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This page lists novels that feature the journalist Jill Francis and policeman Richard Thornhill.

An Air That Kills

Andrew Taylor

1994

A Lydmouth novel featuring Jill Francis and Richard Thornhill.

"Workmen in the small market town of Lydmouth are demolishing an old cottage. A sledgehammer smashes into what looks like a solid wall. Instead, layers of wallpaper conceal the door of a locked cupboard which holds a box - and in the box is the skeleton of a young baby. Items within the box suggest that the baby was entombed early in the nineteenth century, but when another man is also found dead, the evidence suggests that the baby's death is more recent and that a killer is on the loose. For Journalist Jill Francis, newly arrived from London, this looks like her first story to chase."

The Mortal Sickness

Andrew Taylor

1995

A Lydmouth novel featuring Jill Francis and Richard Thornhill.

"When a spinster of the parish is found bludgeoned to death in St John's, and the church's most valuable possession, the Lydmouth chalice, is missing, the finger of suspicion points at the new vicar, who is already beset with problems. The glare of the police investigation reveals shabby secrets and private griefs. Jill Francis, struggling to find her feet in her new life, stumbles into the case at the beginning. But even a journalist cannot always watch from the sidelines. Soon she is inextricably involved in the Suttons' affairs. Despite the electric antagonism between her and Inspector Richard Thornhill, she has instincts that she can't ignore."

The Lover Of The Grave

Andrew Taylor

1997

A Lydmouth novel featuring Jill Francis and Richard Thornhill.

"After the coldest night of the year, they find the man's body. He is dangling from the Hanging Tree on the outskirts of a village near Lydmouth, with his trousers round his ankles. Is it suicide, murder, or accidental death resulting from some bizarre sexual practice? Journalist Jill Francis and Detective Inspector Thornhill become involved in the case in separate ways. Jill is also drawn unwillingly into the affairs of the small public school where the dead man taught. Meanwhile a Peeping Tom is preying upon Lydmouth; Jill has just moved into her own house and is afraid she is being watched. And there are more distractions, on a personal level, for policeman and reporter."

The Suffocating Night

Andrew Taylor

1998

A Lydmouth novel featuring Jill Francis and Richard Thornhill.

"The Korean war rumbles in the background throughout this novel as a reporter is found murdered at the Bathurst Arms, squatters are evicted from a military camp and there are new developments in the three-year-old hunt for a missing teenager. And in spite of all that's going on, Jill Francis, a local journalist, and DI Richard Thornhill find they can no longer resist their feelings for each other."

Where Roses Fade

Andrew Taylor

2000

A Lydmouth novel featuring Jill Francis and Richard Thornhill.

"When Mattie Harris's body is found drowned in the river, everyone in Lydmouth knows something is wrong. Mattie wasn't a swimmer - it can't have been a simple accident. She was drunk on the last night of her life - could she have fallen in? Or was she pushed? Mattie was a waitress, of no importance at all, so when Lydmouth's most prominent citizens become very anxious to establish that her death was accidental, Jill Francis's suspicions become roused. In the meantime she is becoming ever closer to Inspector Richard Thornhill, and discovering that the living have as many secrets as the dead."

Death's Own Door

Andrew Taylor

2001

A Lydmouth novel featuring Jill Francis and Richard Thornhill.

"When the body of Rufus Moorcroft, a middle-aged widower with a distinguished war record, is found in his summerhouse, the verdict is suicide. But both reporter Jill Francis and her lover, Detective Richard Thornhill, approaching the case from different angles, discover there's more to it than that. The key to the mystery stretches back to a highly-charged summer before the war, and back to another death. A local asylum plays a part, as do a moderately famous artist and his wife; Superintendent Williamson, now retired and loathing it; Councillor Bernie Broadbent - a man with more pies than fingers to put in them; a Cambridge don; an aristocratic unmarried mother, now gleefully drawing her old-age pension; and - to Thornhill's surprise and growing horror - his own wife, Edith."

Call The Dying

Andrew Taylor

2004

A Lydmouth novel featuring Jill Francis and Richard Thornhill.

"Love and need make unexpected bedfellows, and both are blind. As the grip of a long hard winter tightens on Lydmouth, a dead woman calls the dying in a seance behind net curtains. Two provincial newspapers are in the throes of a bitter circulation war. A lorry-driver broods, and an office boy loses his heart. Britain is basking in the warm glow of post-war tranquillity, but in the quiet town of Lydmouth, darker forces are at play. The rats are fed on bread and milk, a gentleman's yellow kid glove is mislaid on a train, and something disgusting is happening at Mr Prout's toyshop. Returning to a town shrouded in intrigue and suspicion, Jill Francis becomes acting editor of the Gazette. Meanwhile, there's no pleasure left in the life of Detective Chief Inspector Richard Thornhill. Only a corpse, a television set and the promise of trouble to come."

Naked To The Hangman

Andrew Taylor

2006

A Lydmouth novel featuring Jill Francis and Richard Thornhill.

"As a young police officer in Palestine during the closing months of the Mandate - the cradle of Middle Eastern terrorism - Richard Thornhill saw and did things which still haunt his dreams and make him fear for his sanity. Is he himself a killer? Now, when a retired police officer is found dead in the ruins of Lydmouth Castle, the past has come back to claim Detective Inspector Thornhill, and he is under suspicion of another murder. His wife Edith and former lover Jill Francis join forces in an uneasy alliance to try to help him. "