Showing results for "the stranger" in Crime Fiction

The Stranger appears out of nowhere, perhaps in a bar or a parking lot or at the grocery store. His identity is unknown. His motives are unclear. His information is undeniable. Then he whispers a few words in your ear and disappears, leaving you picking up the pieces of your shattered world. Adam Price has a lot to lose: a comfortable marriage to a beautiful woman, two wonderful sons, and all the trappings of the American dream - a big house, a good job, a seemingly perfect life. Then he runs into the Stranger.

A weekly newspaper dedicated to the weird and the wonderful (but mostly the weird), The Stranger Times is the go-to publication for the unexplained and inexplicable. At least that's their pitch. The reality is rather less auspicious. Their editor is a drunken, foul-tempered and foul-mouthed husk of a man who thinks little of the publication he edits. His staff are a ragtag group of misfits. And as for the assistant editor...well, that job is a revolving door - and it has just revolved to reveal Hannah Willis, who's got problems of her own.

In Darkwater, being female doesn't amount to much. But Chelsea's luckier than most. She's the young lover of the town's feared leader, which she keeps telling herself is a good thing, what with food getting scarce and the wells drying up. She's secure and safe and can almost believe she's happy. But when a stranger rides into town, gun on one hip, whip on the other, Chelsea can't look away. Especially when it turns out this stranger is a woman. Nobody can say what the stranger is there for. But she brings talk of an outside perhaps no longer so chaotic, no longer something to hide away from.

Ellie Parker had everything. Perfect husband. Perfect apartment. Perfect friends and the perfect job. As an internet celebrity - famed for her random acts of kindness - everyone knew it. So when a betrayal causes her to lose it all, millions of people are watching. But even at her lowest, Ellie will always help someone in need. Which makes her the perfect target for a sadistic game. Because as she soon learns, you can never trust a stranger - and a seemingly random encounter plunges her into a nightmare worse than she ever imagined.

Meet Harry, aspiring tech entrepreneur. He’s a would-be Steve Jobs trapped in a cubicle gig at an angel investor firm, so close and yet so far from his dreams. His marriage is foundering, his career is stalled out, and all he wants is to create an app like Uber, or Tinder, something to make real change in the world, and change his own life forever. Now meet Peter, a deeply troubled computer genius who lives in a basement apartment, chugging red wine, nursing old grudges and writing code. When Harry meets Peter, it’s both of their lives that will change, when they invent an app for murder.

Photographer Isla Wilson is thrilled she's landed her dream job, but the clients who hired her are getting stranger by the day. It sounded so perfect—a month's assignment at the lush Scottish Highlands property of architect Alban McGregor, and his wife, Jessica. But in the woods, there's a playhouse with a chilling history. Two years ago, the McGregors' daughter Elodie was abducted and then died in that playhouse. The townspeople insist her abductor had to be a stranger in their town. Alban refuses to knock the playhouse down, even keeping a picture of it on his wall.

In 1934, 16-year-old Weldon Avery Holland confronts the notorious outlaws Bonnie and Clyde, resulting with Weldon firing a gun, unsure whether it hit its mark. Ten years later Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland barely survives the Battle of the Bulge, in the process saving the lives of Hershel Pine and a young prisoner of war, Rosita Lowenstein - a woman who holds the same romantic power over him as the beautiful Bonnie Parker.

One year ago, a two year old child, Oskar, went missing from an apartment in Stockholm. His troubled mother is now held in a psychiatric hospital, found guilty of his murder by the court of public opinion. Former detective, Alex is haunted by the case. When a British family moves into the...

You're waiting for your beloved husband to get home from work. You're making dinner, looking forward to hearing about his day. That's the last thing you remember. You wake up in hospital, with no idea how you got there. They tell you that you were in an accident; you lost control of your car whilst driving in a dangerous part of town. The police suspect you were up to no good. But your husband refuses to believe it. Your best friend isn't so sure. And even you don't know what to believe....

When nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall vanished from her bed one summer night, her disappearance tore her family apart. Now, sixteen years later, her mother Helena is found dead, her husband by her side. It looks like a straightforward murder-suicide but DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent soon discover nothing about this case is straightforward. The Marshalls have been keeping secrets, and they aren't alone. Josh has been holding something back too – something that could change everything for Maeve.

Stella is enjoying life as an almost student, or at least she is until a man falls from the sky right in front of her, leaving a big old hole in the pavement for Manchester Council to fill. The obvious question of how he ended up in the sky in the first place has no obvious answers, which is where The Stranger Times come in. This isn't just the hunt for another story though. Dark powers think Stella might have been involved and the only way she and the team can prove her innocence is to find out what the hell is really going on.

Roz Gilmour is a happy woman with two children, a loving husband, a successful career as a local radio presenter and a comfortable home in North London. Sometimes she can't believe just how fortunate she is. But a woman who has everything has everything to lose, and Roz's luck is about to change. Not everybody is as content as Roz Gilmour. There are people who dislike her—if only because of the apparent ease and success with which she lives her life. And one of them is insane.

Things change quickly in the world of espionage and clandestine operations. Jude Lyon of MI6 remembers the captured terrorist bomb-maker. He watched him being flown off to Syria, back when Syria was 'friendly'. No one expected him to survive interrogation there. Yet the man is alive, and someone has broken him out of jail.

For most people, that means a time of celebration, relaxation and inebriation, but not for the staff of The Stranger Times. While a book club meeting ending in a triple murder isn’t unprecedented, it is at least noteworthy. It quickly emerges that this is no ordinary book-club-triple-murder either, as it features a librarian possessed by a chaotic entity who has broken through from another dimension and is hellbent on vengeance.

Dark, gritty and always edge-of-your-seat: the number one best seller is back with a standout new heroine.... Unknown, alone, and fearing for your life. As PC Lucy Clayburn is about to find out, going undercover is the most dangerous work there is. But on the trail of a prolific female serial killer, there's no other option - and these murders are as brutal as they come. Lucy must step into the line of fire - a stranger in a criminal underworld that butchers anyone who crosses the line.

With a population of 500 souls, isolated Sark has a reputation for being 'the island where nothing ever happens'. Until, one day, the neatly folded clothes of an unknown man and woman are discovered abandoned at a coastal beauty spot. As the search for the missing couple catches the attention of first the local and then national newspapers, Sark finds itself front page news. When young islander Phyllis Carey returns to Sark from England she throws herself into solving the mystery.

Ursula is unable to face up to the tragedy that consumes her, her world has shrunk to an almost unrecognisable state. Then Alice, who’s in the first flush of her relationship with Simon who seems perfectly normal—except that he flinches at the slightest touch. And Gareth, who lives a humdrum life as he struggles to cope with his mum’s increasing dementia. She can’t remember much about her days—not even when a postcard from his long-dead father comes through the door. None of these three strangers have ever met, but their worlds will soon collide.

He meets women. He gains their trust. He kills them. That's all Maeve Kerrigan knows about the man she is hunting. Three women have been targeted in their homes by the same sadistic killer. With no sign of a break-in, every indication shows that they let him in. But the evidence is pointing at a shocking suspect: DI Josh Derwent, Maeve's colleague. Maeve refuses to believe he could be involved, but how well does she really know him? Because this isn't the first time Derwent's been accused of murder.

When the body of forty-four-year-old Karen Simmons is found abandoned in remote woodland, journalist Kiki Nunn is determined this will be the big break she so desperately needs. Because she has a head start on all the other reporters. Just a week before Karen was killed, Kiki interviewed her about the highs and lows of mid-life romance. Karen told her all about kissing strangers on the beach under the stars, expensive meals, roses. About the scammers, the creeps, the man who followed her home the other night...

Never Love a Stranger, still considered one of Robbins' most powerful books, tells the story of Francis "Frankie" Kane, an orphan growing up in the dirty world of New York's Hell's Kitchen. After being kicked out of a Catholic orphanage when it is discovered that he is of Jewish descent, a confused and deeply distraught Frankie turns to a life of crime, the only life he knows, and he's good at it.