Showing results by author "Sally Spencer" in All Categories

For countless millennia, the dwarves of the have defended the stone gateway into Girdlegard. Many and varied foes have hurled themselves against the portal and died attempting to breach it. No man or beast has ever succeeded. Until now. . . Abandoned as a child, Tungdil the blacksmith labors...

Blackstone and the Rendezvous with Death is an expertly plotted Victorian mystery that will keep listeners guessing to the last minute. The body of a young man fished out of the Thames is of little interest to Londoners caught up in the excitement of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Yet to Inspector Sam Blackstone, the case is as puzzling as any he has ever come across. Why should a corpse dressed in the rags of a commoner have the face of a gentleman? And if this man does belong to noble stock, why has no one come forward to claim the body?

The entire audience at the George Theatre saw Charlotte Devaraux stab William Kirkpatrick with a fake dagger, but they gasped even more when they realized he was dead. Assisted by Sergeant Patterson and Dr. Ellie Carr, Blackstone follows the trail of the killer.

A series of kidnappings seemed like straightforward, run-of-the-mill crimes at first, but Inspector Sam Blackstone soon realises they are anything but. This gang is so ruthless that it shocks even the hardened London criminal underworld. And it is plain to Blackstone that this is just a preliminary skirmish - that the gang ultimately intends to play for much larger stakes. But Blackstone's problems are only just beginning.

December 1916. Inspector Sam Blackstone is suspicious when he is called to the office of Superintendent Brigham - the new head of Special Branch. A German traitor wants £25,000 in exchange for intelligence on U-boat locations, and 'Max' has specifically asked for Blackstone to be the one to deliver the money - alone. Blackstone and his sergeant, Archie Patterson, are certain there's more to it, but Blackstone can't turn down the job.

A nameless victim. An unknown killer. An impossible case for Monika Paniatowski. Before she can even begin to track down the killer of the old woman dumped by the lonely canal, Monika Paniatowski needs to find out who she is - and no one seems to know. Even when her daughter Louisa provides the vital clue, it only makes life more difficult, because the Chief Constable - intent on making Paniatowski's life difficult - refused to let her follow the obvious trail.

August, 1900. William Holt, a reclusive millionaire businessman, has been kidnapped from his grand Coney Island home after the brutal murder of his two bodyguards. Soon, a huge ransom is demanded, and the victim’s two sons are given just days to find the money. Inspector Sam Blackstone, now seconded to the New York Police Department, and his partner, Alex Meade, are charged with solving the case, but they’ll need to keep their wits about them if they are to solve it in time...

The last thing Inspector Sam Blackstone wants to do is investigate the murder of a young lieutenant on the Western Front, but he owes a debt to General Fortesque - the soldier’s grandfather. Once he arrives at the front line, it does not take him long to realise that he is completely out of his depth. The officers resent his presence, and the enlisted men refuse - or do not dare - to talk to him. As thousands are slaughtered around him, Blackstone struggles to solve one of the most difficult cases of his career.

It will be no easy task to fill the shoes of a local legend like DCI Charlie Woodend, the newly promoted Monika Paniatowski tells herself – particularly when he’s still a very real presence in Whitebridge – but given a little time, she thinks she can grow into them. Yet time is the one thing she does not have. On her first day in the new job, a severed female hand is discovered on the riverbank. And not only that, but the killer has already alerted the pres

This is volume one of Guts, Grit, and the Grind, a book series akin to a Chicken Soup for the Man’s Soul. Here you will find stories of mental health challenges of men, written by men, for men in similar circumstances - inspiring stories of resilience, recovery, and transformation. The resource is also a workbook, similar to an automobile owners manual, using car metaphors many men can relate to like "preventative maintenance", "troubleshooting", and "check engine".

The colliery village of Bellingsworth is already divided over an impending strike, so the last thing it needs is a murder - but that's exactly what it gets, when a retired miner called Len Hopkins is found battered to death in his outside lavatory. Detective Chief Inspector Monika Paniatowski, called in to track down the killer with all possible speed, finds herself working in an atmosphere as thick with suspicion and distrust as the mine is with coal dust.

It is a worried letter for Tom Yardley, an old army comrade who once saved his life, that takes Inspector Sam Blackstone to the salt mining village of Marston. But by the time he arrives there, Yardley is already dead blown to pieces in what was apparently a freak accident. Acting strictly unofficially, Blackstone begins to investigate Yardley's convenient death. It does not take him long to realise that there is true evil lurking in and under the village.

When Captain Robert Kineally went missing from Haverton American Army base in Devon in 1944, it was generally assumed he had lost his nerve and deserted. But now, 20 years after the war, a body found on the near-derelict base seems to tell an entirely different story.

Would a man really use his dying breath to play Russian roulette with his soul? If what Fred Howerd revealed under the seal of confession is true, then a grave miscarriage of justice has been allowed to lie festering for over 20 years - and that, for the Whitebridge police, is political dynamite. DCI Monika Paniatowski argues with the Chief Constable that it will be almost impossible to solve a case which is almost history. But the real reason for her reluctance to take it on is more to do with her own past....

DS Charlie Woodend has a murder to solve. Trouble is, nobody seems to want him to solve it. Not Eddie, a Liverpudlian thug sent to threaten him; not DCI Bentley; not Deputy Commissioner Naylor, whose word is law in Scotland Yard; not even the dead girl's mother herself. But Woodend cares. He will find the murderer, he promises himself, even if that means putting his career and perhaps even his own life on the line.

July 1900: Sam Blackstone has gone to New York to pick up a prisoner, but he soon finds himself drafted in to investigate the murder of Inspector O’Brien who is famed for rooting out police corruption. Working with an enthusiastic young detective who worshipped O’Brien, Blackstone scours the city in search of the killer. And the more he searches, the more he becomes convinced that the police department doesn’t really want the murder to be solved.

When a young girl, Jill Harris, is murdered, the case soon becomes personal for Monika Paniatowski. She saw the victim looking distressed only hours before she was killed, and Jill was the same age as her own daughter, Louisa. Driven by guilt and pity, Monika throws herself into the investigation, but both the chief constable, who is away, and Colin Beresford - her right-hand man - think she is too emotionally involved to handle it. What none of them know is that the killer is planning to strike again....

The new Charlie Woodend mystery - Angela Jackson has been missing for over 24 hours and, in the opinion of Dr. Stevenson, the psychiatrist who Woodend turns to for advice, her kidnapper will first torture and then kill her. With damaging strains operating within his own team, the more the investigation proceeds the less hope Woodend can see. And he knows deep within himself that he will fail in bringing Angela back alive....

Headspace for the Workplace – A Podcast on How to Cultivate a Vibrant and Psychologically Safe and Healthy Workforce with your host Dr. Sally Spencer-ThomasIn our brain-based economy, we depend on fully engaged, mentally healthy teams. Organizations that have figured this out not only have a competitive advantage, they are awesome places to work. Take a listen to the lessons learned and actionable take-aways to promote mental health and wellbeing and support people through tough times – at work.

DCI Monika Paniatowski has a bitter personla history with Chief Superintendent Kershaw, but that is not the only reason she doesn’t want the investigation into the sudden – and probably violent – disappearance of his wife, Elaine, landing on her desk. Why should all the resources be channelled into this one case?Why doesn’t somebody take an interest in the disappearance of a young prostitue called Grace Meade?