Catherine Shaw

Impeccably researched and devilishly clever murder mystery

The Library Paradox

A complete, step-by-step success kit for organizing, funding, publicizing, and winning local political campaigns.

Running and Winning Local Elections

The Campaign Manager

On New Year's Day, 1900, the brilliant violinist Sebastian Cavendish is found dead. The last few days of his life are a mystery, but in the final hours of 1899 he wrote a cryptic suicide note mentioning a 'cursed inheritance', took poison, and died in agony. Yet his friends and relations are utterly perplexed. The man they knew and grieve for was vivacious, exuberant and extroverted. His fellow musicians speak of his passion, his drive, and his love of living. The socialites he met, all of whom lavished him with praise, saw only a dazzling future ahead of him. So why, his loved ones ask, would he change his plans at such short notice, disappear for days on end, and take his own life? Established detective Vanessa Weatherburn is engaged to investigate the dead man's final movements. It is a journey which will reveal to her the science of genetics, the history of Sebastian's equally brilliant grandfather and the long-kept secrets of the Cavendish family. She must cross continents and trace every lead if she is to uncover the mystery of Sebastian's inheritance, and why it meant his death.

Fatal Inheritance

Alan Chan, the renowned designer with an impeccable eye for Asian artifacts, has amassed a remarkable collection of over 10,000 exquisitely designed and crafted pieces. This rare personal insight into the influences and inspirations behind acclaimed Hong Kong designer and collector Alan Chan gives an intimate view of the collection of objets he has fastidiously assembled throughout his life, and the creative process they have informed. The pioneering, award-winning, and self-taught designer is known for his inventive and innovative designs. Effectively organized by theme, from tea to dragons, and with an emphasis on objets produced for China Trade, many of the elegant pieces photographed for this book showcase Chan’s insatiably inquiring mind. They offer insights into how his passion for collecting drives his characteristically whimsical signature take on East and West, tradition and innovation, where there is always a twist of the unexpected. Part autobiography, part reflection on creativity, it is full of insights into Chan’s remarkable design process, making it a treat for the eyes and a valuable resource for new and established designers alike.

Collecting Inspiration for Design

Alan Chan

Cambridge, 1892. Four years have passed since Vanessa Duncan's memorable introduction to detective work, and her success at proving the innocence of the wrongly accused has not gone unnoticed. With the arrival of the formidable Mrs Bryce-Fortescue, Vanessa is once again called on to help solve a perplexing mystery. Mr George Burton Granger has been found shot dead at the edge of his manor estate. His wife Sylvia, daughter to Mrs Bryce-Fortescue, appears to be the police's main suspect. But could the fragile Sylvia really be capable of such an act? And who is the mysterious young man sighted on the day of the killing? Vanessa must delve into the innermost secrets of the suspects if she is to find the hidden solution.

Flowers Stained with Moonlight

Someone is killing professors one by one. Can young schoolmistress, Vanessa Duncan, solve the three-body problem?

The Three Body Problem

Cambridge, 1888. Miss Vanessa Duncan, a young schoolmistress, is enjoying her work and the intellectual atmosphere that pervades the town when things take a dramatic turn with the murder of a Fellow of Mathematics. Intrigued by the circumstances surrounding his death, and Sir Isaac Newton's unsolved 'n-body problem' upon which the man had been working, Vanessa is drawn into the mystery with a theory of her own.

The Three-Body Problem

Cambridge, 1888. When schoolmistress Vanessa Duncan learns of a murder at St John's College, little does she know that she will become deeply entangled in the mystery. Dr Geoffrey Akers, Fellow in Pure Mathematics, has been found dead, struck down by a violent blow to the head. What could provoke such a brutal act? Vanessa, finding herself in amongst Cambridge's brightest scholarly minds, discovers that the motive may lie in mathematics itself. Drawn closer to the case by a blossoming friendship with mathematician Arthur Weatherburn, Vanessa begins to investigate. When she learns of Sir Isaac Newton's elusive 'n-body problem' and the prestigious prize offered to anyone with a solution, things begin to make sense. But with further deaths occurring and the threat of an innocent man being condemned, Vanessa must hurry with her calculations...

Catherine Shaw

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