On this page

This page lists novels by Jill Paton Walsh. Both crime fiction and other novels are listed.

Jill Paton Walsh has also written a number of books for children and young adults - these fall outside the scope of this site and are not included on this page.

Lapsing

Jill Paton Walsh

1986

"Dazzled by the glories of Oxford after an austere wartime childhood, the undergraduates of the middle fifties were understandably troubled about the future. Would it always be necessarily evil to possess the Bomb? Would they have to face court martial rather than fight over Suez? If contraception was dreadfully sinful, why then didn't the Church condemn chewing gum? Sad and funny by turns, Lapsing is a novel concerned with these questions, but it is also a beautifully written love story, and the story of Tessa and her painful growing up in the fifties, at Oxford, when she is confronted with the private dilemmas particular to that time, as well as to the more abstract questions. Deeply preoccupied with rightness in theological argument, and with right conduct, and letting their own happiness go by default, Tessa's group of Catholic friends talk about everything and anything, except what was to turn out to be the greatest question facing them and the unworldly young priest who guides them: If you take religion totally seriously, how can you contend with love, in its strangely various and unexpected forms?"

A School For Lovers

Jill Paton Walsh

1989

"Against the background of a labyrinthine country house in need of restoration, two friends are dared by their manipulative tutor to try to seduce the other's lover. All too soon, idealistic love is beset by misunderstanding and irrational desire. And what begins as a game soon becomes a far darker pursuit…. Reworks in fictional terms the heartbreaking, comic bitter and infuriating plot of Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte."

The Wyndham Case

Jill Paton Walsh

1993

An Imogen Quy novel.

"The locked library of St Agatha's College, Cambridge houses an unrivalled, and according to certain scholars, deeply uninteresting collection of seventeenth century volumes. It also contains one dead student. Tragic and accidental, of course, even if malicious gossip hints that Philip Skellow had been engaged in stealing books rather than acquiring knowledge when he'd slipped, banged his head, and bled to death overnight. Only Imogen Quy, the college nurse, has her doubts - until another student is found, drowned in an ornamental fountain."

Knowledge of Angels

Jill Paton Walsh

1994

"It is, perhaps, the fifteenth century and the ordered tranquillity of a Mediterranean island is about to be shattered by the appearance of two outsiders: one, a castaway, plucked from the sea by fishermen, whose beliefs represent a challenge to the established order; the other, a child abandoned by her mother and suckled by wolves, who knows nothing of the precarious relationship between church and state but whose innocence will become the subject of a dangerous experiment. But the arrival of the Inquisition on the island creates a darker, more threatening force which will transform what has been a philosophical game of chess into a matter of life and death."

A Piece Of Justice

Jill Paton Walsh

1995

An Imogen Quy novel.

"Biography is usually a safe profession. Even rather sedate. But more than one biographer has found that writing about the late great mathematician Gideon Summerfield leads to a hasty retreat. Or something more deadly... Imogen Quy, the coolly competent college nurse at St. Agatha's College, Cambridge, first notices the pattern when her enthusiastic lodger Fran becomes the latest Summerfield biographer. Before she realises how deadly the Summerfield secret is, Fran's life is in danger. And Imogen may be next."

Goldengrove Unleaving

Jill Paton Walsh

1997

"Once a year cousins Madge and Paul visit Goldengrove, their grandmother's idyllic Cornish home. But one year as Summer turns to Autumn and as they are drawn from childhood to maturity, their seemingly indomitable grandmother turns to Winter, and the precious moments of innocence begin to be leached away... Years later Madge, now living at Goldengrove, reflects on her own grandchildren and the events and revelations which disturbed the tranquill idyll that was her childhood."

The Serpentine Cave

Jill Paton Walsh

1997

"When Marion's mother is silenced, first by a stroke, and then by death, she is left confronting the chaotic detritus of a life obsessively devoted to art. she has left it too late to ask the crucial questions about scenes confusedly remembered from her childhood, and above all about the identity of her own father, 'lost in the war'. Out of the hundreds of paintings in her mother's studio, one, a portrait of a young man, is inscribed 'For Marion'. Is this her father? And who was he? Marion's search takes her to the Cornish town of St Ives. In the remote and closeknit town where communities of fisherfolk and artists have coexisted for many years, she learns of a tragedy which is intrinsically tied up with her father's life. Over fifty years before, the St Ives lifeboat went down with all hands bar one. Marion must delve deep into the past to discover the identity of a man she never knew,a nd in so doing confront the demons which have tortured her own adult life."

Thrones, Domination

Dorothy L. Sayers & Jill Paton Walsh

1998

A Lord Peter Wimsey novel.

A novel started in the late 1930's by Sayers but not completed.

"It is 1936 and Lord Peter Wimsey has returned from his honeymoon to set up home with his cherished new wife, the novelist Harriet Vane. As they become part of fashionable London society they encounter the glamorous socialite Rosamund Harwell and her wealthy impressario husband Laurence. Unlike the Wimseys, they are not in love - and all too soon, one of them is dead. A murder case that only Lord Peter Wimsey can solve."

A Desert in Bohemia

Jill Paton Walsh

2000

"It is 1945. Somewhere in Central Europe, in the aftermath of violence and confusion, a terrified and bloodstained young woman, Eliska, emerges from the forest to take refuge in an apparently abandoned castle. Soon she is joined by others - the idealistic Jiri, the sinister Slavomir and his partisans, and Count Michael Blansky, who is the castle's ancestral owner. But the war has changed things for ever. In a storm of ideological change, the existing order and the aristocratic heritage of ten generations are brushed aside by the arrival of Communism, and Count Michael must join the flood of refugees if he is to survive. He leaves behind a legacy which will entangle those involved for the next forty years in more ways than they can possibly imagine."

A Presumption of Death

Jill Paton Walsh & Dorothy L. Sayers

2003

A Lord Peter Wimsey novel.

"The story opens in 1940. Harriet Vane - now Lady Peter Wimsey - has taken her children to safety in the country. But the war has followed them: glamorous RAF pilots and even more glamorous land-girls scandalise the villagers; the blackout makes the night-time lanes as sinister as the back alleys of London. Then the village's first air raid practise ends with a very real body on the ground - not a war casualty but a case of plain, old-fashioned murder. And even before the second body is found, Lord Peter Wimsey and his brilliant wife are on their way to finding the killer."

Debts Of Dishonour

Jill Paton Walsh

2006

An Imogen Quy novel.

"Hoping to attract a generous endowment, St Agatha's College, Cambridge, invites fabulously wealthy Sir Julius Farran to dine. The evening is a disaster for everyone but Imogen Quy: Farran asks her to come and work for him. She declines, but when Farran dies, suddenly and shockingly, she has to look into it. His death left a large hole in his company accounts that could mean financial ruin for St Agatha's. To save her college, Imogen starts to cast her cool eye over the financier's heirs, employees and enemies. What is right about the death of Sir Julius? What is wrong about it? And why did it happen? After all, her name rhymes with 'why'."

The Bad Quarto

Jill Paton Walsh

2007

An Imogen Quy novel.

"Another foolhardy Cambridge college-climber has died attempting Harding's Folly. This time it's John Talentire, one of the brightest young dons at St Agatha's, and the verdict is accident, compounded by idiocy. But Imogen Quy - her name rhymes with 'why' - can't help wondering how such a clever young man died so stupidly. And when a wildly eccentric production of Hamlet is interrupted by a murder accusation, Imogen has to look into it, uncovering more crime than she expected."

The Attenbury Emeralds: Lord Peter Wimsey's First Case

Jill Paton Walsh

2010

A Lord Peter Wimsey novel.

"It was 1921 when Lord Peter Wimsey first encountered the Attenbury emeralds. The recovery of the magnificent gem in Lord Attenbury's most dazzling heirloom made headlines - and launched a shell-shocked young aristocrat on his career as a detective. Now it is 1951: a happily married Lord Peter has just shared the secrets of that mystery with his wife, the detective novelist Harriet Vane. Then the new young Lord Attenbury - grandson of Lord Peter's first client - seeks his help again, this time to prove who owns the gigantic emerald that Wimsey last saw in 1921. It will be the most intricate and challenging mystery he has ever faced."

Peter Wimsey Investigates The Late Scholar

Jill Paton Walsh

2013

A Lord Peter Wimsey novel.

"A new murder mystery featuring Lord Peter Wimsey - now a Duke - and his wife Harriet Vane, set in an Oxford college in the 1950s. Peter Wimsey is pleased to discover that along with a Dukedom he has inherited the duties of 'visitor' at an Oxford college.When the fellows appeal to him to resolve a dispute, he and Harriet set off happily to spend some time in Oxford. But the dispute turns out to be embittered. The voting is evenly balanced between two passionate parties - evenly balanced, that is, until several of the fellows unexpectedly die.The Warden has a casting vote, but the Warden has disappeared. And the causes of death of the deceased fellows bear an uncanny resemblance to the murder methods in Peter's past cases - methods that Harriet has used in her published novels."