With Easter approaching, the verger of St Albans Cathedral was supposed to be readying the church. Instead he discovers a man lying dead, fallen from the famous 150-foot-high tower. Did he jump, or was he pushed?
For DCI Maarten Jansen, it's a simple case of suspected suicide. Until a stranger, Willow, who witnessed the jump, prompts a deeper investigation into a long-buried past, involving a psychiatric hospital, a pregnant woman, and fifty years of silence. As Willow's own family history entwines with the case, Jansen starts to wonder how everything is connected.
The Fall is a haunting literary thriller about loss, trauma, silence, and how our past shapes who we are.
Sophie and Kelsey have always had each other. When their mum is diagnosed with cancer and their dad fails to step up, they're forced to move into the care system. But Sophie knows they'll be okay as long as she's there to protect her sister.
ONE FINAL CHANCE.
But when Kelsey is found a foster family and Sophie can't join her, Sophie's left in an unsafe situation in the home, forced to do things against her will. Finding her own foster family feels like a relief, but it's short lived when her trust in her new foster parents is betrayed.
NO GOING BACK.
With nowhere to turn, Sophie finds herself homeless. But when she finds her new street family, Sophie joins the working girls and her new identity as Sapphire is complete. It's a hard life working the streets, especially when those around her look to take advantage, but can the dream of one day finding Kelsey keep her going?
'An unsuitable job for a woman...'
When her husband goes 'missing in action', Jemma James returns to the city of her birth to set up a private detective agency with her best friend, Roberta 'Bobbie' Baker, with whom she shares a passionate love of Golden Age crime fiction.
These two enterprising young women soon find themselves embroiled in a series of mysterious cases, shadowing blackmailers and bigamists, and investigating the perplexing history of a wealthy young woman who seems determined to wipe out her past. And it's not long before they stumble across an unsolved murder.
But the dead don't stay dead for long in historic York.
As the 'phoney war' draws to a close, and the sky above the soaring twin towers of the twelfth century Minster darkens with menace, Jemma learns that even she is not above suspicion in wartime Britain.
Welcome to Turtle Cove.
A luxury resort surrounded by pristine sea and the dense beauty of the jungle, it is the perfect escape from the stresses of life and work. For couples Lou and Adam, Eliza and Noah, a few days spent relaxing on the beach, while their kids are happily distracted, is exactly what they need.
But appearances can be deceiving.
There's a strange tension brewing at the resort, with relations between the hotel and the locals threatening to spill over into violence. This is nothing though compared to the strained atmosphere between the two families. They haven't been friends for long and they are starting to realise they don't really know each other at all.
Except for one of them. One of them knows another very well.
And they have a score to settle.
A twisted mind can be deadly…
When Brian Coltman is murdered after a night out with a friend, DI Sam Cobbs and her team need to find the motive behind the gruesome crime.
Intrigue and false starts threaten the investigation until a second body is found.
With her husband on the missing list, does Sam have what it takes to find the killer before they choose another victim, with one intention… to make them pay.
Dangling from a hook in a meat packing plant isn't how Detective Sergeant Washington Poe wants to spend his weekend. He's been punched and kicked and threatened, and when a contract killer arrives it seems things are about to go from bad to worse. He goes by the name of the Pale Man and he and his straight-edged razor have been feared all over London for twenty years.
But Poe knows two things the Pale Man doesn't. Although it might seem like a hopeless situation, Poe has planned to be here all along. More importantly, a nerdy, computer whizz-kid called Tilly Bradshaw is watching his back. And now things are about to get interesting . . .
_______________
This is a short story, not a full-length novel.
THE CRIME: The gilded Holden family - Piper and Gray and their two teenage children, Riva and Artie - has vanished from the house without a trace.
THE DETECTIVE: DS Saul Anguish, brilliant but with a dark past, treads the narrow line between light and shade.
One late autumn morning, Piper’s best friend arrives at Seawings to discover an eerie scene – the kettle is still warm, all the family’s phones are charging on the worktop, the cars are in the garage. But the house is deserted.
In fifteen-year-old Riva Holden’s bedroom, scrawled across the mirror in blood, are three words:
Make
Them
Stop.
What happens next?
Belinda Penshurst has always loved Brabourne Gardens. A keen animal lover, she enjoys walking its winding paths and listening to the excited squeals of schoolchildren encountering the kind of wildlife you don't normally find in England. So when one of the visitors is found strangled, she's determined to learn whodunnit - and why.
The victim, Simon Carter, had a reputation for making trouble... But surely that's not a good enough reason to want him dead. Together with retired detective Harry Powell, Belinda investigates the goings-on behind the scenes, and learns that some of the staff are more savage than the animals.
Is it Estelle Samuels, the anti-social owner, who clearly has something to hide? Or the security guard who takes his job too seriously? Most worrying of all, Belinda's ex Ivan was there when the body was found, and she's determined to clear his name. As suspicions swirl, one thing's for sure: if Belinda keeps following the killer's tracks, she might find herself in their sights...
Can she sniff out a murderer, before she becomes prey?
Her identical twin Katie is her exact opposite: gregarious and spontaneous. They used to be inseparable, until Katie moved to New York a year ago. Molly still speaks to her daily without fail.
But when Molly learns that Katie has died suddenly in New York, she is thrown into unfamiliar territory. Katie is part of her DNA. As terrifying as it is, she must go there and find out what happened. As she tracks her twin's last movements, cracks begin to emerge. Nothing is what it seems. And a web of deceit is closing around her.
Detective Madison Harper is pulled away from Thanksgiving preparations when a local care worker, Terri Summers, is found dead in her home on the outskirts of Lost Creek, Colorado. Terri’s inconsolable mother can’t understand who would hurt such a kind soul who had dedicated her life to helping others. But analysis of the blood spatter at the scene indicates Terri knew her attacker, that she looked them right in the eye before her life was taken.
The awkward way Terri’s body is positioned catches Madison’s attention. Carefully moving her, she finds a bracelet—possibly a child’s—with a single red bead clenched in the woman’s fist, as if she was hiding it. It’s the lead Madison so desperately needs, but the sudden death of one of her own team sends the investigation into a tailspin.
With her coworkers crumbling around her, Madison must work day and night to trace the bracelet and crack the case. But when she’s dragged back into the disappearance of a woman and child from years ago, and finds a link to someone in her own family, can Madison stop this twisted killer before another precious life is taken? And at what cost?
Miller finds himself once again caught up in gang warfare…
Galway, Ireland, 2010
When taxi driver and part-time private investigator Ben Miller finds his friend Meili brutally murdered, he and her friend Qiang go in search of her killer.
Miller soon enlists the help of his friend, Gárda Aaron Dempsey and they find themselves caught up in a war between rival Chinese triads, seeking to wrest control of the city’s illegal gambling activities from Superintendent Folan and his allies.
They all become involved in a hunt for a diary in which Meili has been keeping details of the activities of the clients’ who pay her for sex, possession of which will give whoever finds it the tools they need to protect themselves at the expense of their rivals.
Matters are complicated by the presence of three men claiming to be either Meili’s current or ex-husband.
When one of them is involved in trafficking Meili’s daughter from China into the sex-industry in Ireland, rescuing her becomes the priority…
Edie is alone for the first time in years, living in the remote house that she and Jake shared. She is grief-stricken and afraid - with good reason. Because someone is watching. Someone has been waiting for this moment. Now that Edie is alone, the past she tried so hard to leave behind is about to catch up with her...
Across England, a string of murders is taking place. Each different in method, but each horrifying and brutal.
But the killer is just getting started…
Jess Ambrose is plunged into the investigation when her house is set ablaze. With her husband dead and the police pointing at her, she runs. Her only hope is disgraced detective Nate Griffin, who is convinced Jess is innocent.
And he’s going to shock the world…
Soon, Jess and Griffin discover the unthinkable; this murderer is copying the world’s most notorious serial killers. And now, imitation isn’t enough. The killer dubbed The Echo Man is ready to create his own masterpiece, and it will be more terrifying than anything that has come before…
The Whale convinces his victims to take their own lives using just his words.
The Cicada is a talkative and deadly knife expert.
The elusive Pusher dispatches his targets in deadly traffic accidents.
Suzuki must take each of them on, in order to try to find justice and keep his innocence in a world of killers.
A hit-and-run. A naked body in the cemetery. A local woman reported missing.
A pregnant woman is knocked down by a couple in a car. They don’t stop. Nearby, a man films the whole thing. He stands there smiling.
Months later, Detective Mike Nash is called out to the local cemetery. A naked body has been found — a body which definitely shouldn’t be there — placed face down on a grave.
The post-mortem reveals that the victim was restrained with manacles, and then drowned, his body kept upside-down for several days after death.
The dead man was Andrew Derrick. Quiet, well-mannered, he kept himself to himself. Who would want to kill him?
Then a second body, a drug dealer, turns up in the cemetery, killed in the same macabre way.
What connects them? DI Nash pieces the clues together . . . and finds himself on the trail of a ruthless killer with a deadly agenda.
Until, that is, someone decides to silence one of their number permanently.
As Maggie and Sam soon discover, there is more than a quick buck to be made in the developers' plans. There are age-old secrets and personal vendettas that could have deadly repercussions in Bishops Well today.
With Sam's legal expertise and Maggie's... well, Maggie-ness, they delve into the past, determined to unearth the truth. And, as sparks begin to fly, could there finally be something more between this sleuthing duo?
After her stalker takes his life and she's jilted by a holiday lover, Sandrine comes home from her round-the-world backpacking trip perturbed, penniless and pregnant. She meets handsome Scott who offers her love, security and all she and her new baby could ever wish for.
But their dream is about to turn into a nightmare...
Making that same journey is Jeronimus Cornelisz, a conniving apothecary determined to escape the backstreets of Amsterdam and become rich beyond imagination. Hired by a criminal mastermind to escort precious cargo to the Indies, he will kill anyone who stands in his way.
When these assassins clash, so too do their missions. One cannot succeed without killing the other. In this deadly game, who will triumph and who will die? And are they even the only players?
But there are tensions. Is Dennis hiding more than just mental health problems? Did Superintendent Carpenter cover up the details of DCI Mackie's death? And does Lesley's girlfriend Elsa know more about Mackie than she's letting on?
Just as Lesley feels she is getting closer to answers, she's forced to work on the other side of Dorset after a body is uncovered by a landslide at Lyme Regis's beach. Who is the body and is there a connection to DCI Mackie, Arthur Kelvin, and Elsa's law firm?
The Fossil Beach Murders will provide Lesley with her toughest challenges yet, both professional and personal.
Edinburgh, 1948. Helen Crowther leaves a crowded tenement home for her very own office in a doctor's surgery. Upstart, ungrateful, out of your depth - the words of disapproval come at her from everywhere but she's determined to take her chance and play her part.
She's barely begun when she stumbles over a murder and learns that, in this most respectable of cities, no one will fight for justice at the risk of scandal. As Helen resolves to find a killer, she's propelled into a darker world than she knew existed, hardscrabble as her own can be. Disapproval is the least of her worries now.
One last chance. Stellenbosch is beautiful, but its economy has been ruined by one man. Jasper Boonstra and his gigantic corporate fraud have crashed the local property market, just when estate agent Sandra Steenberg desperately needs a big sale. Bringing up twins and supporting her academic husband, she is facing disaster. Then she gets a call. From Jasper Boonstra, fraudster, sexual predator and owner of a superb property worth millions, even now.
For Sandra, the stakes are high and about to get way higher.
For Benny Griessel, clinging to sobriety and the relationship that saved his life, the truth about Callie can only lead to more trouble.
Taut with intrigue, murder and suspense, exploding with action and excitement, The Dark Flood is a masterpiece from the author of Trackers and The Last Hunt.
Then the body of nineteen-year-old Janie Warren turns up in the seaside town of Bidecombe, and Ally’s expert skills are suddenly back in demand.
But when the evidence she discovers contradicts the lead detective’s theory, nobody wants to listen to the CSI who landed their colleagues in prison.
Time is running out to catch a killer no one is looking for – no one except Ally. What she doesn’t know is that he’s watching, from her side of the crime scene tape, waiting for the moment to strike.
It is the summer of 1934 when MI6 receives intelligence that two German scientists have made a breakthrough in germ warfare. British agent Elena Standish must return to Berlin to prevent unimaginable horror and, with the help of her trusted friend, Jacob Ritter, embark upon a mission fraught with fear and uncertainty.
Meanwhile, her grandfather's old adversary Johann Paulus has risen to power as an adviser to Hitler. By his side is his loyal supporter Hans Beckendorff, who is married to Elena's childhood friend. But when Hans witnesses the bloodshed and atrocities of the Night of the Long Knives, he is torn between ambition and the realisation that he must protect his family from harm.
That's why a powerful Russian oligarch wants to hire Mickey to protect him. And with his wife gone and his track record with the Met in tatters, Mickey doesn't feel he has a choice.
But when a terrorist attack kills a police firearms team, MI5 suspect that Mickey's new client and the Russian GRU are involved. The bomb was a Sunburn missile warhead, military-grade and able to vaporise everything in its blast radius. And there are more warheads out there.
Blackmailed by MI5 into spying on the client he's been hired to protect, Mickey is pushed to his limits by this new double-agent status. If he doesn't locate the other warheads, thousands of civilians will die – and time is running out...
Private Enquiry agent Cyrus Barker has just about seen it all--he's been attacked by assassins, his office has been bombed, and evil-doers have even nearly killed his dog. But never before has a potential client dropped dead in his office. When Roland Fitzhugh, Member of Parliament arrives to consult Barker and his partner Thomas Llewelyn, he falls to the floor, dead, upon entering. As they soon learn, he's been poisoned with a cyanide laced raspberry tart, and the adulterated tarts also take out an entire family in the East End. Labelled the Mad Pie Man by the press, Barker and Llewelyn are hired by former Prime Minister William Gladstone to find out who has targeted the House of Commons's newest member.
But before they can even begin, they find themselves the latest target of this mad poisoner--with Barker's butler poisoned with digitalis and dozens of diabolic traps discovered at their home. On the run from their unseen adversary, Barker and Llewelyn must uncover the threads that connect these seemingly random acts and stop the killer before they and their closest friends and family become the latest casualties.
Cassie has always had a strange affinity with death, ever since her parents were killed in a car crash when she was four. At least that's what she grew up believing...
But that was a lie. Cassie's father is alive. He was convicted of murdering her mother and spent years behind bars. Now he's out - and he's looking for her.
He swears he didn't do it. And Cassie wants to believe him.
To find the truth, she must turn detective. As she seeks answers, help is to be found in inexplicable places - for the dead are ready to talk.
The night sky is alive with fireworks and the champagne is flowing. But the celebration fails to materialise.
Because someone at this party is going to die tonight.
Midnight approaches and the countdown begins - but it seems one of the guests doesn't want a resolution.
They want revenge.
Ellie Masterson is a wide-eyed young college student.
Together, they are driving south from New York, for their first holiday: three days in an isolated cabin, far from the city.
Ahead of them, the promise of long, dark nights - and the chance to explore one another's bodies, away from disapproving eyes.
It should be a perfect, romantic trip for two.
EXCEPT THAT HE'S NOT WHO HE SAYS HE IS.
BUT THEN AGAIN, NEITHER IS SHE . . .
Cornell is having a bad time. Kicked out of secondary school for a fight he didn't start, he finds himself in a Pupil Referral Unit. Here he makes friends with one of the Sinclair family. You don't mess with the Sinclairs, and when Ryan Sinclair demands Cornell comes with him to teach another student some respect, Ryan witnesses something that will change his life.
Torn between protecting his family and himself, Cornell has one hell of a decision to make.
This is published as part of the Quick Reads series, which aims to share the joy of reading with adults who are improving their literacy. It is Alex Wheatle at his best: a thrilling, pacy story that is full of moral complexity and insight into gang violence.
Eyes down to find a killer who’s playing to win…
An irresistible slice of murder and mystery – there’s a killer on the loose in the Lake District, and the members of the Penrith Bingo Club have decided they’re the ones to catch the culprit…
Jason Brazel is an out of work journalist who lives in Penrith with his family and mother-in-law, Amita. She knows everyone and everything that’s going on in this corner of the Lakes.
So when it’s discovered that Madeline Forbisher, one of Amita’s fellow regulars at the bingo club has died, found by the postman outside her crumbling country home close to Ullswater Lake, she senses immediately this is no accident. The trouble is, no one else seems to take her suspicions seriously.
That is, until she enlists the help of her friends at the Penrith Bingo Club. Dismissed by many as eccentric, over the hill or out of touch, it turns out that it’s unlucky for some that these amateur sleuths are on the case…
No comments:
Post a Comment