Sharon Small

"A kidnapper has abducted Charlotte Bowen, the 10-year-old secret love child between powerful newspaper editor Dennis Luxford and radical political leader Eve Bowen. In a twist of fate, the kidnapper threatens Luxford with the same kind of personal scandal usually found on his tabloid's front page: he demands Luxford publicly announce his dalliance on the front page--or the child will be murdered." -- container.

"A party at the Inspector's idyllic Cornwall estate to celebrate his engagement to Helen should be a splendid reason to escape the pressure of solving heinous murders...The upper-crust detective's relationship with his mother, Lady Asherton, has cooled in the 20 years since his father's death from cancer...When a local shopkeeper is killed, the engagement party becomes a murder investigation." -- container.