Peter 'Mad Max' Maxwell, the 'dinosaur' Head of Sixth Form at Leighford High, just cannot get to grips with technology, and doesn't see the need to know how to send a text or an email when a simple note or phone call will suffice. However, it soon becomes vital that he learns when some of his female pupils begin to receive strange and threatening messages, with the anonymous sender claiming to know intimate details about the girls' personal lives. Max starts to receive messages too, and then two of the girls go missing. When a body is found it seems that the prank has taken a sinister turn, and Mad Max may well be the next target. Is the chance of him reaching retirement looking more unlikely by the day?

With girlfriend DS Jacquie Carpenter back at work and little baby Nolan rapidly growing into a feisty toddler, Peter 'Mad Max' Maxwell, Head of Sixth Form at Leighford High, decides to hire an au pair. The exotic Juanita Reyes seems the perfect choice.But one afternoon the lovely Juanita disappears into thin air, and two ramblers are surprised – and not a little disturbed – when their dog digs up a body on Dead Man's Point, the lonely cliff top rising high over the sea. No stranger to murder inquiries, Mad Max soon sets about sniffing out the killer. But with a missing au pair, a creepy gardener, troublesome teenagers and reports of a randy rambler to investigate – not to mention a young baby to look after – has Max taken on more than he can handle this time?Another hilarious outing for the super sleuth Head of Sixth Form; you'd have to be a fool to miss Maxwell's Point.

The mysteries surrounding Britain's 7th earl of Lucan have endured for almost four decades. In 1974, after his carefully crafted plan to murder his wife went awry, he killed his nanny by mistake, and then attacked his wife—all while his three children were in the house. If it happened today, everyone with access to the Internet and TV would be inundated for months with the contradictory details of this bizarre story and how the dashing aristocrat became the subject of a worldwide manhunt.In 1974, England was still very focused on the perks afforded the titled rich. To add insult to murder, the focus of the case moved from the dead nanny and injured wife to the whereabouts of the earl, who disappeared shortly after the attacks. While the police analyzed the evidence, friends and relatives of the missing earl closed ranks and obstructed the investigation. Those same aristocratic friends may have helped get him out of the country and may know where he—or his...

Peter 'Mad Max' Maxwell is a very busy man; resisting Ofsted imperatives and marking GCSE coursework on time, as well as cramming as much History as possible into the reluctant heads of Nine Eff Gee. And at home, baby Nolan claims a lot of attention, as does Nolan's rather surprising friend and protector, the black and white mouse-tormentor Metternich the cat.Despite this, Max still finds time for some amateur sleuthing when the terminally nervous school photographer asks for his help after accidentally photographing a murder on the beach. Their discovery of a body buried in the sand dunes sets in motion a chain of events that only the redoubtable Mad Max can break, but one thing is certain: life in Leighford will never be the same again.

Peter Maxwell is on holiday when the dreadful thing happens – one of his Sixth Form, one of Maxwell’s Own, is found dead in a derelict house in Leighford. The kids don’t call him ‘Mad Max’ for nothing – he doesn’t just get mad, he gets even, and he needs justice for Jenny. The police of course have their own investigations to carry out, but they don’t do so quickly enough to prevent another murder – another pupil from Leighford High School; did the boy know too much? With characters that leap off the page, the Maxwell series has something for everyone. Anyone who went to school, teaches in one, or has happily escaped from the chalk face will love the series, with humour and sadness intermingled with a plot packed with twists and turns. ‘Clever and convincing with an excellent finale.’ Bolton Evening News

Unbelievable as it seems to all the Old Boys, Maxwell’s school is about to be turned into a conference centre – Halliards is to be no more. Some of his schoolfellows can’t let the moment pass and so they gather together, the Year of Mind Your Own Business to say goodbye for ever. But some of the goodbyes are more permanent than others, particularly when one of their number is found hanging from the bell rope in the abandoned buildings. The years since A-Levels have gathered a lot of baggage for them all and wives, lovers, secret lives are all exposed to the bright light of the police when the investigation gets underway. Luvvie actors, cult members, barristers and teachers they all may be, but Old Hallardians never die... except that they do, one by one, until Maxwell is fighting for his life. Can even Jacquie save him this time? ‘Maxwell... is a splendidly original spin on that old English favourite, the amateur detective.’ Sunday Mercury

Deena Harrison was one of Leighford High School's 'characters'. She set fire to the toilet block when she was eleven, and threw Ollie Wendell down the science lab stairs soon after her twelfth birthday. But she had the voice of an angel and could act the skin off a rice pudding, so Mr Diamond, the headteacher, invoked all sorts of inclusion clauses and EU Equal Opportunities initiatives to keep her on.The autumn she came down from Oxford, there was something of a crisis in the drama department at Leighford High. Mrs Carmichael was in danger of losing her baby and the Little Shop of Horrors was in danger of closing down. So Deena came back - just to help out. And people started dying. Oh, just tragic accidents of course - loose cables, carelessly placed ladders. Just minor health and safety issues, really. Somebody was killing the company, and it wasn't Audrey II, the man-eating plant. DCI Henry Hall got to know the Arquebus Theatre quite well that summer. With his...

On 1 May 1820, outside Newgate Prison, in front of a dense crowd, five of the Cato Street conspirators - Arthur Thistlewood, William Davidson, James Ings, Richard Tidd and John Brunt - were hanged for high treason. Then they were decapitated in the last brutal act of a murderous conspiracy that aimed to assassinate Prime Minister Lord Liverpool and his cabinet and destroy his government. The Cato Street conspirators matched the Gunpowder plotters in their daring - and in their fate - but their dark, radical intrigue hasn't received the attention it deserves. M.J. Trow, in this gripping fast-moving account of this notorious but neglected episode in British history, reconstructs the case in vivid detail and sets it in the wider context of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.

There comes a time in every teacher’s life when he must face his Nemesis – the four-yearly Ofsted inspection. The team arrives at Leighford High one glorious summer and proceeds to stick its collective nose into classrooms various, including that of Head of Sixth Form, Peter Maxwell. Just when the atmosphere at the High School has become decidedly fraught, one of the inspectors is found stabbed to death and the shadow of suspicion falls upon Headteacher, James Diamond.Aided by his inside informant, lover DS Jacquie Carpenter, Maxwell sets out to prove that his colleague is innocent. And the only way to do it is to take on the inspectors one by one…

Christopher Marlowe faces the might of the Spanish Armada in the sixth of this intriguing historical mystery seriesMay, 1588. With Elizabeth I's court rocked by stories of an imminent invasion and one of his key undercover agents missing, Sir Francis Walsingham despatches Kit Marlowe to the Isle of Wight off the south coast: the first line of defence against the approaching Spanish Armada.Lodging at Carisbrooke Castle with the Isle of Wight's Governor, Sir George Carey, Marlowe finds the Islanders a strange and suspicious lot, with their own peculiar customs and dialect. But is there reason to doubt their loyalty to the Crown? And is the Island really haunted, as some believe? Of one thing Marlowe is certain: it's no ghost behind the series of violent and inexplicable deaths which plague the region. But will he have time to uncover the truth and expose the killer before the might of the Armada descends?

James ‘Legs’ Diamond has come up with another off-the-wall idea, and Peter Maxwell is in his sights. Diamond needs someone to take part in an exchange with a teacher from the private sector, and although Maxwell went to just such a school, he is not keen to take part in the experiment. For once, however, his wiles fail him, and he finds himself ensconced under the eaves in a guest room at Grimond’s school in the next county. It is only a day or so before tragedy strikes, as a teacher from the same house – Tennyson – plunges from the roof, literally above Maxwell’s head. Maxwell is plunged into an atmosphere of distrust and secrecy, where the pupils seem to hold the key. Henry Hall is full of secrets too – why are he and Jacquie on secondment, and what is it that they’re not telling? Has Maxwell met his match on the playing fields of Grimond’s? ‘It’s a good, hard to solve mystery.’ The Observer

At Leighford High, the ever-resourceful Peter ‘Mad Max’ Maxwell is temporarily promoted to Head of History when his colleague Paul Moss is chosen for an American exchange and heads off to Los Angeles. Paul’s counterpart is Hector Gold, who is accompanied to Leighford by his eccentric family including his wife Camille and her parents, Jeff and Alana O’Malley.Clearly Jeff O’Malley is quite a character – with money to burn he has been gate-crashing the local poker school, much to the dismay of its members. When events take a sinister turn and Sarah Gregson, one of the poker school’s members, is found murdered, newly-promoted Inspector Jacquie Carpenter Maxwell and Henry Hall investigate, with the assistance of Maxwell. As it becomes apparent Sarah suspected Jeff of cheating and Jeff was sacked in LA for being a crooked cop, is this simply a case of murder as revenge for name-calling? Being quite the expert in solving murders, Maxwell...