Do not call the police. You will receive details for a bank transfer in due course. Your child will be well cared for and be returned unharmed provided you do exactly as you are told. Call the police and we will kill him. If you are in any doubt as to the seriousness of this, then call this number.
At 2 a.m. Joshua’s mother gets up to go to the toilet and sees her son is gone. She calls the phone number. It’s for another family whose child was also taken.
Detectives Toby Clarke and Petra Merrow are in a race against time to get Joshua back. Because if they don’t find him soon, he won’t be the last child to go missing.
An electrifying crime mystery full of twists and turns perfect for fans of C.L. Taylor, D.E. White, Claire McGowan, Rachel Abbott, Helen H. Durrant, Patricia Gibney, Karin Slaughter, Lynda La Plante and Angela Marsons.
The dead man, Eddie Sangster, has had an intriguing past - the youngest of three brothers, he inherited the family estate after the oldest committed suicide and the other simply disappeared. But decades on it would seem someone is out for vengeance as murder stones - carved headstones attesting to the brutal murders of both brothers - start to appear on the grounds of the estate.
Clearly the key to the puzzle of the murder stones lies at Sangster Hall, where a calamitous incident in the past is now shaping the present, and it is up to Dania to discover the murderous secret of the Sangster family.
Everyone in Ådalen remembers the summer Lina Stavred went missing. At first, the investigation seemed like a dead end: there was no body, no crime scene, no murder weapon.
The records were sealed.
Then a local boy confessed to Lina's murder. The case opened a wound - one the whole community has spent over two decades trying to heal.
But we know you remember.
Now Lina's murderer has reappeared, and detective Eira Sjödin must face the spectre of his brutal crime. This is her chance to untangle years of well-kept secrets - but the truth is something Ådalen would rather forget.
As the special task force is unable to make any progress in the case and the family is unable to deal with the loss, Franck―driven by the need to bring them clarity but also by the painful memories of all the unsolved murder cases from when he was still on active duty―buries himself in witness statements and reports up to the point of exhaustion. He spends hours at the crime scene and employs his special technique of “thought sensitivity,” an abstract, intuitive process that may very well lead him to the “fossil”―that crucial piece of information he needs to solve the case.
Once again, Ani combines deep sorrow, human darkness, and breath-taking tension in a novel whose melancholy can hardly be surpassed.
It is 1966, and things are changing in the close-knit Napier Road. Stephanie is 9 years old, and she has plans:
1. Get Jesus to heal her wonky foot
2. Escape her spiteful friend Dawn
3. Persuade her mum to love her
But everything changes when Stephanie strikes up a relationship with Mr Man, who always seems pleased to see her. When Dawn goes missing in the woods during the World Cup final, no one appears to know what happened to her - but more than one of them is lying.
May 1997, and Stephanie has spent her life trying to bury the events of that terrible summer. When a man starts following her on the train home from London, she realises the dark truth of what happened may have finally caught up with her.
As the occupants of historic York nervously adjust to the onset war, two best friends, Jemma and Bobbie, snatch a few pleasant hours together and reminisce about their love of Golden Age crime fiction and their childhood dream to launch their own detective agency.
But when a passing motorist claims he witnessed a murder in a furniture shop window, the police are baffled. There’s no body, no murderer and not a drop of splattered blood in sight.
It falls to the two women to explain the inexplicable and solve the mystery of Mad Alice Lane.
Welcome to the world of The York Ladies’ Detective Agency.
This introductory short story is the prequel to the first novel in the series, Smoke and Cracked Mirrors (published: 15th April, 2022).
Both can be read as standalone works of fiction and are ideal for fans of Richard Osman, Alexander McCall Smith, Agatha Christie and the TV series, ‘Foyle’s War’.
I promised her I'd protect him… and I'll do anything to keep him safe.
Five years ago, my sister Rachel left her baby boy on my doorstep. A little bundle wrapped in blankets.
I loved him. I cared for him. I called him Noah and raised him as my own.
Rachel was full of secrets, and the truth about Noah was one we shared. A secret just between sisters.
Now, my sister is dead. The police say it was an accident… But I’m convinced that’s a lie.
I owe it to Rachel to uncover the truth… Even if I risk losing the family I’ve fought so hard for.
Dark family secrets rise to the surface in this utterly gripping and emotional page-turner! My Sister’s Child will keep you reading long into the night and is perfect for fans of Nicole Trope and Claire Amarti!
A badly beaten woman walks into A&E and is promptly arrested by the Home Office on suspicion of being an illegal alien. However, she is neither illegal, nor a victim. After she escapes detention, the bodies of her attackers start to pile up.
Commander Carlyle faces a race against time to find out who she really is - and to stop her from killing again.
In a web of lies, who can you trust?
Ten years ago, Anna Clarke’s parents disappeared. The mystery haunts her, and she hopes her job in a busy city Garda Station will one day help her find answers.
The case of a man shot dead crosses her desk – and Anna is shocked to discover that the main suspect is her childhood friend Kate Crowley. Certain that Kate is innocent, Anna is determined to help her clear her name. But first she has to find her …
Tom Gallagher’s son David is dead, and Tom believes Kate is responsible. Now his older son John is missing – unable to grieve for one son until he finds the other, desperation can cause a man to do terrible things … Then the German Meier brothers descend on the city, intent on finding an item David had offered to sell them. Even Tom doesn’t know where it is, but he suspects Kate Crowley must have taken it.
Kate is on the run. She is trapped in the dead man’s city – can her old friend help her find a way out?
In a week where a political summit is taking place and the city is on high alert, Kate must struggle to stay hidden and stay alive. And Anna is drawn into the twisted race against time, falling deeper into danger.
No one expected them to go there. The question is: will any of them leave?
Six friends travel to a remote island north of the Scottish Highlands for an old school reunion. They’ve rented The Lighthouse – a stunning, now abandoned building that was once notorious for deaths at sea.
On the first evening, someone goes missing. The group search all through the night to no avail. But when the five remaining friends return to the lighthouse early the next morning, they are shocked to find James inside. He’s looks terrified – but won’t say a word about where he’s been.
The party vow to put the strange night behind them and enjoy the rest of their stay, but when more unexplained things begin to occur, tensions escalate. It’s clear James knows something, but nothing will persuade him to give up the secrets of the island. Is he protecting his friends from a terrible truth, or leading them into more danger?
A chilling, gripping and powerfully atmospheric suspense novel with a gothic edge, perfect for fans of The Hunting Party and The Sanatorium.
Running from a troubled childhood, Jack Devereaux left home as soon as he could and never looked back - until the day a stranger calls, begging him to return to his hometown of Jasperville, Quebec.
Jack's brother Calvis - the little boy he left behind more than twenty years ago - has viciously attacked a man and left him for dead. Nobody knows why he did it, though Jack suspects it has something to do with the Jasperville girls who were lost all those years ago.
But as he begins the long journey home through the frozen, unforgiving landscape, Jack isn't wondering why his little brother lost his mind. He's wondering why it took so long . . .
He loves you not.
Amy is fiercely independent, with a high-powered career, a flat of her own and tight-knit friendships. But as she approaches her thirtieth birthday, she can’t help but rue the one thing she doesn’t have – a relationship.
When Amy comes around following a serious fall, she doesn’t remember anything from the last six months. Not even the upcoming skiing holiday at her aunt’s luxurious chalet in Val d’Isère with her mum and best friends to celebrate her birthday. And she certainly doesn’t remember being swept off her feet by the handsome Dr Jack Stewart . . .
Jack is the full package – charming, caring and devoted to Amy. Everyone is smitten with him, but as the week goes on, Amy begins to find Jack’s presence chilling. Is her broken mind playing tricks? Or is the perfect boyfriend really too good to be true?
For fans of The Chalet and The Hunting Party, The Boyfriend is a twisting anti-love story that will keep you guessing with every page, by Michelle Frances, author of the number one bestselling sensation The Girlfriend.
Handsome, wealthy and successful, lawyer Nick Diamond is a man who commands and expects respect from everyone he meets. People think he is a man to be trusted. They are wrong.
Deadly by nature.
Because away from his glittering life in upper-class Chelsea, Nick is keeping a dark and dangerous secret. One that takes him to the slum estates of Glasgow and a very different world.
Nick will do anything to keep his secret under wraps, because if it’s ever revealed it would be his downfall.
Don't miss this brilliant new gangland story from Gillian Godden - guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat! Perfect for fans of Kimberley Chambers, Heather Atkinson and Caz Finlay.
Ruth returns to Norfolk determined to solve the mystery, but then Covid rears its ugly head. Ruth and her daughter are locked down in their cottage, attempting to continue with work and home-schooling. Happily, the house next door is rented by a nice woman called Zoe, who they become friendly with while standing on their doorsteps clapping for carers.
Nelson, meanwhile, is investigating a series of deaths of women that may or may not be suicide. When he links the deaths to an archaeological discovery, he breaks curfew to visit the cottage where he finds Ruth chatting to her neighbour whom he remembers as a carer who was once tried for murdering her employer.
Only then her name wasn't Zoe. It was Dawn.
She thought she'd got away with it. She was wrong.
Hannah Godley is an agony aunt on a London radio show Queen of Hearts. She's warm and empathetic; a good listener. Her catchphrase is: Be kind, always. But when a stranger phones in to tell a tragic story about her brother who killed himself after he was the victim of a terrible prank by two people, Hannah goes cold. Because she remembers Diane's brother well. In fact, all these years later, he still haunts her dreams. All because of that one bad thing she did when she was young...
Is Diane just a sad, lonely woman looking for a friend, or does she know what Hannah did, and is looking for revenge? Because as Diane insinuates herself into her life and family, Hannah is going to discover that you can never truly escape that One Bad Thing you did – sooner or later, you're going to have to pay the price...
Meanwhile, she is shocked to discover that her younger son’s new best friend is the nephew of organised crime boss Chilli Franks – the man who has held a grudge against Helen’s family since her father first put him away in the 1990s.
As her personal and professional lives collide, Helen finds herself in mortal danger as she races to track down the serial killer and restore safety to the streets of Hampton.
In the early years of the last century, a desperate young girl changes her name and flees the confines of her brutal, dominating gangland family in London. Now calling herself 'Diamond Dupree', she goes to Paris to become an artist's model but the world there is different to what she had supposed it would be and she soon falls on hard times. When she manages to escape at the end of the First World War, she leaves behind her a mystery - and a dead man.
Back home in London, she reluctantly re-joins the Soho family 'firm' she'd once been glad to leave behind. Having grown tougher during her time in Paris, she soon becomes a force to be reckoned with, a feared and respected gangland queen. But then she meets Richard Beaumont, the youngest son of a wealthy aristocratic family, and sparks fly. But can she escape the long arm of the law and the hangman's noose, when the crimes of her past finally catch up with her?
For fans of Martina Cole and Kimberley Chambers, as well as viewers of Peaky Blinders, this is historical crime fiction at its most compelling.
Finn Fitzpatrick barely knows Mandy Breslin from the firm where they both work. Mandy moves in the privileged world of the senior partners' clique. Finn keeps to herself.
But Mandy has secrets and, as Finn is drawn deeper into her dead colleague's life, she soon discovers that Mandy's not the only one at the firm hiding something.
As Finn uncovers a web of lies that comes very close to home, she quickly realises that Mandy's killer might be nearer than she thinks. Who wanted Mandy dead? And who can Finn turn to, when she can't trust anyone?
More than fifty years ago, Peter Lovesey published a short story in an anthology. That short story caught the eye of the great Ruth Rendell, whose praise ignited Lovesey's life-long passion for short form crime fiction.
More than a hundred stories later, Peter Lovesey has assembled this devilishly clever collection, fifteen yarns of mystery, melancholy, and mischief, inhabiting such deadly settings as a theatre, a monastery, and the book publishing industry. The collection includes that first story that launched his story-writing career as well as three new stories exclusive to this volume. In addition, Lovesey fans will delight in a personal essay by the author about the historical inspirations for his creation - and in an appearance by the irascible Bath detective Peter Diamond, who has, in the author's words, 'bulldozed his way' into this collection.
In an isolated retreat, deep in the Northumbria moors, three women arrive for a weekend getaway.
Their husbands will be joining them in the morning. Or so they think.
But when they get to Dark Fell Barn, the women find a devastating note that claims one of their husbands has been murdered. Their phones are out of range. There's no internet. They're stranded. And a storm's coming in.
Friendships fracture and the situation spins out of control as each wife tries to find out what's going on, who is responsible and which husband has been targeted.
This was a tight-knit group. They've survived a lot. But they won't weather this. Because someone has decided that enough is enough.
That it's time for a reckoning.
She's out of retirement – and out for revenge
When Georgina Garrett wakes in the night to find intruders in her house, she knows she must do everything she can to keep her children safe.
But just when she thinks the ordeal is over, she realises something is terribly wrong. She arrives at her crime-lord husband David Maynard's London house to find a bloodbath. Six of David's best men lie dead and he is nowhere to be found.
Georgina may have walked away from the game but she's still the best player on the street. Now, she will stop at nothing to get her husband back and to make whoever took him pay for ever daring to set foot in her town.
Then came the knock on the door.
Elderly Mary Jackson can't understand why Sara and her husband are living in her home. She remembers the fire, and the house burning down. But she also remembers the children. The children who need her, whom she must protect.
'The children will find you,' she tells Sara, because Mary knows she needs help too. Sara soon becomes obsessed with what happened in that house nearly sixty years ago - the tragic, bloody night her husband never intended for her to discover. And Mary - silent for six decades - is finally ready to tell her story . . .
The House of Ashes is the stunning new 2022 thriller from the award-winning master of the genre, Stuart Neville - perfect for fans of John Connolly, Alex North and Brian McGilloway.
Sadie Nicholls has been found dead, brutally and strangely murdered, in her South East London flat. Her little boy is missing.
DI Alex Finn and DC Mattie Paulsen know that, in the case of a missing child, it's the first 24 hours that count. They don't have many left to find out where Sadie's son might be and the identity of her killer. Why would anyone want a struggling single mother, loved by many, dead?
But when they realise a similar crime was committed at the same house nearly 20 years ago, a question is on everyone's lips: is this more than just a coincidence?
WHEN YOU'VE LOST EVERYTHING, YOU'LL STOP AT NOTHING
Billie Carlson left the police force under a cloud. Once a promising young officer she now works as a private investigator, rooting out insurance scams and spying on cheating spouses.
One morning a distraught young woman comes into her office saying that her baby has been stolen. Her story seems unbelievable, yet something about her makes Billie want to help - Billie knows what it's like to lose someone too.
To get to the bottom of the case Billie must rattle some dangerous cages and rely on old police friends for inside help. Soon she discovers a network of crime deeper and far more twisted than she ever could have imagined. But is she in way over her head?
It's 1959 and a new killer haunts the streets of London, having baffled Scotland Yard. The newspapers call him The Florist because of the rose he brands on his victims. The police have turned yet again to the Inquirers at Miss Brickett's for assistance, and second year Marion Lane is assigned the case.
But she's already dealing with a mystery of her own, having received an unsigned letter warning her that one of the three new recruits should not be trusted. She dismisses the letter at first, focusing on The Florist case, but her informer seems to be one step ahead, predicting what will happen before it does. But when a fellow second-year Inquirer is murdered, Marion takes matters into her own hands and must come face-to-face with her informer-who predicted the murder-to find out everything they know. Until then, no one at Miss Brickett's is safe and everyone is a suspect.
With brilliant twists and endless suspense, all set within the dazzling walls and hidden passageways of Miss Brickett's, Marion Lane and the Deadly Rose is a deliciously fun new historical mystery you won't be able to put down.
Thank you. I love this format. It's very helpful.
ReplyDeleteI like it this way too!
ReplyDeleteNotice to crime authors everywhere..will no longer read book whose blurbs contain"child missing"or"women strangled,carved,buried alive etc".Time for imaginations to expand.
ReplyDeleteThis is great! Much better than the plain lists. Love it.
ReplyDeleteLike the format. Will be sharing as always.
ReplyDeleteImaginations have always been expansive. Readers? Not so much.
Thank you! I found this very helpful. I was glad to see a new book by Catherine Kirwan. I bought her first (I think) book when I was in Cork City in 2019. Haven't been able to travel internationally since! Hoping to go back in May to Dublin and will look for this one.
ReplyDeleteI liked this format. I use the lists to keep up with authors I already know and sometimes look at other titles that catch my eye. It’s great to have the blurb and I found a couple of titles I’m going to follow up.
ReplyDeleteLike it,very clear and concise and easy to read
ReplyDeleteThis great, Karen. Despite making multiple lists I still can't always keep track of new releases. This helps a lot!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for doing all the hard work so that I can find the books I want to read. I eagerly await your list each month and I like that this new format gives me more information about authors I do not already know.
ReplyDeleteBeen following your lists forever and this is a great upgrade!
ReplyDelete