Showing results by publisher "Orion" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

There's something strange about Walter Kopple's farm. It begins with his grandson, who senselessly murders one of Walter's pigs. But then rumours spread that Walter's grandson heard a voice commanding him to kill. And that the voice belongs to a most peculiar creature: the pig named Pearl. Walter has always been afraid of the strangely malevolent Pearl. But as paranoia takes hold and the townspeople descend on Walter's farm with violent wrath, they begin to discover that true evil wears a human face.

Super thief Riley Wolfe can do it all. He is a master of disguise, can scale a wall, and can vanish into thin air (thick air, too). He uses these unique talents to rob the richest. But this time, it's the most powerful who have him in their grips. It's not just that the high-up, rogue government agent has abducted the only two people Riley loves: it's the fact that Riley has to do the man's dirty work to set them free.

This is the story of the first human being born on Mars: Rose Fuller, who saw a better future than the one that came to pass. And Dylan Ward, a woman raised in the vast wilderness of the frontier, who will find her way back to it. It's a story about a man who went missing, and the man who wants to find out what he knew. It's a story about what makes us human - and how we might live once we leave our home. The story of the first murder on Mars.

The Cobra is a shadowy figure of international crime. And only one man can stop what's about to happen: Sly and sharp-witted Riley Wolfe, the ultimate thief, fresh off the toughest escape of his life and looking for something new.

When Jennie Whitmore arrives at her school reunion, she immediately regrets her decision. Why would she choose to surround herself with people who were never nice to her? Who still aren't, even now she's a police officer? The only person who truly looked out for her all those years ago was charming, beautiful Hannah. Until the day she disappeared. Jennie is ready to finally put White Cross Academy behind her, the old school building demolished the morning after the party. But with the demolition comes a call: a teenage girl's remains have been found on the grounds.

One day changes Jody's life forever. She has shut herself down, haunted by her memories and unable to trust anyone. But then she meets Abe, the perfect stranger next door, and suddenly life seems full of possibility and hope. One day changes Mags' life forever. After years of estrangement from her family, Mags receives a shocking phone call. Her brother Abe is in hospital, and no one knows what happened to him. She meets his fiancée, Jody, and gradually pieces together the ruins of the life she left behind. But the pieces don't quite seem to fit....

Chantelle has everything going against her. She's a good student who only wants to pass her exams and find a way out of the sink estate in Manchester where she grew up. But now her feckless mother has taken off for Spain with her latest boyfriend and she's single-handedly raising her tearaway nine-year-old brother, Leon. She thinks her worst problem is the debt collectors at the door.

Jeremiah O'Connell made his name solving problems in London and now does the same in LA. The problems other people can't or won't touch? They're the ones that end up at Jerry's door. Suddenly Jeremiah has problems of his own when he sets out to right a wrong and finds himself on the hitlist of one of LA's most feared drug gangs. As the stakes rise, so does the body count, and Jerry has the fight of his life on his hands.

Alex and Pip are in desperate need of an escape. Their stressful roles as hostage negotiators are eased only by the fact that they get to come home to each other every night. When an old friend invites the couple up to the Scottish Highlands for an extended break, Alex and Pip jump at the chance. It's the rest they both need. But soon after they arrive at the castle, they hear the sound of gunshots, and their perfect escape turns into a perfect nightmare. The remote mountainous landscape is now the setting for a terrifying kidnap plot targeting one of the other guests.

1812. On the eve of the invasion of Russia, half-French, half-English Matthieu Carrey finds himself in the ranks of Napoleon's five hundred thousand strong army. With Tsar Alexander seemingly ill-prepared, a French victory seems certain. The Grande Armée will obliterate everything in its path. Carrey's purpose is less clear. Blackmailed into becoming a spy in the emperor's army, he hopes to follow his lover, a French actress who has gone to work in the Moscow theatre. As supplies grow scarce and temperatures plummet, the Grande Armée begins to crumble

Madame Katerina, Detective 'Nine Nails' McGray's most trusted clairvoyant, hosts a séance for three of Edinburgh's wealthiest families.The following morning everyone is found dead, with Madame Katerina being the only survivor. When questioned she alleges a tormented spirit killed the families for revenge. McGray, even though he believes her, must find a rational explanation that holds up in court, else Katerina will be sentenced to death.

It's the last summer for Kit Lamb: the last summer before college. The last summer with her high school basketball team, and with Dana, her best friend. The last summer before her life begins. But the night before the big game, one of Kit's players tells a ghost story about Daphne, a girl who went to their school many years ago and died under mysterious circumstances. Some say she was murdered, others that she died by her own hand. And some say that Daphne is a murderer herself.

When Isaac Naylor committed suicide after a teenage fan was found dead in his hotel room, the world thought it had lost one of the greatest rock stars of a generation. Naylor, lead singer of The Ospreys, had been arrested for causing the girl's death and was on police bail when he drowned himself in the sea off the Devon coast. Now, eight years on, music journalist Natalie Glass stumbles across a blind item on a US gossip website that suggests Naylor's death wasn't quite what it seemed - and he might in fact still be alive.

Alex knows she risks getting fired from her law firm if she takes on another unpaid case, but when she hears Rosa's desperate voice at the other end of the phone, she knows she has to help: the body of Rosa's shy teenage sister, Natalia, has been dragged, lifeless, from the Thames. Alex can't help but think of her own missing little sister. She knows how a lack of answers can eat you alive.

An ill-fated grave-robbery unearths a corpse with a most disturbing symbol on it. The very same sign is daubed in blood on the walls of Edinburgh's lunatic asylum, on the night that one of the patients is murdered. The mark in question? The mark of the devil. The prime suspect: Amy McGray, the asylum's most infamous inmate, a young woman who has grown up behind bars after she killed her parents many years ago. Her brother, Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray, knows the evidence is stacked against her. To prove her innocence, he needs the help of an old friend.

How do you solve a puzzle when there are no pieces? When an attractive, well-dressed woman is found dying on a Chelsea street, it seems clear to DS Thea Walsh that this murder will be one that is wrapped up quickly. The policing murder manual describes the golden hour, that window in time in which the most critical information can be gathered and they have the best start. The witness who found her reacted quickly and respected the crime scene. And then there is the victim herself. She is wearing a wedding ring and has recently had a child, so someone will be looking for her.

February 1974. Football manager Charlie Gordon is struggling, and only a decent cup run is keeping him in work. Meanwhile, as the country prepares for a general election, one of the most audacious and high-profile political assassinations in the IRA's history is being planned in London. An active service unit of two men and a woman await the critical signal to proceed.

Jenny Bowen is going home. Following an acrimonious split from her husband, she is quitting her job and moving back from London to the small town in the Scottish Highlands where she grew up. After tying up some last-minute loose ends, she rushes to Euston and boards the Caledonian Sleeper, headed north on a 500 mile, 10-hour journey through the night. As Jenny is getting settled in her cabin, she hears a commotion outside in the corridor.

During the oppressive heat wave of 1976, a young journalist, Ed Peters, finds an Edwardian photograph in a junk shop in the Brighton Lanes. It shows an alluring dark-haired girl, an actress whose name was Leda Grey. Leda Grey is living still, in a decaying clifftop house once shared with a man called Charles Beauvois, a director of early silent film. As Beauvois' lover and his muse, Leda often starred in scenes where stage magic and trick photography were used to astonishing effect.

After the Carusos family home is destroyed by police with a no-knock warrant, the family struggle to return to normal. Two former inmates reunite on a TV set. They're both back on the straight and narrow...until one sees the potential for an easy grift. A teenage boy must step into the man he'd like to be as a hostage crisis grips his hometown. A woman adrift meets a man tied to her grandmother's past, and awakens to the bloody history of the place she grew up. Pelecanos' portraits are characterized by shades of grey, resisting the mold victims and perpetrators, good and evil.