Books published by Hodder & Stoughton

'All the erudition and pithy wit you would expect from Humphrys, but there is also a charming, genuine enquiry that shines through' MAIL ON SUNDAY* * * * * *Bestselling author, radio presenter and national treasure John Humphrys tackles the big question of God through his own personal journey and argues that doubt is the only credible belief. Throughout the ages believers have been persecuted - usually for believing in the "e;wrong"e; God. So have non-believers who have denied the existence of God as superstitious rubbish. Today it is the agnostics who are given a hard time. They are scorned by believers for their failure to find faith and by atheists for being hopelessly wishy-washy and weak-minded. But John Humphrys is proud to count himself among their ranks. In this book he takes us along the spiritual road he himself has travelled. He was brought up a Christian and prayed every day of his life until his growing doubts finally began to overwhelm his faith. As one of the nation's most popular and respected broadcasters, he had the rare opportunity in 2006 of challenging leaders of our three main religions to prove to him that God does exist. The Radio Four interviews - Humphrys In Search of God - provoked the biggest response to anything he has done in half a century of journalism. The interviews and the massive reaction from listeners had a profound effect on him - but not in the way he expected. Doubt is not the easy option. But for the millions who can find no easy answers to the most profound questions it is the only possible one.

The eighth Lincoln Rhyme novel from Jeffery Deaver, bestselling master of the twist. 'Another corker . . . precision-engineered to keep the reader turning the pages without a hitch' Evening StandardCompanies know everything about you. So does he. He knows you, better than you even know yourself. And he is using his knowledge to plan your death.But you are not his only victim.He is also watching your killer. He is about to get away with the perfect murder ...Rhyme's cousin has been arrested for murder - and while the evidence clearly shows he did it, Rhyme agrees to check things out. All too soon the entire case is turned on its head when it turns out that his cousin, along with others, is being cleverly framed by a killer who knows far too much about his victims...

The first gripping mystery in the Kathryn Dance series from master of suspense, and author of the Lincoln Rhyme novels, Jeffery Deaver.California Bureau of Investigation Special agent Kathryn Dance is an expert in kinesics: the science of interpreting behaviour. It makes her a brilliant interrogator. But she's up against Daniel Pell, a master of control who mesmerises, seduces and exploits people for his own murderous ends. A convicted killer who is known as The Son of Manson for the chilling parallels between him and the notorious ritual murderer. To track down Pell before he destroys yet more lives, Kathyn Dance must enlist the help of four people from the killer's past. The three women who lived under his sadistic sway in the cult he once headed. And the young girl known as the Sleeping Doll, the only survivor of her family's slaughter at Pell's hands ...

Andrea Hayes was one of the IRA's most deadly killers. But when a misplaced bomb ripped apart a group of passing kids, she left all that behind her.Now, years later, she lives a quiet, suburban life with her husband and young daughter, and her days of violence seem a distant memory. But then her daughter is kidnapped by persons unknown, and the past comes knocking at her door . . . *********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping' Irish Independent 'The sheer impetus of his story-telling is damned hard to resist'Sunday Express

Two murders, thousands of miles apart: one in London, one in Bangkok.The bodies are brutally mutilated, an ace of spades impaled upon their chests. In Washington, a US senator receives photographs of the corpses. And realises that his past has come back to haunt him.Nick Wright is the detective trying to solve the mystery of the double killing. His hunt for a motive takes him to the Vietnam, where the American tunnel rats fought the dirtiest battle of the war against the Viet Cong. But his search places him in grave danger with a killer determined to protect the secrets of the tunnels. At whatever cost . . .************PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping' Irish Independent 'The sheer impetus of his story-telling is damned hard to resist'Sunday Express

The assassin: the world's most successful contract killer. An anonymous professional with a unique calling card - one bullet in the head and one in the chest for each and every target.The Judas goat: an ex-member of the SAS, Mike Cramer is the perfect sacrificial bait. When the FBI discover the next name on the assassin's hitlist, Cramer is set up to take his place.The wild card: Cramer's past has caught up with him. Ex-IRA extremist Dermot Lynch blames Cramer for his lover's death - and he's out for revenge.As Cramer trains for the most dangerous mission of his career, Lynch hunts down his sworn enemy. And the unknown assassin silently closes in on his target. The players are in position for the final deadly game . . .***********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'A writer at the top of his game'Sunday Express'In the top rank of thriller writers' Jack Higgins

Why does a wealthy Scottish financier set up a drugs deal with the IRA? Jeopardise his career, endanger his family and lover by tangling with the East End underworld and a ruthless mercenary? The motive is simple: revenge for a cold-blooded act of murder.His adversary is a dangerous gangland boss whose connections stretch from the Highlands to London and beyond. More than a match for a newcomer, especially when that newcomer's plans contain a fatal flaw which will be discovered only when it is much too late . . . *********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping' Irish Independent 'The sheer impetus of his story-telling is damned hard to resist'Sunday Express

Hong Kong, 1991. The colony is preparing for Chinese rule.Geoff Howells, a government-trained killing machine, is brought out of retirement and sent to there. His brief: to assassinate Chinese Mafia leader, Simon Ng. Howells devises a dangerous and complicated plan to reach his intended victim - only to find himself the next target.Patrick Dugan, a Hong Kong policeman, has been held back in his career because of his family connections: his sister is married to Simon Ng. But when Ng's daughter is kidnapped and Ng himself disappears, Dugan gets caught up in a series of violent events and an international spy ring that has spun out of control . . .***********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping' Irish Independent 'The sheer impetus of his story-telling is damned hard to resist'Sunday Express

Tony Freeman rescued Mersiha when she was fighting for her life in war-torn Yugoslavia. Now she's his adopted daughter, the perfect all-American girl, and it seems like her past is another country.But Mersiha has been trained to kill. And when she discovers that Freeman's company is being subjected to a sinister takeover bid, she decides to help - whatever the risks.The consequences of her actions are lethal, for Mersiha has unearthed a conspiracy of terrifying proportions . . .*********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'A writer at the top of his game'Sunday Express'In the top rank of thriller writers' Jack Higgins

Sally is a young, talented journalist living life to the full. So why would she leap fifteen floors to her death?When the Hong Kong authorities decide it was suicide, Sally's brother, a London-based crime reporter, begins his own investigation to find out what really happened . . .And to exact his revenge.***********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'A writer at the top of his game'Sunday Express'In the top rank of thriller writers' Jack Higgins

Chris Hutchison is a man on the run.Imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, Hutch escapes from a British maximum-security prison and starts a new life in Hong Kong. But a ghost from his past catches up with him and gives him a choice: help a former terrorist break out of a Bangkok prison - or face life behind bars once more.Meanwhile, the DEA wants to nail the vicious drug warlord responsible for flooding the States with cheap heroin. And decides to use Hutch as a pawn in a deadly game.Hutch's bid for freedom takes him into the lawless killing fields of the Golden Triangle, where the scene is set for one final act of betrayal . . .**********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'A writer at the top of his game'Sunday Express 'As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping' Irish Independent

The plan is so complex, the target so well protected that the three snipers have to rehearse the killing in the seclusion of the Arizona desert.Cole Howard of the FBI knows he has only days to prevent the audacious assassination. But he doesn't know who the target is. Or where the crack marksmen will strike.Former SAS sergeant Mike Cramer is also on the trail, infiltrating the Irish community in New York as he tracks down Mary Hennessy, the ruthless killer who tore his life apart.Unless Cramer and Howard agree to co-operate, the world will witness the most spectacular terrorist coup of all time . . .

As a big player in the 90s London underworld, Terry Greene has always made a priority of 'taking care of business' personally. Preston Snow was out of line. So the up-close-and-personal visit was in no way out of character.It was a messy hit. But the job was done.More messy however, was the aftermath. Fingered by one of his own crew, Terry finds himself taking the fall and is put away for life. The only person he can trust in the entire world is his estranged wife, Sam. She must now take over the reins of his organisation, find the snitch and - in theory - get Terry off the hook. But after a shaky start, she quickly starts to get her own ideas . . .***********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping' Irish Independent 'The sheer impetus of his story-telling is damned hard to resist'Sunday Express

Jack Solomon is a messenger of death.Working in the fractured remains of Yugoslavia, his task is to identify the victims of ethnic cleansing and to tell families that their loved ones are never coming home.Years of toiling in the killing fields have desensitised the former London policeman to the horrors of war, but when a truck containing twenty-six bodies is pulled from a lake, Solomon is unable to walk away from the case.He sets out to track down the only survivor of the massacre, a young girl on the run from the killers. Solomon's hunt for the last witness takes him from the brothels of Sarajevo to the high-stakes world of London's internet prostitution - where he will discover that the killers are closer to home than he thinks . . .*********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'A writer at the top of his game'Sunday Express'In the top rank of thriller writers' Jack Higgins

The second book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series. There's only one thing more dangerous than a corrupt cop . . . and that's a corrupt cop with a gun.When a group of armed police in an elite unit turn maverick and start to rip off drug dealers at gunpoint, undercover cop Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is given his most dangerous mission so far.Shepherd is ordered to infiltrate the tight-knit team, to gain their confidence and to ultimately betray them.Facing men with guns is nothing new for the former SAS trooper, but it's the first time he's had to investigate his own. And the job couldn't have come at a worse time for him.As Shepherd finds himself in the firing line, he has to decide exactly where his loyalties lie.

The first book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series. Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line. Working for an elite undercover squad he has lied, cheated and conned in order to bring Britain's most wanted criminals to justice.But when a powerful drugs baron starts to kill off witnesses to his crimes, Shepherd is given his most dangerous assignment yet. He has to go undercover in a top security prison, a world where one wrong move will mean certain death.As Shepherd gambles everything to move in on his quarry, he soon realises that the man he is hunting is even more dangerous than the police realise. And that he is capable of striking outside the prison walls and hitting Shepherd where it hurts most.

Hong Kong. The British administration is preparing to hand the capitalist colony back to Communist China with the minimum of fuss.Colonel Joel Tyler, however, has other plans for the British colony - plans that involve four Vietnam War veterans and a spectacular mission making use of their unique skills.But while the vets are preparing to take the country by storm, their paymaster, Anthony Chung, puts the final touches to an audacious betrayal. The future of Hong Kong is at stake . . .*********PRAISE FOR STEPHEN LEATHER'A master of the thriller genre'Irish Times'A writer at the top of his game'Sunday Express'In the top rank of thriller writers' Jack Higgins

The third book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series. Even deadlier than terrorists . . . are the men trying to stop them.People-smuggling, counterfeit currency and attempted murder. It's all in a day's work for undercover cop Dan 'Spider' Shepherd. But what starts as a run-of-the mill investigation quickly turns into a matter of life and death when he uncovers a terrorist cell on a mission of death and destruction. The target: hundreds of passengers on a cross-channel train deep below the English Channel.With the clock ticking and the explosives primed, Shepherd and his colleagues have to decide just how far they are prepared to go to save innocent lives. And they realise that to avoid catastrophe, they have to be even more merciless than the terrorists.

The fifth book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series.Former SAS trooper turned undercover cop Dan Spider Shepherd knows there are no easy solutions in the war against terrorism. But when a killer starts to target pardoned IRA terrorists, Shepherd has to put his life on the line to protect his former enemies. While he is undercover in Belfast, a grief-stricken Saudi whose two sons died under torture in the name of the War on Terror is planning to avenge their deaths by striking out at two people close to Shepherd. As the Muslim assassin closes in on his prey, Shepherd realises that the only way to save lives is to become a killer himself.

The fourth book in the bestselling Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series.Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line. It goes with the turf when you're an undercover cop. Now working for the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Shepherd is pitting his wits against the toughest criminals in the country. But when the man who once saved his life is kidnapped in the badlands of Iraq, thrown into a basement and threatened with execution, Shepherd has to decide whether his loyalties lie with his country, his career, or his friend. Shepherd and his former SAS colleagues realise that the hostage has been abandoned by the Government and that officially nothing is being done to rescue him. And with the execution deadline only days away, Shepherd knows that the only way to stop his friend being murdered is to put himself in the firing line in the most dangerous city in the world - Baghdad.

Deadlock, V I Warshawksi s second case, involves the huge Great Lakes shipping industry. Once again the subject is murder this time the accidental death of Boom-Boom Warshawski, an ex-hockey star and V I s beloved cousin, who fell or was pushed off a rain-slicked pier on Chicago s busy waterfront. Convinced that Boom-Boom was in fact killed because of information he had uncovered about criminal doings on the shipping lines, V I begins a long and frustrating search for her cousin s murderer. In the course of an investigation that takes her to a remote Canadian port city and a calamitous trip on a sabotaged freighter, V I finds all too many possible candidates for the killer, including a grain company executive involved in extortion; and rival heads of two shippers, one of whom is being blackmailed for his criminal past; a hockey player whose specialty is graft; and Boom-Boom s lover, an icily beautiful dancer with expensive tastes in men and merchandise.

Bitter Medicine, V I Warshawski s fourth case, starts when a young friend goes into premature labor. V I and Consuelo are far from home. By the time Consuelo's doctor, young Malcolm Tregiere, arrives, both she and her baby are dead at the local for profit hospital. V I assumes this is a tragic but unavoidable outcome. However, when Dr. Tregiere is brutally murdered and V I begins to investigate, her work unleashes a trail of violence that leads her back to the hospital where Consuelo died. The trail of greed and violence the detective uncovers proves to be bitter medicine indeed.

Meeting an anonymous client on a sizzling summer night is asking for trouble. Especially when the client lies and tells V I Warshawski he s the prominent banker John Thayer, looking for his son s missing girlfriend. But V I soon discovers the real John Thayer s son and he s dead. As V I begins to question her mysterious client s motives, she sinks deeper into Chicago s darker side: a world of gangsters, insurance fraud and contract killings. And while she must concentrate on saving the life of someone she has never met, it becomes clear that she is in danger of losing her own. Newly available 25 years after a stunning debut, Indemnity Only introduces one of the world s best-loved private investigators.

Three million dollars in share certificates have been stolen from a Dominican priory, and VI Warshawski doesn t want to find out why. Aust Rosa, the priory s treasurer, wants her on the case, and VI has never forgiven Rosa for something she did a long time ago. But VI changes her mind and the case changes its course when she visits the priory. Suddenly everyone her aunt, the FBI, and a mysterious phone caller threatening to pour acid on VI s beautiful eyes tells her to let sleeping dogs lie. Then one of VI s dearest friends is murdered With her customary skill and with the help of a few stiff drinks, VI plunges into the affair. She needs all her wit, ingenuity and femininity, as well as her gun-handling and karate-chopping skills.

V I Warshawski may have left her old South Chicago neighborhood, but she learns that she cannot escape it. When V I takes over coaching duties of the girls' basketball team at her former high school, she faces an ill-equipped, ragtag group of gangbangers, fundamentalists, and teenage moms, who inevitably draw the detective into their family woes.Through young Josie Dorrado, V I meets the girl's mother, who voices her worries about sabotage in the little flag manufacturing plant where she works. The biggest employer on the South Side, discount-store behemoth By-Smart, pays even less, and Ms. Dorrado doesn't know how she'll support her four children if the flag plant shuts down. The elder Dorrado's fears are realized when the plant explodes; V I is injured and the owner is killed. As V I begins to investigate, she finds herself confronting the Bysen family, who own the By-Smart company. Founder William Buffalo Bill Bysen, now in his eighties, has four sons who quarrel with each other and with him; the oldest, Young Mr. William, is close to sixty and furious that his father doesn't cede more power to him. And then, there's Billy the Kid, Young Mr. William's nineteen-year-old son, whose Christian idealism puts him on a collision course with his father, his grandfather, and the company as a whole. When Billy runs away with Josie Dorrado, V I is squeezed between the needs of two very different families. As she tries to find the errant teenagers, and to track down a particularly cruel murderer, her own life is almost forfeit in the swamps that lie under the city of Chicago.

The seventeenth instalment in the Number One bestselling DCI Banks seriesWhen Karen Drew is found sitting in her wheelchair staring out to sea with her throat cut one chilly morning, DI Annie Cabbot, on loan to Eastern Area, gets lumbered with the case.Back in Eastvale, that same Sunday morning, 19-year-old Hayley Daniels is found raped and strangled in the Maze, a tangle of narrow alleys behind Eastvale's market square, after a drunken night on the town with a group of friends, and DCI Alan Banks is called in. Banks finds suspects galore, while Annie seems to hit a brick wall - until she reaches a breakthrough that spins her case in a shocking and surprising new direction, one that also involves Banks. Then another incident occurs in the Maze which seems to link the two cases in a bizarre and mysterious way. As Banks and Annie dig into the past to uncover the deeper connections, they find themselves also dealing with the emotional baggage and personal demons of their own relationship. It soon becomes clear that there are two killers in their midst, and that at any moment either one might strike again.

The sixteenth instalment in the Number One bestselling DCI Banks series.As volunteers clean up after a huge outdoor rock concert in Yorkshire in 1969, they discover the body of a young woman wrapped in a sleeping bag.She has been brutally murdered. The detective assigned to the case, Stanley Chadwick, is a hard-headed, strait-laced veteran of the Second World War. He could not have less in common with - or less regard for - young, disrespectful, long-haired hippies, smoking marijuana and listening to the pulsing sounds of rock and roll. But he has a murder to solve, and it looks as if the victim was somehow associated with the up-and-coming psychedelic pastoral band the Mad Hatters.In the present, Inspector Alan Banks is investigating the murder of a freelance music journalist who was working on a feature about the Mad Hatters for MOJO magazine. This is not the first time that the Mad Hatters, now aging rock superstars, have been brushed by tragedy. Banks finds he has to delve into the past to find out exactly what hornets' nest the journalist inadvertently stirred up.

In 1693, the settlers on the small Maine island of Sanctuary were betrayed to their enemies and slaughtered. Since then, the island has known three hundred years of peace. Until now. For men are descending on Sanctuary, their purpose to hunt down and kill the wife of their leader and retrieve the money that she stole from him. All that stands in their way are a young rookie officer, Sharon Macy, and the island's strange, troubled policeman, the giant known as Melancholy Joe Dupree. But Joe Dupree is no ordinary policeman. He is the guardian of the island's secrets, the repository of its memories. He knows that Sanctuary has been steeped in blood once; it will tolerate the shedding of blood no longer. Now a band of killers is set to desecrate Sanctuary and unleash the fury of its ghosts upon themselves and all who stand by them. On Sanctuary, evil is about to meet its match.

A fast-paced thriller featuring Charlie Parker from the bestselling author of The Killing Kind.'A cracking read from an excellent and highly original writer.' - Sunday IndependentIn South Carolina, a young black man faces the death penalty for the rape and murder of Marianne Larousse, daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the state. It's a case that nobody wants to touch, a case with its roots in old evil, and old evil is private detective Charlie Parker's speciality. But Parker is about to make a descent into the abyss, a confrontation with dark forces that threaten all that Parker holds dear: his lover, his unborn child, even his soul. . . For in a prison cell, a fanatical preacher is about to take his revenge on Charlie Parker, its instruments the very men that Parker is hunting, and a strange, hunched creature that keeps its own secrets buried by a riverbank: the undiscovered killer Cyrus Nairn. Soon, all of these figures will face a final reckoning in southern swamps and northern forests, in distant locations linked by a single thread, a place where the paths of the living and the dead converge.A place known only as the White Road.

Still traumatised by her brush with a psychopath, Detective Cassie Maddox transfers out of the Murder squad and starts a relationship with fellow detective Sam O'Neill. When he calls her to the scene of his new case, she is shocked to find that the murdered girl is her double. What's more, her ID shows she is Lexie Madison - the identity Cassie used, years ago, as an undercover detective. With no leads, no suspects and no clues to Lexie's real identity, Cassie's old boss spots the opportunity of a lifetime: send Cassie undercover in her place, to tempt the killer out of hiding to finish the job.