Ridpath, Michael – The Bell Bookshop

The Diplomat’s Wife

Emma — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

TO LOVE, HONOUR, AND BETRAY…’One of our finest thriller writers.’ Daily Mail1936: Devastated by the death of her beloved brother Hugh, Emma seeks to keep his memory alive by wholeheartedly embracing his dreams of a communist revolution. But when she marries an ambitious diplomat, she must leave her ideals behind and live within the confines of embassy life in Paris and Nazi Berlin. Then one of Hugh’s old comrades reappears, asking her to report on her philandering husband, and her loyalties are torn.1979: Emma’s grandson, Phil, dreams of a gap-year tour of Cold War Europe, but is nowhere near being able to fund it. So when his beloved grandmother determines to make one last trip to the places she lived as a young diplomatic wife, and to try to solve a mystery that has haunted her since the war, he jumps at the chance to accompany her. But their journey takes them to darker, more dangerous places than either of them could ever have imagined…’Thoroughly engaging. Prewar Europe has rarely been evoked with the skill that Ridpath displays here.’ Financial Times

Sea Of Stone

Emma — Thu, 05 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Oli and Magnus Jonson have spent years trying to escape from the shadows of their past. Raised by their grandparents in BjarnarhÃ¯ ¿ ½fn, a remote farmstead in Iceland, both brothers had to endure brutal violence at the hands of their grandfather – forever paying the price for their mother’s alcoholism and untimely death. Now, two decades later, the past has returned to haunt them both. When Constable PÃ¯ ¿ ½ll Gylfason gets a dispatch call to investigate a suspected homicide in a remote farmstead, he is surprised to find that Detective Magnus Jonson is already at the scene. Magnus identifies the dead man as his estranged grandfather. As PÃ¯ ¿ ½ll begins to review the crime scene it becomes apparent that forensic evidence has been tampered with and that Magnus’ version of events doesn’t add up. Before long, Magnus is arrested for the murder of his grandfather. When it emerges that his younger brother, Oli, is in Iceland after two decades in America, PÃ¯ ¿ ½ll begins to think that Magnus may not be the only family member in the frame for murder… Can Magnus prove his innocence without implicating his brother? And can both men get to the heart of the twisted secrets that blighted their childhoods? What unfolds is a tale of familial ties and bloodthirsty vengeance, of isolated communities scarred by the tragedies of the past – and of a final, painful reckoning.

Meltwater

Emma — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Operation Meltwater: FreeFlow, a group of internet activists committed to the freedom of information have video evidence of a military atrocity in the Middle East and have chosen Iceland as their HQ while they prepare to unleash their greatest coup on the world’s media. On the glacial rim of erupting volcano EyjafjallajÃ¯ ¿ ½kull, they christen their endeavour Operation Meltwater. Minutes later, in the steam and mist, one of them is murdered. The list of people Freeflow has antagonized is long – the Chinese government, Israeli military, a German Bank, Italian politicians, even American College Fraternities. Magnus Jonson has a long list of suspects but he’s getting precious little help from FreeFlow – for an organization dedicated to the transparency of information, they’re a secretive bunch.But they are not the only ones with secrets. Asta, a newly qualified priest, has contacted FreeFlow with information about a scandal in the church. Her involvement with FreeFlow will cost her dear.And with the return of Magnus’s brother Ollie to Iceland, the feud that has haunted their family for three generations is about to reignite.

66 North

Emma — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Ancient blood feuds and modern conspiracies: Magnus Jonson discovers that vengeance, in Iceland, is best served at arctic temperatures…Iceland 1934: Two boys playing in the lava fields that surround their isolated farmsteads see something they shouldn’t have. The consequences will haunt them and their families for generations. Iceland 2009: the credit crunch bites. The currency has been devalued, banks nationalized, savings annihilated, lives ruined. Grassroots revolution is in the air, as is the feeling that someone ought to pay… ought to pay the blood price. And in a country with a population of just 300,000 souls, in a country where everyone knows everybody, it isn’t hard to draw up a list of exactly who is responsible. And then, one-by-one, to cross them off. Iceland 2010: As bankers and politicians start to die, at home and abroad, it is up to Magnus Jonson to unravel the web of conspirators before they strike again. But while Magnus investigates the crimes of the present, the crimes of the past are catching up with him.

Where the Shadows Lie

Emma — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Amid Iceland’s wild, volcanic landscape, rumours swirl of an eight-hundred-year-old manuscript inscribed with a long-lost saga about a ring of terrible power. A rediscovered saga alone would be worth a fortune, but, if the rumours can be believed, there is something much more valuable about this one. Something worth killing for. Something that will cost Professor Agnar Haraldsson his life.Untangling murder from myth is Iceland-born, Boston-raised homicide detective Magnus Jonson. Seconded to the Icelandic Police Force for his own protection after he runs afoul of a drug cartel back in Boston, Magnus also has his own reasons for returning to the country of his birth for the first time in nearly two decades – the unsolved murder of his father. And as Magnus is about to discover, the past casts a long shadow in Iceland.Binding Iceland’s landscape and history, secrets and superstitions in a strikingly original plot that will span several volumes, Where the Shadows Lie is the first in a thrilling new series from an established master.