Showing results for "Sophie Hannah" in Literature & Fiction

Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffee house is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered. She is terrified, but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done. Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at a fashionable London hotel have been murdered, and a cufflink has been placed in each one's mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman?

She's only been gone two hours. Her husband, David, was meant to be looking after their two-week-old daughter. But when Alice Fancourt walks into the nursery, her terrifying ordeal begins, for Alice insists the baby in the cot is a stranger she's never seen before. With an increasingly hostile and menacing David swearing she must either be mad or lying, how can Alice make the police believe her before it's too late?

Lady Athelinda Playford has planned a house party at her mansion in Clonakilty, County Cork, but it is no ordinary gathering. As guests arrive, Lady Playford summons her lawyer to make an urgent change to her will - one she intends to announce at dinner that night. She has decided to cut off her two children without a penny and leave her fortune to someone who has only weeks to live.... Among Lady Playford's guests are two men she has never met - the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool of Scotland Yard.

Ex-tax collector and author of two unpopular novels, Bradley Pearson wishes to devote his retirement to writing a masterpiece. But the doorbell and the phone keep ringing and every ring brings with it an ex-wife, a friend in need, a sister in trouble or a young woman seeking a teacher and so dusty, selfish Bradley is plunged into the muddles and mysteries which will end in his doom.

Carolyn, Bronnie, Elise, and Kendall are bound together by one thing - their four daughters are best friends at the highly competitive Orla Flynn Academy for the Performing Arts. Last year the foursome exploded because of brutal bullying between the girls, but they've since forgiven each other. The mothers, however, haven't been able to move on. When new threats surface and 'accidents' begin to happen - just as a mysterious new girl enters the scene - the mothers take matters into their own hands.

Hercule Poirot’s tranquil afternoon is ruined when an angry woman accosts him outside his front door. She threatens to report the famous detective to Scotland Yard for falsely accusing her of murder. Seeking sanctuary inside, Poirot is startled to find that he has a visitor – another stranger claiming to have received a letter from Poirot accusing him of killing the same man.

Stuck in a traffic jam, Nicki Clements sees a face she hoped never to see again. It's definitely him, the same police officer, stopping each car on Elmhirst Road. Keen to avoid him, Nicki does a U-turn and makes a panicky escape. Or so she thinks. The next day, Nicki is pulled in for questioning in connection with the murder of Damon Blundy, controversial newspaper columnist and resident of Elmhirst Road. Nicki can't answer any of the questions detectives fire at her. She has no idea why the killer used a knife in such a peculiar way, or why 'he is no less dead' was painted on Blundy's study wall.

Ruth Bussey knows what it means to be in the wrong and to be wronged. She once did something she regrets, and her punishment nearly destroyed her. Now Ruth is rebuilding her life, and has found a love she doesn't believe she deserves: Aidan Seed. Aidan is also troubled by a past he hates to talk about, until one day he decides he must confide in Ruth. He tells her that years ago he killed someone: a woman called Mary Trelease. Ruth is confused. She's certain she's heard the name before, and when she realises why it sounds familiar, her fear and confusion deepen....

All Beth has to do is drive her son to his Under-14s away match, watch him play, and bring him home. Just because she knows that her former best friend lives near the football ground, that doesn't mean she has to drive past her house and try to catch a glimpse of her. Why would Beth do that, and risk dredging up painful memories? She hasn't seen Flora Braid for 12 years. But she can't resist. She parks outside Flora's house and watches from across the road as Flora and her children, Thomas and Emily, step out of the car. Except....

Justine thought she knew who she was until an anonymous caller seemed to know better.... After escaping London and a career that nearly destroyed her, Justine plans to spend her days doing as little as possible in her beautiful home in Devon. But soon after the move, her daughter, Ellen, starts to withdraw when her new best friend, George, is unfairly expelled from school.

Pushed to breaking point, Cara Burrows flees her home and family and heads for a five-star spa resort. All she wants is space and time to think, far from everyone she knows. Instead she gets a shock in the middle of the night when she is given the key to a room that's already occupied - apparently by a father and daughter, who are equally shocked to be woken by a stranger. Back at reception, Cara gets an apology and the key to a new room, and she imagines the drama is over....

Commissioned by Audible and written especially for audio format this collection brings together six crime stories through the themes of discovery, destination and arrival. Top narrators bring these gripping tales to life acknowledging the Scandinavian tradition of oral storytelling.

Fliss Benson is a TV producer struggling to deal with a personal tragedy in her own life. She receives at work an anonymous card which consists of 16 numbers arranged in four rows of four. These numbers mean absolutely nothing to her. At the same time, she is handed a particularly unwelcome assignment: she has to work on a documentary about cot death and three mothers accused (wrongly, it seems) of murder: Helen Yardley, Sarah Jaggard and Rachel Hines.

It's 1.15 a.m. Connie Bowskill should be asleep. Instead, she's logging on to a property website in search of a particular house: 11 Bentley Grove, Cambridge. She knows it's for sale; she saw the estate agent's board in the front garden less than six hours ago. Soon Connie is clicking on the 'Virtual Tour' button, keen to see the inside of 11 Bentley Grove and put her mind at rest once and for all. But she finds herself looking at a scene from a nightmare.

When Amber Hewerdine consults a hypnotherapist as a desperate last resort, she doesn't expect that anything much will change. She doesn't expect it to help with her chronic insomnia. And she doesn't expect to hear herself, under hypnosis, saying words that mean nothing to her: 'Kind, cruel, kind of cruel'. These are words she has seen somewhere before, if only she could remember where….

Lily grew up on a farm and always considered herself resilient. But when the small town’s high school football hero is arrested and convicted for the attack, Lily and her family suffer retaliation from some of the community, enticing Lily to wrap herself in an opioid cloud. When she puts her daughters’ lives in jeopardy, the wake-up call motivates Lily to flush the narcotics and clean up her life. But the clarity she expects is overshadowed by unnerving memory lapses.

When her plane is delayed overnight, Gaby Struthers finds herself forced to share a hotel room with a stranger: a terrified young woman named Lauren Cookson - but why is she scared of Gaby in particular? Lauren won't explain. Instead, she blurts out something about an innocent man going to prison for a murder he didn't commit, and Gaby soon suspects that Lauren's presence on her flight can't be a coincidence. Because the murder victim is Francine Breary, the wife of the only man Gaby has ever truly loved.

Once upon a time, damaged women came here to be cured. We took them in, fed them glasses of our clean, good water, let them scream at the waves till their lips split like ripe fruit. Now no one is left but my sisters and me. King died a year ago, quite suddenly. Mother has vanished, no one knows where. And the safe compound they built around us, far away from the toxic world, has finally been breached. Three men arrived last week, washed up by the sea, their gazes hungry and insistent. We remember now what our father taught us.

After Chloe and her daughter, Freya, are rescued from disaster by a man, Chloe decides she must find him again to thank him. But instead of meeting her knight in shining armour, she comes across Nadine Caspian, who warns her to stay away from him. The man is dangerous, Nadine claims, and a compulsive liar. Alarmed, Chloe knows that the sensible choice would be to walk away. But she is too curious. What could Nadine have meant?

Als Connie "Zuhause" in das Navi im Auto ihres Mannes eingibt, wird sie an einen Ort geführt, der ihr vollkommen fremd ist...