Life in Ibiza can be glorious and fast, especially for those who have money. Sarah Cassells is an intelligent girl and has many admirers. Having completed her training as a chef, she hears of her father's violent death on the island, and refuses to believe it when told it was suicide. She becomes involved with a series of people who might be able to shed some light on events, including her brother who is an engineer for a Dutch firm from whom a secret piece of machinery has been stolen. As Ibiza prepares to celebrate an annual religious festival events become more convoluted and macabre. Sarah has choices to make; none are simple, but fortunately Johnson Johnson, the enigmatic portrait painter and master of mystery sails in on his yacht 'Dolly'. Together they may get at the truth, but with murder, espionage and theft all entwined within the tale, there are constant surprises for the reader—and for Sarah!

This mystery is told from the point of view of the 'Bird'; Tina Rossi, a famous coloratura soprano who arrives to sing at the Edinburgh Festival, only to find a murder victim in a cupboard, whilst at the same time her lover, top scientist Kenneth Homes, has gone missing. Saved from the long arm of the law by Johnson Johnson, a world renowned portrait painter and enigmatic solver of mysteries, Tina joins him on a yacht race to the Hebrides—there are connections anyway as Homes was conducting top secret research in the area. Here, though, there is yet more trouble and the mystery deepens as Johnson's yacht 'Dolly' nears the island of Rum, where it turns into a race for life rather than prize money. This is the first title in the Johnson Johnson series and in common with the remainder involves an intricate plot and solution which is far from immediately obvious.

For the first time Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles are available in the United States in quality paperback editions.Fifth in the legendary Lymond Chronicles, The Ringed Castle leaps from Mary Tudor's England to the barbaric Russia of Ivan the Terrible. Francis Crawford of Lymond moves to Muscovy, where he becomes advisor and general to the half-mad tsar. Yet even as Lymond tries to civilize a court that is still frozen in the attitudes of the Middle Ages, forces in England conspire to enlist this infinitely useful man in their own schemes.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Dr. B. McRannoch is in the Bahamas with her father who has moved there from Scotland because of asthma. She is a savvy and tough young lady who shows much independence of mind and spirit. However, when Sir Bart Edgecombe, a British agent who has been poisoned with arsenic falls ill on his way back from New York, she becomes involved in a series of events beyond her wildest imagination. Drawn into an espionage plot where there are multiple suspects and characters, it is only the inevitable presence of Johnson Johnson that saves the day. As with all of the Johnson series, nothing is quite as straightforward as it at first seems, and there are many complicating factors to grip the reader as well as the added bonus of another exotic location.