Showing titles in Crime Fiction

Gina's body has floated down the River Esk. She was a farmer's wife. And it looks like an accident. But Michael Brady has his doubts. Brady's back in the police–and he needs to prove himself. Is it murder? Or does Brady need it to be murder? It's a year since his wife died. He's feeling lonely. And he's still trying to balance being a single dad and being a Detective Chief Inspector.

In the heart of sultry New Orleans, Scarlett Prejean's life, filled with beauty and ambition, is marred by a haunting presence—her abusive husband, Joshua. As the proud owner of a cozy bookstore and a haven of coffee and literature, she seeks solace amid the unrelenting cruelty of her marriage. But fate takes a dark and unexpected turn when Joshua makes a chilling decision: he hires Bane, an assassin bound by a relentless code, to bring Scarlett's life to a tragic end. What Joshua doesn't foresee is the profound twist that awaits.

An unassuming Dottie Ellis falls for bad boy Jimmy Carson, who sweeps her off her feet. But after discovering she is pregnant and learning that Jimmy has gone back to his ex-girlfriend Carrie Verne, her happiness falls apart. Heartbroken, Dottie runs home, only to unearth a disturbing family secret that rocks her to the core. She is now faced with an agonizing decision to protect her unborn child. What she does shocks the town. In a moment of solidarity, Carrie makes a promise to Dottie, cementing an unlikely bond between them.

The body of eighteen-year-old TV personality Kathleen is found abandoned on a remote beach at the head of An Loch Dubh - the Black Loch - on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis. A swimmer and canoeist, it is inconceivable that she could have drowned. Fin Macleod left the island ten years earlier to escape its memories. When he learns that his married son Fionnlagh had been having a clandestine affair with the dead girl and is suspected of her murder, he and Marsaili return to try and clear his name.

Former soldier. Ex-copper. Current man on the edge. Shunned by his old colleagues, and dividing his time between a dead-end job and the bottom of a whisky bottle, former Police Scotland detective superintendent Bob Hoon’s life is a mess. Then an old face from Hoon’s Special Forces days turns up asking for help: His teenage daughter has been missing for months, the police have drawn a blank, and he needs the kind of help that only Hoon can provide. And besides, Hoon owes him one.

Retired publisher Susan Ryeland is living the good life. She is running a small hotel on a Greek island with her long-term boyfriend, Andreas. It should be everything she's always wanted - but is it? She's exhausted with the responsibilities of making everything work on an island where nothing ever does, and truth be told she's beginning to miss her old life in London.

Lily has only been married for three weeks. When her new husband fails to come home from work one night, she is left stranded in a new country where she knows no one. Alice finds a man on the beach outside her house. He has no name, no jacket, no idea what he is doing there. Against her better judgement, she invites him into her home.

Detective Constable Angus MacVicar has just landed his dream job – transferred out of uniform and assigned to Oldcastle’s biggest ongoing murder investigation: Operation Telegram, hunting the “Fortnight Killer”. Every two weeks another couple is targeted. One victim is left at the scene, their corpse used as a twisted message board. The second body is never seen again. This should be the perfect chance for Angus to prove himself, but instead of working on the investigation’s front line, he’s lumbered with the forensic psychologist from hell.

London rules might not be written down, but everyone knows rule one. Cover your arse. Regent's Park's First Desk, Claude Whelan, is learning this the hard way. Tasked with protecting a beleaguered prime minister, he's facing attack from all directions himself: from the showboating MP who orchestrated the Brexit vote and now has his sights set on Number 10; from the showboat's wife, a tabloid columnist who's crucifying Whelan in print; and especially from his own deputy, Lady Di Taverner, who's alert for Claude's every stumble.

When a nurse is murdered on her way home from nightshift, Jack and his team go on the hunt for her killer. As more victims are uncovered, Jack finds himself tracking a murderer afflicted by a unique psychosis - one that leaves him free to maim and kill without a shred of remorse. Facing a new type of killer in an unfamiliar city, DCI Jack Logan is about to be pushed to his limits, before being forced to realize just how little he truly knows.

Never forgive, never forget. That's Jack Reacher's operating principle. And Quinn was one of the worst guys he ever had the misfortune to meet. He had done unforgivable things. So Reacher was glad to know Quinn was dead. Until the day he saw someone who looked an awful lot like him, alive and well, riding in a limousine outside Boston's Symphony Hall.

From young women to elderly matrons, from the savvy sophisticates to the socially inept, the characters in these stories depict life's defining moments, where one calculated move cements the unalterable fate of another and the inescapable consequences of karma and conscience.

When Simon Serrailler was a rookie constable with the Met, he did something reckless in the course of a night's work which caused a man's death. But his act was praised by his colleagues, and he was called a hero. Years later, now a detective chief superintendent who has been badly injured in the course of duty, he receives a medal for bravery at Buckingham Palace while recollecting that fateful night of his early career, when chance disguised itself as bravery.

Wealthy Sir Hubert Handesley's original and lively weekend house parties are deservedly famous. To amuse his guests, he has devised a new form of the fashionable Murder Game, in which a guest is secretly selected to commit a 'murder' in the dark, and everyone assembles to solve the crime. But when the lights go up this time, there is a real corpse....

They’ve been murdered, their bodies bound to wooden crosses and left floating in a lake. They aren’t the only ones... After three female bodies are discovered in a Traverse, Michigan lake, FBI Special Agent Lexi Stone and her partner are called in to assist with the investigation. When another body surfaces, Lexi’s fiancé, Adam Quinn, a reporter with the Traverse Record becomes the prime suspect. Refusing to believe the man she plans to marry is a serial killer, Lexi is determined to prove it.

Ten years ago, Marshall profiled a serial killer the press had dubbed the Shadow Man, who killed six young athletes at remote sites in cold blood, and he worked with Northumbria Police to catch the perpetrator. But the Shadow Man kept the burial locations of the final three bodies to himself. Tired of the passivity, Marshall quit profiling and joined the police. Now a detective inspector in Police Scotland’s Borders Major Investigation Team, Marshall is summoned to HMP Frankland in County Durham, a.k.a. the Monster Mansion.

Tormented by the recent loss of a colleague, DCI Jack Logan is on the warpath, determined to bring down all those he holds responsible for the officer's death. His quest for revenge is cut short when a woman's body turns up on the remote island of Canna, and Jack is summoned to investigate. As a storm closes in, Jack finds himself cut-off from the rest of the world, with no car, no phone signal, and only DC Neish for company,

On the day after Christmas, head of Department Q Detective Carl Mørck finds himself handcuffed in a police car headed for Copenhagen's Vestre prison. After 15 years, a violent case from his past has caught up with him. Charges of drug trafficking and murder threaten to destroy his life and career. But he is being framed. Someone has a million dollar bounty on his head to make sure he doesn't talk, putting him in grave danger among the prison's incarcerated criminals and corrupt officers. The question that remains is, why?

1992. Eight respectable, upstanding people have been found dead across the US. These deaths look like accidents and don't appear to be connected. Until one body - the victim of a fatal fall from a hospital window - generates some unexpected attention. That attention comes from the Secretary of Defence, who promptly calls for an inter-agency task force to investigate. Jack Reacher is assigned as the Army's representative. Reacher may be an exceptional soldier, but sweeping other people's secrets under the carpet isn't part of his skill set.

For 15 years, Lexi and Jake have played the same six numbers with their friends, the Pearsons and the Heathcotes. Over dinner parties, fish & chip suppers and summer barbecues, they’ve discussed the important stuff – the kids, marriages, jobs and houses – and they’ve laughed off their disappointment when they failed to win anything more than a tenner. But then, one Saturday night, the unthinkable happens. There’s a rift in the group. Someone doesn’t tell the truth. And soon after, six numbers come up which change everything forever.