F. H. R Keating

A delegation of visiting firemen arrives at Southampton, greeted by a stagecoach which carries a reception committee in early 19th century costume. This Old English greeting has been arranged between their president, Foster P. Schelemberger, and George Hamyadis, the flamboyant travel agent who is handling all the details of their visit to Britain....

Jack Stallworthy is a bad detective just on the right side of corrupt. But now he’s turning criminal...Detective Sergeant Jack Stallworthy has been accepting backhanders for most of his career. And why not? He’s spent thirty years putting villains behind bars, surely he’s entitled to a little nest-egg?Lily, the pretty wife he dearly...

Val Leary is handsome, charming and broke. On the morning of April Fools’ Day 1871, while walking through one of London’s wealthiest districts, he notices a young maidservant scrubbing the steps of 53 Northbourne Park Villas. In that instant he conceives the idea for a remarkable case of burglary. The set-up seems perfect, but chance...

This novel, set in Victorian London in its heyday, presents a picture, both horrific and authentic, of the 'underside' of life in the first city of the world. It tells of Godfrey Mann, a young painter, who has access to the golden world of privilege and yet is possessed by a compelling sexual drive towards the hidden squalor and darkness...

Is there anything in this troubled world quite as comforting as a good old-fashioned murder? H.R.F. Keating, doyen of modern detective writers, has little doubt that there's nothing like a corpse in a vicarage or country house conservatory to soothe away the tensions of modern living. In Murder Must Appetite the creator of Inspector Ghote makes an...

In the rough, tough world where predatory young beauty queens compete fiercely for money, a murder is committed. Police Constable Peter Lassington is soon enmeshed in a complicated mystery - a mystery made more than usually exotic by the acreage of young feminine flesh that is continuously on show at the Star Bowl ballroom, rehearsing for the...