Showing results by publisher "Hodder & Stoughton" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

In a small New England town, in the early '60s, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. Then tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, the preacher curses God, mocking all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town. Jamie has demons of his own. In his mid-30s, he is living a nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll. Addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate, he sees Jacobs again....

In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep: they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent, and while they sleep they go to another place....

Everything is familiar. But everything has changed. Coming back to the little community is like walking into a nightmare for Jim Gardener, poet, drunk, potential suicide. It all looks the same: the house; the furniture; Jim's friend, Bobbi; her beagle (though ageing); even the woods out at the back. But it was in the woods that Bobbi stumbled over the odd, part-buried object and felt a peculiar tingle as she brushed the soft earth away. Everything is familiar. But everything is about to change.

'You like it darker? Fine, so do I', writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life - both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to listen to.

Pete Banning was Clanton's favourite son, a returning war hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, father, neighbour and a faithful member of the Methodist Church. Then one cool October morning in 1946, he rose early, drove into town, walked into the church, and calmly shot and killed the Reverend Dexter Bell. As if the murder wasn't shocking enough, it was even more baffling that Pete's only statement about it - to the sheriff, to his defense attorney, to the judge, to his family and friends and to the people of Clanton - was 'I have nothing to say'.

A star-studded cast of readers presents unabridged tales of horror and suspense from master storyteller Stephen King. The Stephen King Amusement Park - an unnerving experience, with rides every which way to hell...and a few to glory. A solitary finger pokes out of a drain. Novelty teeth turn predatory. The Nevada desert swallows a Cadillac. Meanwhile, the legend of Castle Rock returns...and grows on you. What does it all mean? What else could it mean?

When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.

What if you could go back in time and change the course of history?11.22.63, the date that Kennedy was shot - unless.... King takes his protagonist Jake Epping, a high school English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, 2011, on a fascinating journey back to 1958 - from a world of mobile phones and iPods to a new world of Elvis and JFK, of Plymouth Fury cars and Lindy Hopping, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill who becomes the love of Jake's life.

Jake is the court-appointed lawyer for Drew Gamble, a young man accused of murdering a local deputy. Many in Clanton want a swift trial and the death penalty, but Brigance sees it another way. Once he learns the details of the case, he realises he has to do everything he can to save Drew...who is 16. His commitment to the truth puts Jake's career and the safety of his family at risk.

When an 11-year-old boy is found murdered, forensic evidence and reliable eyewitnesses undeniably point to the town's popular Little League coach. But the jailed suspect, arrested in a public spectacle, has an alibi, and further research convinces Detective Ralph Anderson that the coach was indeed out of town. So how can he have been in two places at the same time?

A thrilling collection of 20 stories - some brand new, some published in magazines, all entirely brilliant and collected for the first time - with a wonderful bonus: in addition to his introduction to the whole collection, King gives readers a fascinating introduction to each story with autobiographical comments on their origins and motivations.

Lacy Stoltz never expected to be in the firing line. Investigating judicial misconduct by Florida's 1,000 judges, her cases so far have been relatively unexciting. That's until she meets Greg Myers, an indicted lawyer with an assumed name who has an extraordinary tale to tell. Myers is representing a whistle-blower who knows of a judge involved in organised crime. Along with her gangster associates, this judge has facilitated the building of a casino on an Indian reservation. At least two people who opposed the scheme are dead.

In suburban Georgetown, a killer's Reeboks whisper on the floor of a posh home. In a seedy D.C. porno house, a patron is swiftly garroted to death. The next day America learns that two of its Supreme Court justices have been assassinated. And in New Orleans, a young law student prepares a legal brief. To Darby Shaw it was no more than a legal shot in the dark, a brilliant guess. To the Washington establishment it's political dynamite.

Worldwide best-seller John Grisham goes rogue with his most suspenseful thriller yet.... Sometimes you have to fight dirty to get clean. Sebastian Rudd takes the cases no one else wants to take: the drug-addled punk accused of murdering two little girls; a crime lord on death row; a homeowner accused of shooting at a SWAT team. l Rudd believes that every person accused of a crime is entitled to a fair trial - even if he has to cheat to get one.

Fight them, Mr Brigance. To the bitter end. We must prevail. In the long-awaited successor to the novel that launched his phenomenal career, John Grisham brings us the powerful sequel to A Time to Kill. As filled with twists as it is with legal mastery, Sycamore Row proves beyond doubt that John Grisham is in a league of his own. Jake Brigance has never met Seth Hubbard, or even heard of him, until the old man's suicide note names him attorney for his estate.

Worldwide best-seller John Grisham will keep you on the edge of your seat with his most suspenseful thriller yet. America's greatest storyteller brings us a new masterpiece of legal courage and gripping suspense - and his finest heroine since The Pelican Brief. Donovan Gray is ruthless and fearless. Just the kind of lawyer you need, deep in small-town Appalachia. Samantha Kofer is a world away from her former life at New York's biggest law firm.

There was a new shop in town. Run by a stranger. Needful Things, the sign said. The oddest name. A name that caused some gossip and speculation among the good folks of Castle Rock, Maine, while they waited for opening day. Eleven-year-old Brian Rusk was the first customer and he got just what he wanted, a very rare 1956 Sandy Koufax baseball card. Signed. Cyndi Rose Martin was next. A Lalique vase. A perfect match for her living room decor. Something for everyone.

The sparrows are flying again. The idea - unbidden, inexplicable - haunts the edge of Thad Beaumont's mind. Thad should be happy. For years now it is his secret persona, George Stark, author of superviolent pulp thrillers, who has paid the family bills. But now Thad is writing seriously again under his own name, and his menacing pseudonym has been buried forever. And yet...the sparrows are flying again, and something is terribly wrong in Thad Beaumont's world.

Number-one best-seller John Grisham returns with his most suspenseful thriller yet. Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of the USA only four active federal judges have been murdered. Judge Raymond Fawcett just became number five. I did not know Judge Fawcett, but I know who killed him, and why. I am a lawyer, and I am in prison. It's a long story.

The Black Angel is not an object. The Black Angel is not a myth. The Black Angel lives. A young woman goes missing from the streets of New York. Those who have taken her believe that nobody cares about her, and that no one will come looking for her. They are wrong. She is 'blood' to the killer Louis, the man who stands at the right hand of private detective Charlie Parker, and Louis will tear apart anyone who stands in the way of his attempts to find her.