Barbara Cleverly – författare

It is India 1922 and the wives of officers in the Bengal Greys have been dying violently, one each year and always in March. The only link between the bizarre but apparently accidental deaths is the bunches of small red roses that appear on the women's graves.When a fifth wife is found with her wrists cut in a bath of blood the Govenor rejects the verdict of suicide and calls in Joe Sandilands, an ex-soldier and Scotland Yard Detective. It becomes clear to Joe that the deaths are, indeed, a series of murders and they are have not yet run their course.Who will be the recipient of the next - and last - Kashmiri Roses? As he discovers the shocking truth Joe must work fast to unmask a killer whose motives are rooted in the dark history of India itself.

Simla 1922. The summer capital of the British Raj is fizzing with the energy of the jazz age. Commander Joe Sandilands is looking forward to spending a month here in the cool of the Himalayan hills as the guest of Sir George Jardine, the Governor of Bengal. When Joe's travelling companion, a Russian opera singer, is shot dead at his side in the back of the Governor's car on the road up to Simla, he finds himself plunged into a murder investigation.Confronted by the mystery of an identical unsolved killing a year before, Joe realizes that Sir George's hospitality comes at a price. Behind the sparkling façade of social life in Simla he finds a trail of murder, vice and blackmail. Someone in this close-knit community has a secret and the nearer Joe comes to uncovering it, the nearer he comes to his own death.

The North-West Frontier, 1910. The screams of a wounded British officer abandoned at the bottom of a dark ravine are heard by a young Scottish subaltern. Ignoring the command to retreat back to base the Highlander sets out alone, with dagger in hand, to rescue his fellow officer from the Pathan tribesmen who are slowly torturing him to death.Over a dozen years later the backwash of this tragedy threatens to engulf Joe Sandilands. After a skirmish which results in the death of a Pathan prince and the taking of hostages, Joe is given seven days in which to identify, arrest and execute the killer before the frontier erupts into war. Drawing on all his courage and detective skills Joe must find out who the murderer is before more bloody deaths occur, the legacy of a bitter feud with its roots hidden deep in the past.

1926, and Joe Sandilands is back from India, enjoying the frantic pleasures of Jazz Age London. Yet, there is a darkness behind all that postwar gaiety. A woman has been discovered bludgeoned to death in her suite at the Ritz. A broken window and missing emerald necklace suggest that it is a burglary gone wrong. But the corpse is that of a much-respected member of the British establishment, Dame Beatrice Joliffe, one of the founders of the Wrens, and so Scotland Yard send Joe to conduct a swift enquiry. Her companion, an ex-chorus girl, falls from Waterloo Bridge at twilight. Two of the Dame's clique of eager young Wrens commit suicide. All these deaths make Joe suspect that Beatrice has been killed by someone close to her but suddenly he finds that the case is closed and he is asked by his superiors to surrender his files. Against the background of the looming General Strike, and pressure from unseen governmental presences he struggles on, picking his way through the political panic and rebelling against authority, through to a shattering solution to the killings.

Joe Sandilands has been despatched to France to stay as the guest of a glamorous French war-widow on her Champagne estate. The widow is determined that Joe should support her claim that a mysterious shell-shocked soldier, suffering from amnesia and a loss of speech is her husband. The problem is that four other claimants have identified him differently, and his doctor suspects he is an English soldier.Joe decides to investigate the four claimants and picks his way through a tangle of lies, deceit, and manipulation, discovering that each of the four has an undeclared motive for claiming the unknown soldier. He uncovers a cleverly concealed murder committed during the war years and during this pursuit he finds out who the soldier really is. The discovery presents him with an even greater dilemma, he must not only to solve a killing in the past, but avert a tragedy in the future.Praise for Barbara Cleverly's Previous Novels'A delight' The Observer for Folly du Jour'Colourful historical detail with a modern rendition of the classic mystery novel' The Observer.'Cleverly's (novel) evokes and in some ways surpasses, the work of Agatha Christie.' Publishers Weekly'A well-plotted novel... The atmosphere of the dying days of the Raj is colourfully captured.' Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph'The historical background is as fascinating as the murder. Stiff upperlip soldiers, American heiresses, handsome Afghan tribesmen - they are all here in spades. A great blood and guts blockbuster.' Guardian'Solidly plotted throughout, with lots of energy and all period accoutrements up to scratch and true to the Raj.' Literary Review