New Book.... fun ahead:....

Chess Set / Table

Remember this is 1969 decor at its best 😂...  I made this chess set in 1970... Over the years and a move to America; the set "got lost" ... with 4 grand-kids, time to make a new set.  I'll use Poplar and Walnut

New Book .. A new episode in the Rebus saga.

 

Released on Oct 18th.  The story takes an interesting turn as a series of interconnected events unfold. Author; Ian Rankin, not at his best on this one: 8/11 ...

New Dust Jackets: Oct.12th. Update

 Oct. 12th. Book Arrived ... :-) 

New Book on Order .. Release Oct 2020 (USA Dust Jacket artwork will differ)

Book on Order .. Ralfy .. UPDATE with REVIEW

A first book from; Ralf Mitchell, a retired Undertaker/Embalmer. Ralfy based mostly in Glasgow Scotland, now living on the; Isle of Mann.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOnpfc8uqEw&t=1s
Author's comment: "A humorous autobiography by a whisky reviewer with a youtube channel called 'ralfydotcom' travelling from early childhood memories to an adults apprenticship with scotch and Scotland. People and places are explored and whisky is sampled, and all for the sake of malt-moments." 

It's a couple of days after Xmas .. The book sits waiting for my son Andrew to pick up and read.
I finished reading it on Boxing day.. I've let it settle and now pen my review:
A doff O the Bunnet to Ralfy for having the courage to take this on and marketing it. No surprises in the story line, well animated characters, a comfortable read.. I do detect some literal E150 in a few stories and some chill filtering going on.. might just be my sensitivity. 

Centuries-old printing technique makes a comeback

Letterpress, a centuries-old printing technique, is making an elegant comeback in China as designers, artists and consumers are rediscovering the beauty and craftsmanship behind it.

Gaining a new lease on life

Essentially a kind of movable type printing, letterpress is a technique of relief printing that came into being in the mid-15th century. German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg converted a wine press into a printing press, which turned inked letters into reams of books and remained as the norm of printing for five centuries.

"The movable type printing is our heritage as it was invented by Bi Sheng in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) and then was spread to the West some 400 years later," said Peng Junzhang, initiator of China's first letterpress art festival.

Gutenberg's inventions played a key role in ushering in the era of mass communication, adding fuel to the Renaissance and the Reformation, which enlightened minds and permanently altered the structure of society.

In the West, the computer revolution in the 1970s gave birth to cheaper, faster ways of transferring words and images onto paper, dooming the old practice of arranging clunky type blocks in a massive metal press to obsolescence.

After nearly three decades in oblivion, letterpress came back from the dead as its aesthetic appeal was extolled by media personalities such as Martha Stewart, also known as Queen of Domestic Arts in the US. In the 1990s, her weddings magazine began featuring personalized letterpress invitations, giving rise to the revival of the retro-style printing craft.

While in China, letterpress had remained as the mainstay of the printing industry until Chinese scientist Wang Xuan fathered Chinese character laser-photo-typesetting system in 1974 that gradually brought Chinese character printing into the electrical and digital age.

The revival of letterpress has been in full swing in other parts of the world over the past decade.

Josh Durham, a history teacher from the US, and his wife evangelized China's letterpress-printed art movement when they opened the Paper Pounder Press in July 2011 in Beijing.

"So far, there are no more than 20 letterpress studios in China," Peng noted. "The printing technique is still under the radar in China. But I believe it is set to flourish like it did in many other countries."

Having frequented numerous international letterpress festivals over the past few years, Peng was so impressed by the beauty and design of those letterpress products that he decided to host one in China.

His dream came true on October 18 when industry practitioners, letterpress devotees, teachers and students of design majors from home and abroad attended the festival in Beijing, joining their hands to preserve and promote the art and craft.

"People in the cultural and creative industries have found that letterpress is highly valuable to their creations and businesses," said Sun Yang, founder of iloovee, a Beijing-based letterpress studio known for its wedding invites.

"A printing technique that I thought had faded in the back pages of the industry history has come back to life. What a surprise!" said Liang Jiong, associate professor of Prepress with the Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication.

She got a bigger surprise on learning that some artisans have held fast to the art and craft of letterpress printing for decades.

Chang Chieh-kuan is such an example. The 67-year-old operates the famed Rixing Type Foundry which his father founded in 1969 in Taipei.

His foundry is the only haven left in the world that still produces traditional Chinese movable type character molds for letterpress printing.

"But in the 1980s, lead type foundries, the all-time leader of the traditional printing industry, dropped like flies in Taiwan," Chang recalled.

Despite the industry's unrecoverable demise, Chang, calling himself a headstrong fool from Taiwan, has managed to keep Rixing in operation.

It is meaningful to keep the foundry alive as founding played a significant role in the history of mankind's civilization, said Chang, who is transforming Rixing into an interactive museum.

In traditional letterpress printing, founding is the very first step of the whole laborious process followed by checking, typesetting, printing, and folding; the revived technique is technologically upgraded and thus less laborious.
Cha Dian, literally meaning "Tea canon", featuring a letterpress printed cover is crowned as China’s Most Beautiful Book in 2017.

A letterpress printed replica of The Great Wave off Kanagawa by 19th-century Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, is made by LeTian LetterPress Studio from Taichung.

To create a letterpress item, a photopolymer plate featuring a digitally-created design made in Illustrator or InDesign is first customized. Properly inked, the raised surface of the plate then bites into the soft, thick paper made from cotton or linen, under the force applied to an antique press.
The Rixing Type Foundry in Taipei boasts the last collection of copper molds used in the creation of traditional Chinese type characters

The process yields a solid impression on the paper that is stunning to see and feel. However, such a debossed effect could not be realized on thin paper in traditional letterpress printing. Nor is it valued by the traditional letterpress craftsmen and their clients. What they most value is a printer's ability of making sure each stroke of a character is adequately and evenly inked, Chang said.

"The revival of letterpress lies in its marriage with ideal ink and paper, creating an irresistible quality. That's what attracts designers and consumers essentially," noted Liang, who is planning to introduce letterpress to her students aside from teaching them mainstream printing techniques such as lithography.

Thanks to the newfound visual and tactile appeal, an increasing number of artisans are embracing this aged technique.

Featuring letterpress cards with original designs, custom design services, and courses on letterpress printing, a workshop called Wu Fen Shu in East China's Hangzhou has fared well since its opening in June, according to Zhou Zi, the workshop's co-owner.

Zhou is one of the entrepreneurs who are eyeing the market of letterpress workshops that focus on customizing letterpress products and offering hands-on experience on a manual press.

Zhou, a fresh graduate of visual communication design, decided to open such a shop upon graduation with two of her college buddies who are also fascinated with letterpress thanks partly to what used to trouble them back in college.

"We used to commission printing factories to get our designs printed in small numbers, but more often than not, we were rejected as they only took orders requiring at least hundreds of copies," the young designer told this website.

Noting that many more design majors like them have been beset by such a headache, Zhou and her buddies thought about creating a workshop that takes small orders to create convenience for students who are of weak spending power.

In addition to serving students, the 110-square-meter workshop also attracts many who are eager to try their hands on an ancient letterpress machine to DIY their own letterpress items, each paying about 200 yuan to 500 yuan ($28.52-$71.3).

Despite the high price, it seems more people are being drawn to this kind of ancient printing technique. "Some companies even organized their team building parties in our workshop, which is sort of out of my expectation," said Zhou.

The endeavors of artisans and designers have borne fruit as letterpress-printed products are winning more and more consumers in China.

"The beauty and elegance inhering in letterpress have kept drawing people to know about it, and pay higher prices for letterpress products," said Peng Junzhang, a letterpress enthusiast, better known as the king of high-end business cards in China.

A movable type seal is one of the cultural creative items developed by the Rixing Type Foundry in Taipei., 

who remolded the letterpress machine to make it less demanding and more efficient, applied the printing technique to business card making, which turned out to be a huge success.

"Although the need for exchanging business cards is shrinking in the age of social media, upscale ones, each priced at 300 yuan ($42.45) or more, are in greater demand than those priced at around 30 yuan ($4.25)," Peng noted.

Letterpress-printed business cards made with stylish designs are favored by those who want to showcase their tastes, Peng added.

Tokyo's Jimbocho Book shoppers meca

Thousands of bibliophiles are expected to descend on Tokyo’s Jinbocho neighborhood over the next week or so as the city celebrates the 60th anniversary of its largest secondhand book fair.

Bookstores can be found on almost every corner of Tokyo’s Jimbocho neighborhood

Bountiful books: Founded in 1939, Komiyama Tokyo is a bookstore that places an emphasis on photography books.

Tough times: Isseido was the first bookstore to reopen in Kanda after the 1923 earthquake.

Survival specialists: Kitazawa Bookstore was once one of the country’s biggest suppliers of English-language books.

Paper pleasure: Isseido also has a wide selection of English-language books.

Digital fatigue: Nyankodo stocks more than 2,000 titles on cats and feline issues. 

Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806)

Studies from Nature': Kitagawa Utamaro's glorious prints

 Well-versed: Each Kitagawa Utamaro illustration is accompanied by a kyōka poem by Tsutaya Juzaburo.

 

The early 1780s were a difficult time for the shogunate, Japan’s feudal government. Though the country was at peace, one of the worst famines on record was wreaking havoc across the land. Making matters worse, epidemics and natural disasters were rife. The peasantry was never far from open revolt.

In his late 20s at the time, Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806), a painter and ukiyo-e print designer, was no doubt aware of the surrounding misery. But in Edo, the capital, a dynamic metropolis of more than a million inhabitants, its impact was limited. Besides, Utamaro’s congenial social circle of young artists provided constant entertainment that must have buffeted some of the social dislocation.

In 1783, he moved into the house of a friend, Tsutaya Juzaburo (1750-97), one of the most influential publishers of his generation (the modern-day Japanese book store partly chose its name as a nod to him), thereby plunging head on into the “floating world.” It is no exaggeration to say that his life would never be the same again.

Tsutaya was a creature of the pleasure quarters. His closest acquaintances were authors and painters, some established, others dilettantes, with whom he spent many a night carousing in the tea houses and geisha establishments of the capital. Tsutaya’s bookshop, which also traded in ukiyo-e woodblock prints, was conveniently located by the main gate of Yoshiwara, home to most of Edo’s courtesans, where it catered to its gay and gallant clientele.

To the bon vivants around him, Tsutaya was a sort of Ragueneau, the colorful patissier and faithful companion to Cyrano de Bergerac, who, when not providing moral encouragement to would-be poets like him, was generously offering free sustenance to those down on their luck. Utamaro lodged with Tsutaya for more than 15 years. Many other creative types likewise benefitted from the publisher’s largesse.

Tsutaya was also an amateur versifier and specialist of kyōka, a form of witty, irreverent and humorous poetry which, in the 1780s, was growing in popularity. It perfectly fitted the times: While the country metaphorically burned, social conventions were loosening, censorship rules relaxed. These were good times for Edo’s epicureans.

Alas, it did not last. The shogunate soon reasserted itself through conservative reforms and strict censorship laws. These, however, did not prevent Tsutaya from launching one of the most consequential and successful ventures of his career: The publication of three anthologies of kyōka poetry, all illustrated by Utamaro. The first, published in two albums in 1788, was the “The Book of Crawling Creatures.” It was followed a year later by “Gifts of the Ebb Tide” and, in 1791, by the two-volume “The Book of Myriad Birds.” All were popular and sold very well. Today, original copies are exceedingly rare.

This summer, The Folio Society, a London-based publisher of fine books, released a facsimile of all five volumes in a limited edition of 500 copies titled “Studies from Nature.” The result is nothing short of glorious, and even that might be an understatement.

Folio meticulously reproduced the gaufrage on some of the original woodblock prints, thereby adding texture to water, flowers or the plumage of birds. It found innovative ways to add a lustrous shine to the wings of insects, thus recreating the effect of mica that had been used by 18th-century printers for the same purpose. It chose paper to mimic the original and it bound all volumes as they were then, Japanese or concertina-style. Finally, all kyōka verses have been translated in a companion volume, each with its own commentary, and three essays detail the historical and cultural context of the works.

At £495 (about ¥69,000), the price is admittedly steep, but not unreasonable given the quality of the workmanship and scholarship.

These tomes constitute a watershed in Utamaro’s oeuvre. Neither he nor Tsutaya — nor any other publisher for that matter — quite reached the same heights again. As a print designer, however, Utamaro’s best work still lay ahead.

From the 1790s onwards, he devoted enormous energy, obsessively at times, to the design of bijinga (prints of beautiful women). Why he became so engrossed with this topic remains somewhat controversial. A bit of a roue, Utamaro spent much time in Yoshiwara, so his interest for the demimonde should not be surprising. But bijinga were also a moneymaker, and some scholars have posited that his large output was partly stimulated by a desire to ease the financial difficulties of his friend Tsutaya, the publisher, who, in 1791, fell foul of government regulations and was so heavily fined that he lost half his wealth. Be that as it may, these prints made Utamaro’s career and reputation. Today, they can sell for tens of thousands of dollars.

By the early 1800s, the shogunate had regained its footing. Despite periodic crackdowns, the publishing industry was also doing well, bolstered by demand from an increasingly literate and mobile population. By then, however, Utamaro’s best years were behind. In 1804, he had a run-in with the law that resulted in a three-day jail spell and a conviction to wear manacles for another 50. Two years later, he died.

Utamaro is justly remembered as one of the greatest ukiyo-e print designers of the second half of the 18th century. His collaborative work with authors and poets however, is far less recognized, at least in the West. “Studies from Nature” brilliantly sets the record straight.

New Book scheduled for release: UPDATE .. Nov 13th. 2019

#1 UPDATE:  Book now on Pre-Order; Audio eBook
#2 UPDATE: Book delivered .. now enjoying the start of a new read.
#3 UPDATE: Well, overall: an ok story. Overly complicated with the insertion of throwaway characters. I missed  hearing the enjoyable banter between the solid characters developed over the span of the series. 

London, 1892―Cyrus Barker is brought into a game of international espionage by the Prime Minister himself in the newest mystery in Will Thomas's beloved series.

Private enquiry agents Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn receive in the mail an unexplained key stamped with the letter Q. Barker, recognizing it for what it is, uses the key to unlock an anonymous door in the alleyway, which opens to an underground tunnel leading to Downing Street.

The Prime Minister has a small task for Cyrus Barker. A Foreign Office agent stole a satchel in Eastern Europe, but was then himself murdered at Charing Cross. The satchel contains a document desperately wanted by the German government, but while the agent was killed, the satchel remains in English hands. With a cold war brewing between England and Germany, it's in England's interest to return the document contained in the satchel to its original owners and keep it out of German hands.

The document is an unnamed first century gospel; the original owner is the Vatican. And the German government isn't the only group trying to get possession of it. With secret societies, government assassins, political groups, and shadowy figures of all sorts doing everything they can―attacks, murders, counter-attacks, and even massive street battles―to acquire the satchel and its contents, this small task might be beyond even the prodigious talents of Cyrus Barker.

New Book Arrived

The Art of Heikala: Works and Thoughts is the first major publication by popular Finnish illustrator Heikala.

"My inspirations come from the beautiful nature of my home country, Finland, but I am also hugely inspired by Japanese animation and my travels to Japan, which I try to reflect in my artwork."

"There will be step-by-step tutorials on watercolor painting and product design, and information on how I have been able to build a successful career as an artist."

On Order .. With Update / Review

eBook on order ... This is a first time author for me: Nick Hurst.
Once I read this eBook I'll post a review.  Awareness of the book came via link from Mokuhankan Woodblock prints.
UPDATE: eBook delivered as advertised. .. A very predictable story line, with a weak main protagonist. I was reminded of the movie; Outsider set in post WWII .

Publisher: Unbound Publishing
Published on: Mar 7, 2019
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9781783526338

In A House Of Lies .. Update with review

Always a thrill when a new book arrives .... full of anticipation.

My Review:
A 9 out of 11 on the: Spinal Tap, Nigel Tufnel scale.
A mediocre read saved by a fine finish. The story was fairly interesting, some characters were a bit thin and uninteresting (much as in real life :) .. the ending well played and has set up what could be an other 11, just need to inject life into Rebus and Big Ger.

In a house of lies, who can ever know the truth?
Everyone has something to hide
A missing private investigator is found, locked in a car hidden deep in the woods. Worse still – both for his family and the police – is that his body was in an area that had already been searched.
Everyone has secrets
Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is part of a new inquiry, combing through the mistakes of the original case. There were always suspicions over how the investigation was handled and now – after a decade without answers – it’s time for the truth.
Nobody is innocent
Every officer involved must be questioned, and it seems everyone on the case has something to hide, and everything to lose. But there is one man who knows where the trail may lead – and that it could be the end of him: John Rebus.
Rebus' retirement is disrupted once again when skeletal remains are identified as a private investigator who went missing more than a decade earlier. The remains, found in a rusted car in the East Lothian woods, not far from Edinburgh, quickly turn into a cold-case murder investigation. Rebus' old friend Siobhan Clarke is assigned to the case, but neither of them could have predicted what buried secrets the investigation will uncover.
Rebus remembers the original case - a shady land deal - all too well. After the investigation stalled, the family of the missing man complained that there was a police cover-up. As Clarke and her team investigate the cold-case murder, she soon learns a different side of her mentor, a side he would prefer to keep in the past.

An Awkward Way to Die, by: Will Thomas

An Awkward Way to Die .. published as an ebook.
Download price USD $0.99


Publisher's Synopsis:
Cyrus Barker is, without question, the most prominent and accomplished private enquiry agent in 19th century London. He's taken on major cases at the request of Scotland Yard and for Her Majesty's Government. 
He's matched wits with master criminals and triumphed and cracked the seemingly unsolvable crimes. But now he faces what might be the most dastardly crime of his career - his personal tobacconist has been murdered, his body found in his own humidor!
Now Cyrus Barker, with the help of his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, must crisscross London in order to track the killer. As they follow the clues, Barker discovers that the victim, Vasilios Dimitriadis, was not a man worthy of Barker's trust. Can the Guv find whoever killed the skilled tobacco blender? While he is at it, can he find the secret formula Dimitriadis used to make his beloved tobacco blend?  

My Review:  
I enjoyed this, all too short book … a fast read, only 80 pages. Quick character development, very well done. No filler .. straight forward story well versed.

Barker & Llewelyn Series by: Will Thomas

• 1 Some Danger Involved (2004)
• An atmospheric debut novel set on the gritty streets of Victorian London, Some Danger Involved introduces detective Cyrus Barker and his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, as they work to solve the gruesome murder of a young scholar in London's Jewish ghetto. When the eccentric and enigmatic Barker takes the case, he must hire an assistant, and out of all who answer an ad for a position with "some danger involved," he chooses downtrodden Llewelyn, a gutsy young man with a murky past. As they inch ever closer to the shocking truth behind the murder, Llewelyn is drawn deeper and deeper into Barker's peculiar world of vigilante detective work, as well as the heart of London's teeming underworld. Brimming with wit and unforgettable characters and steeped in authentic period detail, Some Danger Involved is a captivating page-turner that introduces an equally captivating duo
• 2 To Kingdom Come (2005)
• Victorian enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his young assistant Thomas Llewelyn, first introduced in Will Thomas's critically acclaimed debut novel Some Danger Involved, are back with a new mission in To Kingdom Come.When a bomb destroys the Special Irish Branch of Scotland Yard, all fingers point to the increasingly brazen factions of Irish dissidents seeking liberation from English rule. Volunteering their services to the British government, Barker and Llewelyn set out to infiltrate a secret cell of the Irish Republican Brotherhood known as the Invisibles. Posing as a reclusive German bomb maker and his anarchist apprentice, they are recruited for the group's ultimate plan: to bring London to its knees and end the monarchy forever.Their adventures take them from an abandoned lighthouse on the craggy coast of Wales to the City of Light, where Llewelyn goes undercover with Maire O'Casey, the alluring sister of an Irish radical. Llewelyn again finds himself put to the test by his enigmatic employer as he is schooled in the deadly science of bomb making.Fraught with explosives, secret initiations, and vicious stick fights, and featuring historical figures such as Charles Parnell and W. B. Yeats, To Kingdom Come is a riveting sequel to Some Danger Involved
• 3 The Limehouse Text (2006)
• In "The Limehouse Text, " Barker and Llewelyn discover a pawn ticket among the effects of Barker's late assistant, leading them to London's Chinese district, Limehouse. There they retrieve an innocent-looking book that proves to be a rare and secret text stolen from a Nanking monastery, containing lethal martial arts techniques forbidden to the West. With the political situation between the British Empire and Imperial China already unstable, the duo must not only track down a killer intent upon gaining the secret knowledge but also safeguard the text from a snarl of suspects with conflicting interests. Prowling through an underworld of opium dens, back-room blood sports, and sailors' penny hangs while avoiding the wrath of the district's powerful warlord, Mr. K'ing, Barker and Llewelyn take readers on a perilous tour through the mean streets of turn-of-the-century London.
• 4 The Hellfire Conspiracy (2007)
• In the latest adventure in what is "fast becoming one of the genre's best historical-mystery series" (Booklist), roughhewn private enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his assistant Thomas Llewelyn must track down London's first serial killer. When Barker and Llewelyn are hired to find a girl from the upper classes who has gone missing in the East End, they assume her kidnapping is the work of white slavers. But when they discover five girls have been murdered in Bethnal Green, taunting letters begin to arrive in Craig's Court from a killer calling himself Mr. Miacca. Barker fears that Miacca might be part of the Hellfire Club, a group of powerful, hedonistic aristocrats performing Satanic rituals. He must track the fiend to his hideout, while Llewelyn confronts the man who put him in prison. Dodging muckrakers, navigating the murky Thames under cover of darkness, and infiltrating London's most powerful secret society, The Hellfire Conspiracy is another wild ride that "brings to life a London roiling with secret leagues, deadly organizations, and hidden clubs"
• 5 The Black Hand (2008)
• When an Italian assassin's body is found floating in a barrel in Victorian London's East End, enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his assistant Thomas Llewelyn are called in to investigate. Soon corpses begin to appear all over London, each accompanied by a Maf ia Black Hand note. As Barker and Llewelyn dig deeper, they become entangled in the vendettas of rival Italian syndicates -- and it is no longer clear who is a friend or foe.
• 6 Fatal Enquiry (2014)
• reintroducing private enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his assistant, Thomas Llewellyn, and their unforgettable world of Victorian London. Some years ago, Cyrus Barker matched wits with Sebastian Nightwine, an aristocrat and sociopath, and in exposing his evil, sent Nightwine fleeing to hide from justice somewhere in the far corners of the earth. The last thing Barker ever expected was to encounter Nightwine again-but the British government, believing they need Nightwine's help, has granted him immunity for his past crimes, and brought him back to London. Nightwine, however, has more on his mind than redemption-and as Barker and Llewellyn set out to uncover and thwart Nightwine's real scheme, they find themselves in the gravest danger of their lives.
• 7 Anatomy of Evil (2015)
• Cyrus Barker is undoubtedly England's premiere private enquiry agent. With the help of his assistant Thomas Llewelyn, he's developed an enviable reputation for discreetly solving some of the toughest, most consequential cases in recent history. But one evening in 1888, Robert Anderson, the head of Scotland Yard's Criminal Investigation Department (CID), appears at Barker's office with an offer. A series of murders in the Whitechapel area of London are turning the city upside down, with tremendous pressure being brought to bear on Scotland Yard and the government itself. Barker is to be named temporary envoy to the Royal Family with regard to the case while surreptitiously bringing his investigative skill to the case. With various elements of society, high and low, bringing their own agenda to increasingly shocking murders, Barker and Llewellyn must find and hunt down the century's most notorious killer. The Whitechapel Killer has managed to elude the finest minds of Scotland Yard and beyond he's never faced a mind as nimble and a man as skilled as Cyrus Barker. But even Barker's prodigious skills may not be enough to track down a killer in time.
• 8 Hell Bay (2016)
• "If you love Sherlock Holmes, historical mysteries, or just a good, rousing adventure, you'll love these books, too." - Laurell K. Hamilton At the request of Her Majesty's government, private enquiry agent Cyrus Barker agrees to take on his least favorite kind of assignment--he's to provide security for a secret conference with the French government. The conference is to take place on the private estate of Lord Hargrave on a remote island off the coast of Cornwall. The goal of the conference is the negotiation of a new treaty with France. The cover story for the gathering is a house party--an attempt to introduce Lord Hargrave's two unmarried sons to potential mates. But shortly after the parties land at the island, Lord Hargrave is killed by a sniper shot, and the French ambassador's head of security is found stabbed to death. The only means of egress from the island--a boat--has been sent away, and the means of signaling for help has been destroyed. Trapped in a manor house with no way of escape, Cyrus Barker and his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, must uncover which among them is the killer before the next victim falls. Will Thomas's Hell Bay is the eighth Barker & Llewelyn mystery
• 8.5 An Awkward Way to Die .. published as an ebook …
Cyrus Barker is, without question, the most prominent and accomplished private enquiry agent in 19th century London. He's taken on major cases at the request of Scotland Yard and for Her Majesty's Government. He's matched wits with master criminals and triumphed and cracked the seemingly unsolvable crimes. But now he faces what might be the most dastardly crime of his career - his personal tobacconist has been murdered, his body found in his own humidor!
Now Cyrus Barker, with the help of his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, must crisscross London in order to track the killer. As they follow the clues, Barker discovers that the victim, Vasilios Dimitriadis, was not a man worthy of Barker's trust. Can the Guv find whoever killed the skilled tobacco blender? While he is at it, can he find the secret formula Dimitriadis used to make his beloved tobacco blend?

• 9 Old Scores (2017)
• In 1890, the first Japanese diplomatic delegation arrives in London to open an embassy. Cyrus Barker, private enquiry agent and occasional agent for the Foreign Service Office, is enlisted to display his personal Japanese garden to the visiting dignitaries. Later that night, Ambassador Toda is shot and killed in his office and Cyrus Barker is discovered across the street, watching the very same office, in possession of a revolver with one spent cartridge. Arrested by the Special Branch for the crime, Barker is vigorously interrogated and finally released due to the intervention of his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, and his solicitor. With the London constabulary still convinced of his guilt, Barker is hired by the new Japanese ambassador to find the real murderer. In a case that takes Barker and Llewelyn deep into parts of London's underworld, on paths that lead deep into Barker's own mysterious personal history, Old Scores is the finest yet in Will Thomas's critically acclaimed series.
• 10 Blood Is Blood (2018) I’ve posted my review.