must act quickly to identify the malevolent demon who has risen from hell to turn the abbey into a house of murder.
Praise for Paul Doherty's dark and suspenseful novels: A powerful, compelling, vividly written Australian crime novel that will be perfect for fans of Peter May and Jane Harper. In an isolated country town ravaged by drought, a charismatic young priest opens fire on his congregation, killing five men before being shot dead himself. A year later, journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in Riversend to write a feature on the anniversary of the tragedy. But the stories he hears from the locals don't fit with the accepted version of events.
Asking for Trouble
Just as Martin believes he is making headway, a shocking discovery rocks the town. The bodies of two backpackers - missing since the time of the massacre - are found in the scrublands. The media descends on Riversend and Martin is the one in the spotlight. Wrestling with his own demons, Martin finds himself risking everything to uncover a truth that becomes more complex with every twist.
But there are powerful forces determined to stop him, and he has no idea how far they will go to make sure the town's secrets stay buried. Frankie Reece, stabbed through the heart, outside a corner shop. Others recruited from care homes, picked up and exploited; passed like gifts between gangs. They are London's lost. Then Raphaela Belsham is killed.
She's thirteen years old, her father is a man of influence, from a smart part of town. Suddenly, the establishment is taking notice.
Asking for Trouble (Fran Varady, #1) by Ann Granger
But he's facing his own turmoil, and it's becoming an obsession. DI Marnie Rome is worried, and she needs Noah on side. Because more children are disappearing, more are being killed by the day and the swelling tide of violence needs to be stemmed before it's too late.
Murder At High Oak. Murder in the Dark. The Zig Zag Girl. The Victim in Victoria Station. Murder at the Laurels. Kate Ellis Kate Ellis. The Shetland Series 7. A Fine Summer's Day. When the Music's Over. Death is a Word.
Reward Yourself
An Inspector Ramsay Novel 6. Murder in Steeple Martin. The Mill on the Shore: Malice in the Cotswolds. Blood in the Cotswolds. Slaughter in the Cotswolds.
Murder by the Barrel. A Fine Place for Death. Mud, Muck and Dead Things. A Better Quality of Murder. A Particular Eye for Villainy. Rack, Ruin and Murder.
Join Kobo & start eReading today
Where Old Bones Lie. Say it with Poison. The local housing council is on the verge of evicting them when one of the squatters is found dead -- it's made to look like an accident, but clearly there's signs of a struggle. The police suspect that the killer is one of the other squatters for no good reason, except these people don't have the power to avoid getting railroaded, or so the police think, I guess. Fran manages to finally convince them that none of them did it, but she sets out to find the killer. She didn't particularly like the victim, but no-one deserved what she got.
She ends up going to the victim's family home in the country, where she is truly a duck out of water. I highly recommend this book. Perhaps the reading of the book was particularly well done, and that's why I liked it, but I'm going to read more in the series. This book displays an unusual tentativeness for an author with a large number of previously published crime novels. Nevertheless, it is a refreshing addition to the genre. The main protagonist, Fran, is a very young homeless girl who is as naive as she is unpretentious.
She is the best characterisation of all the characters in this book - the remainder being somewhat two dimensional. Don't give up on this book though as Fran is a delightful character and one well worth following through the other parts of this series. I've become a fan of Ann Granger's Fran Varady series of novels. I particularly enjoy listening to Kim Hicks reading them.
- The Temptation of Words.;
- Whispers and Moans: Interviews with the Men and Women of Hong Kongs Sex Industry!
- Get A Copy.
- Geriatric Gastroenterology.
- A lively and gripping crime novel.
- Asking For Trouble!
Fran's a young woman who's struggling against homelessness, alone in the world with no family. She's a survivor, though, with a wry sense of humor and a prickly independence. This isn't the best of the books, but worth your listening time if you want to take a little mental trip to London - not the tourist's London but the London of people like Fran.
Get to Know Us.