Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Capital punishment was abolished for murder in Great Britain in 1969, but remained as the punishment for high treason until as recently as 1998, demonstrating how seriously we take the crime of betraying your country. But even with the threat of the noose hanging over them, many still chose the path of treachery during the cataclysmic events of last century. British Traitors examines the lives and motivations of a number of the perpetrators of this most heinous of crimes.

It’s 1:23 in the morning when Kate gets the call. News at this time is never good, but this call is one of the worst. A body has been found in a shallow grave on the outskirts of Birmingham. It’s badly decomposed, but forensic psychologist Kate Hanson is sure she knows who it is. Nineteen-year-old Elizabeth Williams disappeared a year ago. She was a good student who simply vanished off the face of the earth.

Ex-journalist Dan Starkey is stuck in a grimy Belfast bedsit. His life is a disaster, and his only solace is the pub round the corner. He really, really needs something to get his teeth into. Fellow ex-journalist Mark Corkery provides that something. Corkery, an Internet horseracing gossip, wants him to investigate Geordie McClean, the man behind Irish American Racing. Simple enough for a man with Dan's experience, surely? But Trouble is Dan's middle name. And trouble is what he finds.

In January 1987, Helen Honeysett goes on an evening run from her riverside cottage and disappears. Twenty-nine years later, Helen's body has never been found. Her husband has hired a detective to find out what happened all those years ago, but when the five households on that desolate stretch of towpath refuse to give up their secrets, Stella and Jack find themselves hunting a killer whose trail has long gone cold.

In San Pedro, Los Angeles, one of the world's busiest harbours, an unlikely pair of lovers is caught up in terror. When Dinko Babich, a young longshoreman, delivers Lita Medina, a young Mexican dancer, from the harbour to a Hollywood nightclub, his life is forever changed as an unexpectedly tender and moving love story develops. Comedy and tragedy are intertwined in the everyday life of the cops and residents of San Pedro Harbor.

Villanelle is the ultimate assassin. Beautiful and heartless, she's been trained to be the best. Her latest target is a firebrand Russian leader whose extreme political theories threaten to unleash global conflict. But lying in wait for Villanelle is intelligence officer Eve Polastri. A hunter by nature, fiercely clever, Eve is ready to pursue her adversary wherever the search leads her. And so starts a deadly game between two brilliant and determined female protagonists…

Former soldier and ex-boxer Joe has always invited violence. But now Hackney's most vicious gangs all want to kill him. Why? As he tries to unravel the knot of events that have made him a target, Joe is drawn back into his past, back to the memory of the only woman he ever loved, Brenda, whose unsolved murder still haunts him. Then a twelve year old runaway enters his life. Kid is traumatised, mute, and sees Joe as her saviour. Life has made Joe a machine. Can Kid - as Brenda once did - make him human again?

Rome: McCabe and Chip, two American exchange students, are about to become embroiled with a violent street gang. Detroit: Sharon Vanelli's affair with Joey Palermo, a Mafia enforcer, is about to be discovered by her husband, Ray. Brilliantly plotted and shot through with wry humour, All He Saw Was the Girl takes place as these two narratives converge in the backstreets of Italy’s oldest city.

For recently engaged DI Joanna Piercy, a murder is the last thing she wants to deal with. Especially one with as dark a back story as that relating to calculating landowner and farmer Jakob Grimshaw; a man who managed to make enemies of all his neighbours and what little family he still had. One thing is certain; Joanna has a tough job ahead of her.

London, 1888: Susannah rushes into marriage to a young and wealthy surgeon. After a passionate honeymoon, she returns home with her new husband wrapped around her little finger. But then everything changes. Thomas' behaviour becomes increasingly volatile and violent. He stays out all night, returning home bloodied and full of secrets. The gentle caresses she enjoyed on her wedding night are now just a honeyed memory.

Hettie and Tilly book themselves into the Sandscratchers Villa for a seaside holiday. The feline duo find themselves plunged into a spate of alarming fairground murders as a carefree vacation turns into a holiday nightmare. As the deckchairs unfold and the ice creams melt, they face their most baffling case yet, but first they must find the bodies!

Juno Browne, self-proclaimed Domestic Goddess who can turn her hand to cleaning, dog walking or home help jobs, is feeling overworked and underpaid. Her elderly client, Maisie is demanding more of her time and staff absences at the Ashburton antiques shop she also owns are making business difficult. She is not the only one with problems, very serious problems however. Her friend Elizabeth is being blackmailed, and dear Ricky’s errant nephew is on the run from criminals in London.

Peter Rachman dominated housing in post-war London—he owned swathes in the west of the city, accumulating huge wealth as his tenants lived in squalor and fear of his hard-nosed collectors and enforcers. He was also at the heart of the city's murky, post-war underworld. In Slumlord, Neil Root pulls back the curtain on this seedy world to paint a portrait of a fascinating man whose path intersected with figures as diverse as Christine Keeler, the glamorous society girl at the heart of the Profumo Scandal, and Michael X, the Black Power activist who later went on to be hanged for double murder.

Claire loved coffee and the only place she bought from was owned by a wolf. The problem was she hated shifters. But that wouldn't stop her from coming into Jason's shop and buying his coffee. When Claire's perfect day ended in disaster, the only person offering her help was the very same wolf she despised. Could Jason help Claire in time or would he lose her forever?

May 1942. Thousands of American GIs are stationed across eastern England building airfields to bomb Germany. Cambridge is a 'liberty town'—a hot spot for 'Yanks' on leave. DI Eden Brooke is called to the aerodrome five miles east of the city when the remains of an airman, identified by his dog tag, are uncovered as workmen extend the runway. It's clear the victim has been buried for decades. Brooke discovers the base was used to train US pilots in the Great War—a quarter of a century earlier.

When a police detective is found murdered in the town of Wakestead, all clues point to local woman Amma Reynolds. Amma has a clear motive. She hates the police for failing to properly investigate her brother's death, which was written off as an accidental drowning. Amma has always believed her brother was murdered. Could she have killed DI Mark Stormont in revenge? Former detective and private investigator Erin Crane is hired to find out.

Will Flemyng, originally trained as a spy, is now British ambassador to Washington. Meanwhile, his older brother Mungo is recuperating from a heart attack in their beloved Scottish highland family home, and Abel, the youngest of the three, has died mysteriously in America. Abel's unexplained death sets in motion an unstoppable chain of events, beginning with an unexpected glimpse of a face at his funeral. Soon Will finds himself on a dangerous journey into his clandestine past, from conflict in Ireland to the long shadows of the Cold War.

Gethin Grey is back in the game. His wife may have left him and he's struggling with life as a single father, but now he's got his biggest case in years. The brutal murder of a young woman called Kelly Rowland has been the talk of the South Wales valleys. Even the conviction of a neighbour, a builder called Morgan Hopkins, failed to stop the gossip. There were too many other suspects still around, among them a pair of coppers: brother and sister.

January 1945. Wherever you look on the map, the Thousand Year Reich is shrinking. Even Goebbels has run out of lies to sweeten the reckoning to come. An Allied victory is inevitable, but who will reap the spoils of war? With the Red Army about to fall on Berlin, Stalin fears his sometime allies are conspiring to deny him his prize. He needs to speak to Goebbels—and who better to broker the contact than Nehmann, Goebbels' one-time confidant?

It's been a hard couple of years, but things finally seem to be looking up for Danielle. Her boyfriend Matteo has inherited a dilapidated old farmhouse in Tuscany, complete with olive groves, vineyards and a pool. It couldn't be more perfect. When she gets there, Danielle finds it's not quite as idyllic as she thought. There's a lot of work to be done, but first she turns her attention to making the concrete swamp into the infinity pool of her dreams. As she digs up the old foundations, Danielle brings to light buried secrets that will shatter the tranquillity of her Tuscan dream.