James Runcie

To be a major, prime-time six-part series Grantchester for PBS.

Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death

The second book in The Grantchester Mystery Series, and the inspiration for the primetime PBS/Masterpiece television series, Grantchester. The loveable full time priest and part time detective Canon Sidney Chambers continues his sleuthing adventures in late 1950's Cambridge. Accompanied by his faithful Labrador Dickens, and working in tandem with the increasingly exasperated Inspector Geordie Keating, Sidney is called on to investigate the unexpected fall of a Cambridge don from the roof of King's College Chapel; a case of arson at a glamor photographer's studio; and the poisoning of Zafar Ali, Grantchester's finest spin bowler, in the middle of a crucial game of cricket. As he pursues his quietly probing inquiries, Sidney also has to decide on the vexed question of marriage. Can he choose between the rich, glamorous socialite Amanda Kendall and Hildegard Staunton, a beguiling German widow three years his junior? To help him make up his mind Sidney takes a trip abroad, only to find himself trapped in a complex web of international espionage just as the Berlin Wall is going up. Here are six interlocking adventures that combine mystery with morality, and criminality with charm.

Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night

'A wise, refreshing novel, and a touching human story ... Runcie has an expert imagination' HILARY MANTEL Love and Death. Grief and Joy. Music that lasts forever. Leipzig, 1726. Eleven-year-old Stefan Silbermann, a humble organ-maker's son, has just lost his mother. Sent to Leipzig to train as a singer in the St Thomas Church choir, he struggles to stay afloat in a school where the teachers are as casually cruel as the students. Stefan's talent draws the attention of the Cantor – Johann Sebastian Bach. Eccentric, obsessive and kind, he rescues Stefan from the miseries of school by bringing him into his home as an apprentice. Soon Stefan feels that this ferociously clever, chaotic family is his own. But when tragedy strikes, Stefan's period of sanctuary in their household comes to a close. Something is happening, though. In the depths of his loss, the Cantor is writing a new work: the Saint Matthew Passion, to be performed for the first time on Good Friday. As Stefan watches the work rehearsed, he realises he is witness to the creation of one of the most extraordinary pieces of music that has ever been written. '[A] moving and fascinating portrait of a rare moment in musical history ... memorable and rewarding' LUCY JAGO

The Great Passion

From acclaimed bestselling author James Runcie, a meditation on grief and music, told through the story of Bach's writing of the St. Matthew Passion. In 1727, Stefan Silbermann is a grief-stricken thirteen-year-old, struggling with the death of his mother and his removal to a school in distant Leipzig. Despite his father's insistence that he try not to think of his mother too much, Stefan is haunted by her absence, and, to make matters worse, he's bullied by his new classmates. But when the school's cantor, Johann Sebastian Bach, takes notice of his new pupil's beautiful singing voice and draws him from the choir to be a soloist, Stefan's life is permanently changed. Over the course of the next several months, and under Bach's careful tutelage, Stefan's musical skill progresses, and he is allowed to work as a copyist for Bach's many musical works. But mainly, drawn into Bach's family life and away from the cruelty in the dorms and the lonely hours of his mourning, Stefan begins to feel at home. When another tragedy strikes, this time in the Bach family, Stefan bears witness to the depths of grief, the horrors of death, the solace of religion, and the beauty that can spring from even the most profound losses. Joyous, revelatory, and deeply moving, The Great Passion is an imaginative tour de force that tells the story of what it was like to sing, play, and hear Bach's music for the very first time.

While wrestling with the problem of evil and contemplating the nature of love, clerical detective Canon Sidney Chambers attempts to solve four different mysteries, which involve a serial killer, the disappearance of a famous painting, an "accidental" drowning and the kidnapping of a newborn baby. Original. 20,000 first printing.

Sidney Chambers and the Problem of Evil

The captivating prequel to the treasured Grantchester series follows the life, loves, and losses of young Sidney Chambers in postwar London. It is 1938, and eighteen-year-old Sidney Chambers is dancing the quickstep with Amanda Kendall at her brother Robert's birthday party at the Caledonian Club. No one can believe, on this golden evening, that there could ever be another war. Returning to London seven years later, Sidney has gained a Military Cross and lost his best friend on the battlefields of Italy. The carefree youth that he and his friends were promised has been blown apart, just like the rest of the world--and Sidney, carrying a terrible, secret guilt, must decide what to do with the rest of his life. But he has heard a call: constant, though quiet, and growing ever more persistent. To the incredulity of his family and the derision of his friends--the irrepressible actor Freddie and the beautiful, vivacious Amanda--Sidney must now negotiate his path to God: the course of which, much like true love, never runs smooth. The Road to Grantchester will delight new and old fans alike and finally tell the touching, engaging, and surprising origin story of the Grantchester Mysteries' beloved archdeacon.

The Road to Grantchester

Soon to be released as a major six-part television series for ITV, Grantchester.

Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins

Great Passion

Discovering the body of a man in the Cambridgeshire woods, priest and detective Sidney Chambers immerses himself in the 1970s counterculture of psychedelic plants, while his longtime friend, Detective Inspector Geordie Keating, investigates the disappearance of a historic religious text.

Sidney Chambers and the persistence of love

From the author of THE DISCOVERY OF CHOCOLATE – a romantic historical quest set in Renaissance Florence and China surrounding the search for ultramarine.

The Colour of Heaven

It's the summer of love in late 1960s England. Basil D'Oliveira has just been dropped from the English cricket team before for a test series in apartheid South Africa; the war in Biafra dominates the news; and the Apollo 11 astronauts are preparing to land on the moon. In the midst of all this change, Sidney Chambers, now Archdeacon of Ely Cathedral, is still up to his amateur sleuthing investigations. A bewitching divorcee enlists Sidney's help in convincing her son to leave a hippie commune; at a soiree on Grantchester Meadows during May Week celebrations, a student is divested of a family heirloom; Amanda's marriage runs into trouble; Sidney and Hildegard holiday behind the Iron Curtain; Mrs Maguire's husband returns from the dead and an arson attack in Cambridge leads Sidney to uncover a cruel case of blackmail involving his former curate. In the rare gaps between church and crime, Sidney struggles with a persistent case of toothache, has his first flutter at the Newmarket races and witnesses the creation of a classic rock song. Charming, witty, intelligent, and filled with a strong sense of compassion, here are six new stories guaranteed to satisfy and delight this clerical detective's many fans.

Sidney Chambers and The Dangers of Temptation

"A young Spaniard sets off for South America in 1518 with Cortes and the Conquistadors, propelled by his love's declaration that she will not marry until he returns with a special treasure, a symbol of their love that no man or woman has ever before received. But during his travels he falls in love with Ignacia, a native woman who introduces him to the secrets of the most delicious drink he has ever tasted, chocolate."--Jacket.

The Discovery of Chocolate

Sidney Chambers, the Vicar of Grantchester, is a thirty-two-year-old bachelor. Tall, with dark brown hair, eyes the colour of hazelnuts and a reassuringly gentle manner, Sidney is an unconventional clergyman and can go where the police cannot.Together with his roguish friend, Inspector Geordie Keating, Sidney inquires into the suspect suicide of a Cambridge solicitor, a scandalous jewellery theft at a New Year's Eve dinner party, the unexplained death of a well-known jazz promoter and a shocking art forgery, the disclosure of which puts a close friend in danger. Sidney discovers that being a detective, like being a clergyman, means that you are never off duty. Nonetheless, he manages to find time for a keen interest in cricket, warm beer, hot jazz and the works of Tolstoy and Shakespeare - as well as a curious fondness for a German widow three years his junior.From the son of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, this is the first of The Grantchester Mysteries, six detective novels spanning thirty years of British history - from the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 to the wedding of Charles and Diana in 1981 - featuring the unforgettable vicar and sleuth, Sidney Chambers.

Sidney Chambers And The Shadow of Death

Grantchester Mysteries 2

From the author of THE DISCOVERY OF CHOCOLATE -- a romantic historical quest set in Renaissance Venice and China surrounding the search for ultramarine. THE COLOUR OF HEAVEN is a fictional account of a young man who travelled to what are now Afghanistan and China to discover lapis lazuli, the precious stone that when turned into ultramarine changed the history of painting -- allowing artists to abandon gold as a background and open up depth, landscape and perspective with the most beautiful shade of blue. Along the way, Paolo suffers the torments of unfulfilled love before he returns to his anxious family in Venice, where he also plays a part in the early development of lenses and spectacles!

Six new stories about the full-time priest and part-time detective, set in 1960s Cambridge. On a snowy Thursday morning in Lent 1964, a stranger seeks sanctuary in Grantchester's church, convinced he has murdered his wife... Sidney attends a shooting weekend in the country with his wife Hildegard, where they find their hostess has a sinister burn on her neck... A firm of removal men "accidentally" drops a Steinway piano on a musician's head outside a Cambridge college... Sidney's friend Amanda receives threatening pen letters when at last she appears to be approaching matrimony... During a cricket match, a group of schoolboys blow up their school's science block... And on a family holiday in Florence, Sidney is accused of the theft of a priceless painting.

Sidney Chambers and the Forgiveness of Sins

A Cor do Céu

A story of post-war Britain through the lives of one family

Canvey Island

It is 1953 in Canvey Island. Len and Violet are at a dance. Violet's husband George sits and watches them sway and glide across the dance floor, his mind far away, trapped by a war that ended nearly ten years ago. Meanwhile, at home, a storm rages and Len's wife Lily and his young son Martin fight for their lives in the raging black torrent. The night ends in a tragedy that will reverberate through their lives. This poignant novel follows the family's fortunes from the austerity of the post-war years to Churchill's funeral, from Greenham Common to the onset of Thatcherism and beyond, eloquently capturing the very essence of a transforming England in the decades after the war. It is a triumph of understated emotion, a novel about growing up and growing old, about love, hope and reconciliation.

The captivating prequel to the treasured Grantchester series follows the life, loves and losses of a young Sidney Chambers in post-war London It is 1938, and eighteen-year-old Sidney Chambers is dancing the quickstep with Amanda Kendall at her brother Robert's birthday party at the Caledonian Club. No one can believe, on this golden evening, that there could ever be another war. Returning to London seven years later, Sidney has gained a Military Cross, and lost his best friend on the battlefields of Italy. The carefree youth that he and his friends were promised has been blown apart, just like the rest of the world o and Sidney, carrying a terrible, secret guilt, must decide what to do with the rest of his life. But he has heard a call- constant, though quiet, and growing ever more persistent. To the incredulity of his family and the derision of his friends o the irrepressible actor Freddie, and the beautiful, spiky Amanda o Sidney must now negotiate his path to God- the course of which, much like true love, never runs smooth. The touching, engaging and surprising origin story of the Grantchester Mysteries's beloved Archdeacon, Sidney Chambers, The Road to Grantchester will delight new and old fans alike.

James Runcie

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