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Set in the bleak environments of London's homeless community, The Echo is the mystery thriller from crime queen Minette Walters. It was the smell that Mrs Powell noticed first. Slightly sweet. Slightly unpleasant . . . It shocked her badly to find a dead man in the corner, his head slumped on his knees. Who was Billy Blake, other than a homeless alcoholic who wandered the streets? Why was he found dead from starvation in one of the richest areas of one of the richest capitals in the world? And why did he die alone in the garage of wealthy architect Amanda Powell - a woman whose wealth can only be explained if her husband is dead . . .?
Winner of the 2017 Crime Writers' Association Diamond Dagger.Hidden Depths is the third book in Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series - which is now a major ITV detective drama starring Brenda Blethyn, Vera. A hot summer on the Northumberland coast and Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son strangled, laid out in a bath of water and covered with wild flowers. This stylized murder scene has Inspector Vera Stanhope intrigued. But then another body is discovered in a rock pool, the corpse again strewn with flowers. Vera must work quickly to find this killer who is making art out of death. As local residents are forced to share their deepest, darkest secrets, the killer watches, waits and plans to prepare another beautiful, watery grave . . .Enjoy more of Vera Stanhope's investigations with The Crow Trap, Telling Tales, Silent Voices, The Glass Room, Harbour Street, The Moth Catcher, and The Seagull.
Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award, The Dark Room is the psychological thriller from crime queen Minette Walters. Something else had happened . . . Something so terrible that she was too frightened to search her memory for it . . . The newspapers reported the case with relish. Jane (Jinx) Kingsley, fashion photographer and heiress, tries to kill herself after being unceremoniously jilted by her fiance, who has since disappeared - together with Jinx's best friend Meg Harris . . . But when Jinx wakes from her coma, she can remember nothing about her alleged suicide attempt. With the help of Dr Alan Protheroe of the Nightingale Clinic, she slowly begins to piece together the fragments of the last few weeks. Then the memories begin to surface . . . memories of utter desperation and absolute terror.
The Shape of Water is the first in Andrea Camilleri's wry, brilliantly compelling Sicilian crime series, featuring Inspector Montalbano. This edition with a stunning redesigned cover.The goats of Vigata once grazed on the trash-strewn site still known as the Pasture. Now local enterprise of a different sort flourishes: drug dealers and prostitutes of every flavour. But their discreet trade is upset when two employees of the Splendour Refuse Collection Company discover the body of engineer Silvio Luparello, one of the local movers and shakers, apparently deceased in flagrante at the Pasture. The coroner's verdict is death from natural causes - refreshingly unusual for Sicily. But Inspector Salvo Montalbano, as honest as he is streetwise and as scathing to fools and villains as he is compassionate to their victims, is not ready to close the case - even though he's being pressured by Vigata's police chief, judge, and bishop. Picking his way through a labyrinth of high-comedy corruption, delicious meals, vendetta firepower, and carefully planted false clues, Montalbano can be relied on, whatever the cost, to get to the heart of the matter.The Shape of Water is followed by the second in this phenomenal series, The Terracotta Dog.
E is for Evidence is the fifth in the Kinsey Millhone mystery series by Sue Grafton.Anyone who knows me will tell you that I cherish my unmarried state. I'm female, twice divorced, no kids and no close family ties. I'm perfectly content to do what I do . . . It was two days after Christmas when Kinsey Millhone received the bank slip showing a credit for five thousand dollars. The account number was correct but Kinsey hadn't made the deposit. Then came the phone call and suddenly everything became clear. The frame-up was working and Kinsey was trapped . . .
G is for Gumshoe is the seventh in the Kinsey Millhone mystery series by Sue Grafton.For the record, the name is Kinsey Millhone. Private investigator. One hundred and eighteen pounds of female in a five-foot six-inch frame. Just turned thirty-three (after what seemed like an interminable twelve months of being thirty-two) . . . Three things happened on May 5, the day everyone sang 'Happy Birthday' to Kinsey Millhone. The repairs were completed on her apartment, and she moved back in. She was hired by Mrs Clyde Gersh to bring her mother back from the Mojave Desert. And lastly, a real surprise. The news that she'd made one of the top slots on Tyrone Patty's hit list . . .
J is for Judgement is the tenth in the Kinsey Millhone mystery series by Sue Grafton.On the face of it, you wouldn't think there was any connection between the murder of a dead man and the events that changed my perceptions about my life... For Kinsey Millhone, the investigation started with a surprise visit from an ex-colleague at California Fidelity - the company that had fired her nine months previously. Fives hours later she was on a plane to Mexico, hot on the trial of a suicide who'd allegedly just come back to life. After a five year wait, Wendell Jaffe's widow had finally succeeded in having the real estate swindler declared dead, collecting half a million dollars for her pains. Now it looks like a 'pseudocide' - and Kinsey's ready to risk everything to get to the truth . . .
W is for Wasted is the twenty-third in the Kinsey Millhone alphabet mystery series by Sue Grafton. Two dead men changed the course of my life that fall. One of them I knew and the other I'd never laid eyes on until I saw him in the morgue. The first was a local private investigator of suspect reputation. He'd been gunned down near the beach at Santa Teresa. It looked like a robbery gone bad. The other was on the beach six weeks later. He'd been sleeping rough. Probably homeless. No identification. A slip of paper with private investigator Kinsey Millhone's name and number was in his trouser pocket. The coroner asked her to come to the morgue to see if she could ID him. Two seemingly unrelated deaths, one a murder, the other apparently of natural causes. But as Kinsey digs deeper into the mystery of the John Doe, some very strange links begin to emerge. And before long at least one aspect is solved as Kinsey finds the key to his identity . . . In this multi-layered tale, the surfaces seem clear, but the underpinnings are full of betrayals, misunderstandings, and outright murderous fraud. And Kinsey, through no fault of her own, is thoroughly compromised . . .
The Lake House by Kate Morton is the mysterious and enchanting fifth novel from the number one bestselling author of The House at Riverton and The Secret Keeper.A missing child . . .June 1933, and the Edevane family's country house, Loeanneth, is polished and gleaming, ready for the much-anticipated Midsummer Eve party. Alice Edevane, sixteen years old and a budding writer, is especially excited. Not only has she worked out the perfect twist for her novel, she's also fallen helplessly in love with someone she shouldn't. But by the time midnight strikes and fireworks light up the night skies, the Edevane family will have suffered a loss so great that they leave Loeanneth forever.An abandoned house . . .Seventy years later, after a particularly troubling case, Sadie Sparrow is sent on an enforced break from her job with the Metropolitan Police. She retreats to her beloved grandfather's cottage in Cornwall but soon finds herself at a loose end. Until one day, Sadie stumbles upon an abandoned house surrounded by overgrown gardens and dense woods, and learns the story of a baby boy who disappeared without a trace.An unsolved mystery . . .Meanwhile, in the attic writing room of her elegant Hampstead home, the formidable Alice Edevane, now an old lady, leads a life as neatly plotted as the bestselling detective novels she writes. Until a young police detective starts asking questions about her family's past, seeking to resurrect the complex tangle of secrets Alice has spent her life trying to escape...
The first novel in the hugely compelling Edie Kiglatuk series set in the high Arctic..Nothing on the tundra rotted . . . The whole history of human settlement lay exposed there, under that big northern sky. There was nowhere here for bones to hide.On Craig Island, a vast landscape of ice north of the Arctic Circle, three travellers are hunting duck. Among them is expert Inuit hunter and guide, Edie Kiglatuk; a woman born of this harsh, beautiful terrain. The two men are tourists, experiencing Arctic life in the raw, but when one of the men is shot dead in mysterious circumstances, the local Council of Elders in the tiny settlement of Autisaq is keen to dismiss it as an accident.Then two adventurers arrive in Autisaq hoping to search for the remains of the legendary Victorian explorer Sir James Fairfax. The men hire Edie - whose ancestor Welatok guided Fairfax - along with Edie's stepson Joe, and two parties set off in different directions. Four days later, Joe returns to Autisaq frostbitten, hypothermic and disoriented, to report his man missing. And when things take an even darker turn, Edie finds herself heartbroken, and facing the greatest challenge of her life . . .'A blazing star of a thriller: vivid, tightly-sprung, and satisfying on all levels. Encountering Edie Kiglatuk, the toughest, smartest Arctic heroine since Miss Smilla, left me with that rare feeling of privilege you get on meeting extraordinary people in real life. A huge achievement' Liz Jensen, author of The Rapture 'Edie is an ingenious and original creation but the most addictive character is the Arctic itself' Sunday Telegraph
Gemma, Duncan, and the boys are back in their Notting Hill house and enjoying a quiet spring in London when Gemma receives a plea for help from her friend and neighbor, Erika Rosenthal.Erika has never shared much of her past, other than telling Gemma that she and her husband came to London before the war as refugees from the emerging Nazi regime in Germany. Her husband was a historian and was found murdered in a local park. His death was never solved. Now Erika tells Gemma that a necklace from her past has come up for auction - a necklace which was taken from her. Now Erika asks Gemma to find out where the necklace came from.As Gemma works backwards, interviewing the staff at the auction house and looking into the records of David Rosenthal's death, her viewpoint is interwoven with Erika's vivid memories of her life as a young woman in London during and after the war. Then a young woman at the auction house is murdered and suddenly the case becomes very much centred in the present.
The gripping new crime novel in the Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series from New York Times bestselling author Faye Kellerman. It has been almost a year since Greenbury's last murder. Detective Peter Decker has enjoyed the slower pace of his new job with the upstate police department. Then he receives a phone call from his captain. A male body has been found in the local woods. It appears to be a suicide - single shot to the head, gun by his side - but until the coroner makes the final determination, Decker and his partner Tyler McAdams must treat the scene as a suspicious crime. Identifying the body takes Decker and McAdams into the indecipherable upper echelons of mathematics at Kneed Loft College - a sphere of scheming academics, hidden cyphers and most dangerous of all, a realm of underworld crime where even the most conscientious students can become cold and calculating. It will take all of Decker's wits and McAdams's brains to penetrate enigmatic formulas and codes to solve a dark, twisted tale created by depraved masterminds.
A killer at large in a remote Basque Country valley , a detective to rival Clarice Starling, myth versus reality, masterful storytelling - the Spanish bestseller that has taken Europe by storm.Shortlisted for the CWA International DaggerThe body of a teenage girl has been found on the banks of the River Baztan - the second in a month. Soon rumours are flying in the village of Elizondo. Is this the work of a serial killer, or something even more sinister?Inspector Amaia Salazar leads the investigation, returning to the Basque country where she was born. Shrouded in mist and surrounded by forest, it conceals a terrible secret from Amaia's childhood that has come back to haunt her.Facing the superstitions of the village, Amaia must fight the demons of her past in order to catch the killer. But what is the dark presence she senses lurking in the shadows?
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year He just knocked, that was all, knocked at the front door and waited, like the fourteen years since the night I'd killed my mother hadn't happened at all...A"e; Crushed by an impossible shame, Jinx's life has been little more than a shell; estranged from her husband, she is even relieved when he takes her young son with him. When Lemon, an old friend of her mother's, turns up on her doorstep, Jinx is forced to confront her past, and with the pain of remembrance comes the possibility of redemption. But Lemon has his own secrets to share, and together they unravel an unforgettable family drama, stoked with violence and passion. Rich with voices from East London and the West Indies, Edwards's narrative is delivered with a unique and uncompromising bite that announces a new talent in British fiction.
Two women, centuries apart. Linked in a place haunted by its history . . .Separated by more than six hundred years of history, two women are drawn together by Sleeper's Castle, a house steeped in memory and magic. This is an epic tale of forbidden love, cruel revenge and a war that time can't forget.Grieving and lost, Miranda has moved to Hay to escape, and slowly she feels herself coming to life in the solitude of the mountains. But her vivid dreams at Sleeper's Castle introduce her to Catrin, a young women whose gift for foretelling the future embroiled her in a bloody revolt against English rule - many centuries ago.An unbreakable connection is forged across history. Catrin is reaching out . . . and only Miranda can help. But time is running out...Sunday Times bestselling author Barbara Erskine returns to Hay in the year that marks the 30th anniversary of her sensational debut bestseller, Lady of Hay.
The much anticipated final instalment in the bestselling conspiracy thriller trilogy by Simon Toyne, author of SANCTUS: 'Plenty of action, plenty of intrigue and wonderfully imaginative. The sort of novel to devour in one sitting' Kate Mosse. For all fans of Dan Brown.AFTER THE RISE, COMES THE FALL.The forbidden Citadel at the heart of the ancient Turkish city of Ruin opens its gates for the first time in history. Why now, after centuries of secrecy?A deadly disease has erupted within, and threatens to spread beyond its walls. Infected charity worker Gabriel Mann may hold the cure - but can one dying man stop an epidemic?Without him, former journalist Liv Adamsen is vulnerable, surrounded by strangers in the desert oasis that is her new home. Liv, however, has far bigger concerns than just her own life...In the USA, newly qualified FBI Agent Joe Shepherd investigates the disappearance of NASA's most senior professor. Is it a vanishing act, an abduction, or something darker? Shepherd's investigation approaches a powerful conspiracy with global reach, and profound consequences.For them all, this much is clear: something big is coming. Something that will change everything. But will it be a new beginning or the End of Days?
A game of cards leads Flashman from the jungle death-house of Dahomey to the slave state of Mississippi as he dabbles in the slave trade in Volume III of the Flashman Papers.When Flashman was inveigled into a game of pontoon with Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck, he was making an unconscious choice about his own future - would it lie in the House of Commons or the West African slave trade? Was there, for that matter, very much difference?Once again Flashman's charm, cowardice, treachery, lechery and fleetness of foot see the lovable rogue triumph by the skin of his chattering teeth.
'Humour and topicality along a cold enigmatic trail of murder' ObserverLife is on the up for Patrick Aldermann: his Great Aunt Florence has collapsed into her rose bed leaving him Rosemont House with its splendid gardens. But when his boss, 'Dandy' Dick Elgood, suggests to Peter Pascoe that Aldermann is a murderer - then later retracts the accusation - the detective inspector is left with a thorny problem. Not only have the police already dug up some interesting information about Aldermann's beautiful wife; it also appears that his rapid promotion has been helped by the convenient deaths of some of his colleagues...
The jaw-dropping, page-turning, critically-acclaimed book of the year: a serial-killer thriller unlike any other from the award-winning Lauren Beukes. 'GONE GIRL has not exactly gone. But THE SHINING GIRLS have arrived' (The Times)."e;It's not my fault. It's yours. You shouldn't shine. You shouldn't make me do this."e;THE GIRL WHO WOULDN'T DIEKirby is lucky she survived the attack. She is sure there were other victims were less fortunate, but the evidence she finds is ... impossible.HUNTING A KILLER WHO SHOULDN'T EXISTHarper stalks his shining girls through the years - and cuts the spark out of them. But what if the one that got away cameback for him?
A collection of macabre mysteries, including the superlative short story Witness for the Prosecution...Twelve unexplained phenomena with no apparent earthly explanation...A dog-shaped gunpowder mark; an omen from 'the other side'; a haunted house; a chilling seance; a case of split personalities; a recurring nightmare; an eerie wireless message; an elderly lady's hold over a young man; a disembodied cry of 'murder'; a young man's sudden amnesia; a levitation experience; a mysterious SOS.To discover the answers, delve into the supernatural storytelling of Agatha Christie.
Has Jefferson Winter finally met his match? Six years ago a young married couple were found brutally stabbed to death in their home in Upstate New York. Local police arrested a suspect who later committed suicide. But what if the police got it wrong?Ex-FBI profiler Jefferson Winter is drawn into a deadly cat-and-mouse game with a mysterious female psychopath as she sets him a challenge: find out what really happened six years ago.The clock is ticking and, as Winter is about to find out, the endgame is everything . . .
'One of Britain's most consistently excellent crime novelists' The Times '[Reginald Hill] keeps one on the edge of one's wits throughout a bitterly enthralling detection thriller' Sunday TimesWhere better for a hitman to retire than in the Lake District, where the air is healthy and the scenery spectacular? And when Jaymith meets attractive young widow, Anya Wilson, he can't believe his luck.But Jaysmith soon discovers that settling down to the quiet life is not as easy as it seems. His old employers aren't keen to lose him, his past is always lying in wait, and when Anya introduces him to her family, Jaysmith realizes there's no way out.He's back in business, and it makes little difference that this time it's to defend, not destroy. However you wrap it up, his one accessible talent is the Long Kill.
May, 1937, and London prepares to crown a new king.Bestselling writer Josephine Tey is in town to oversee a BBC radio production of her play, Queen of Scots - but adultery, treachery and pent-up jealousies stalk the corridors of Broadcasting House. At the height of the Coronation celebrations, Detective Chief Inspector Archie Penrose is called in to investigate the murder of one of the BBC's best-known broadcasters. A second victim - his mistress, and the play's leading actress - suggests that the motive lies close to home, but Josephine suspects that the killings are linked to a decade-old scandal.With Archie's hands tied by politics, and his attention taken by another, seemingly unrelated death, it is left to Josephine to get to the truth. As her relationship with Marta Fox reaches a turning point, she is forced to confront at first-hand the deadly consequences of love, deceit and betrayal.Rich in the atmosphere of coronation London and the early days of Broadcasting House, the sixth novel in Nicola Upson's 'Josephine Tey' series sets an audacious, deeply personal crime against the backdrop of one of the most momentous days in British history.
NOW A MAJOR TV DRAMA ON SKY ATLANTIC. The powerful second psychological thriller featuring Javier Falcon, the complex detective from 'The Blind Man of Seville'.At seven years old, Mario Vega faces a terrible tragedy - his parents are dead in an apparent suicide pact.But Inspector Javier Falcon has his doubts. In the brutal heat of a Seville summer, he dissects the disturbing life of the boy's father, Rafael Vega. His investigation draws threats from the Russian mafia whose corruption reaches deep into the city. He questions a creative American couple with a destructive past and uncovers the misery of a famous actor whose only son is in prison for an appalling crime.More suicides follow and one of them is a senior policeman. As a forest fire rages through the hills above the city Falcon must sweat out the truth that connects it all - and find the final secret in the dark heart of Vega's life.
London, 1903. Two women are hanged in Holloway Prison for killing babies. More than thirty years later, their crimes resurface with shocking consequences...When Josephine Tey sets out to write a novel about Amelia Sach and Annie Walters, the notorious Finchley baby farmers, she can have little idea that the research for her book will be needed to help solve a modern-day killing - the sadistic murder of a young seamstress, found dead in the Motley sisters' studio, amid preparations for a star-studded charity gala. The girl's death seems to be the result of a long-standing domestic feud, but Josephine's friend, Inspector Archie Penrose, is unconvinced; and when a second young woman is involved in an horrific accident soon afterwards, the search begins for a vicious killer who will stop at nothing to keep the past where it belongs.Moving between the decadence and glamour of a private women's club, the bleak surroundings of Holloway prison, and the deprivation of London's slums, Two for Sorrow is a dark and unsettling exploration of the way in which the crimes of the past destroy those left behind - long after justice is done.
Lefevre, a French archaeologist, has arrived in Istanbul determined to uncover a lost Byzantine treasure. Yashim is commissioned to find out more about him. But when Lefevre's mutilated body is discovered outside the French embassy, it turns out that there is only one suspect: Yashim himself. Once again, Yashim finds himself in a race against time to find the startling truth behind a shadowy secret society dedicated to the revival of the Byzantine Empire, caught in a deadly game deep beneath the city streets, a place where the stakes are high - and betrayal is death.
An enormously satisfying, exciting and enriching book, Vikram Chandra's novel draws the reader deep into the lives of detective Sartaj Singh and Ganesh Gaitonde, the most wanted gangster in India. Sartaj, the only Sikh inspector in the whole of Mumbai, is used to being identified by his turban, beard and the sharp cut of his trousers. But 'the silky Sikh' is now past forty, his marriage is over and his career prospects are on the slide. When Sartaj gets an anonymous tip off as to the secret hideout of the legendary boss of the G-company, he's determined that he'll be the one to collect the prize.This is a sprawling, epic novel of friendships and betrayals, of terrible violence, of an astonishing modern city and its underworld. Drawing on the best of Victorian fiction, mystery novels, Bollywood movies and Vikram Chandra's years of first hand research on the streets of Mumbai, this novel reads like a potboiling page-turner but resonates with the intelligence and emotional depth of the best of literature.
The gripping new psychological thriller featuring Javier Falcon, the tortured detective from 'The Silent and the Damned' and 'The Blind Man of Seville.'As Inspector Jefe Javier Falcon investigates a faceless corpse unearthed on a municipal dump, Seville is rocked by a massive explosion. An apartment block is destroyed, and when it's discovered that its basement housed a mosque everybody's terrorist fears are confirmed.Panic sweeps the city, more bodies are dragged from rubble, the climate of fear infects everyone and terror invades the domestic life of flamboyant judge Calderon and the troubled mind of Consuelo, Falcon's one-time lover.With the media and political pressure intensifying, Falcon realizes all is not as it appears. But as he comes close to cracking a conspiracy, he discovers an even more terrifying plot - and the race is on to prevent a catastrophe far beyond Spain's borders.
Inspector Archie Penrose invites Josephine Tey down to his family home in Cornwall so she can recover from the traumatic events depicted in An Expert in Murder. Josephine welcomes the opportunity, especially since Archie's home is near the famous Minack open-air theatre perched on the cliffs overlooking the sea. However, Josephine's hopes of experiencing a period of rest are dashed when her arrival coincides with the funeral of a young man from the village who had drowned when his horse inexplicitly leapt into the nearby lake.When another young man disappears and the village's curate falls from the cliffs of the Minack Theatre onto the rocks below, Josphine and Archie begin to suspect the involvement a cold-blooded murderer.As Josephine and Archie try to unravel the mystery, they begin to see death as an angel with two faces - one gazing at the violence in the present, the other looking back to the crimes hidden in the past.
Ngaio Marsh's most popular novel begins when a young New Zealander's first contact with the English gentry is the body of Lord Wutherford - with a meat skewer through the eye...The Lampreys had plenty of charm - but no cash. They all knew they were peculiar - and rather gloried in it. The double and triple charades, for instance, with which they would entertain their guests - like rich but awful Uncle Gabriel, who was always such a bore. The Lampreys thought if they jollied him up he would bail them out - yet again.Instead, Uncle Gabriel met a violent end. And Chief Inspector Alleyn had to work our which of them killed him...
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