Showing titles in Crime Fiction

Over 20 years ago, heiress Patricia Lockwood was abducted during a robbery of her family's estate, then locked inside an isolated cabin for months. Patricia escaped, but so did her captors, and the items stolen from her family were never recovered. Until now. On New York's Upper West Side, a recluse is found murdered in his penthouse apartment, alongside two objects of note: a stolen Vermeer painting and a leather suitcase bearing the initials WHL3.

Welcome to the McAlpine Lodge: a remote mountain getaway, it's the height of escapist luxury living. Except that everyone here is lying. Lying about their past. Lying to their family. Lying to themselves. Then one night, Mercy McAlpine—until now the good daughter—threatens to expose everybody's secrets. Just hours later, Mercy is dead. In an area this remote, it's easy to get away with murder.

A peaceful Sunday morning in Rutland is shattered when a dead body is discovered on the rocks at Normanton Church. The victim has been laid out in a crucifixion pose, facing the altar. DI Caroline Hills is certain there’s a religious connection - one which threatens the tranquillity of life in the area. The killer has gone to extraordinary lengths to make the symbolism clear. And the deaths will continue until Caroline and DS Dexter Antoine uncover the truth behind the dark secret - and what lies beneath.

After a lifetime spent in public relations, one-woman dynamo Agatha Raisin struggles to adapt to life in a quiet country village - but she soon finds that there is murder and mayhem aplenty to keep her busy. Among the cases she has to deal with are a poisoned quiche; a vet who has been ‘put to sleep’; a hanged horticulturist; a murdered rambler and a curate who meets his Maker somewhat sooner than expected.

If the assassin known only as Victor once had a moral compass, it is long since buried, along with his many victims. Yet some men are so evil even Victor accepts they must die for reasons other than just money. One such man is Milan Rados, a former commander in the Serbian army who has escaped trial at The Hague to become a formidable criminal power. Tracking down and killing this brutal man will win Victor a reprieve for his own recent crimes on British soil.

Reacher never backs down from a problem. And he's about to find a big one, on a deserted road in Arizona, where a car has crashed into the only tree for miles around. Minutes later, Reacher is heading into town. To introduce himself to the shadowy crew who made it happen. Their boss has a terrifying reputation, and the stakes are high. Just to get in and meet him, Reacher is going to have to achieve the impossible. To get answers will be even harder. There are people in this hostile, empty place who would rather die than reveal their secrets.

Rebus is juggling four cases trying to nail one killer - who might just lead back to the infamous Bible John. And he's doing it under the scrutiny of an internal inquiry led by a man he has just accused of taking backhanders from Glasgow's Mr Big. As if this wasn't enough, there are TV cameras at his back investigating a miscarriage of justice, making Rebus a criminal in the eyes of a million or more viewers. Just one mistake is likely to mean an unpleasant and not particularly speedy death or, worse still, losing his job.

A controversial entrepreneur is murdered in a remote mountain valley, but this is no ordinary case. Ivan and Nell are soon contending with cowboy lawyers, conmen, bullion thieves and grave robbers. But it's when Nell discovers the victim is a close blood relative, that the past begins to take on a looming significance. What did take place in The Valley all those years ago? What was Nell's mother doing there, and what was her connection to troubled young police officer Simmons Burnside?

Wyatt Riggins, the boyfriend of rising Maine artist Zetta Nadeau, has gone missing, leaving behind a cell phone containing a single-word message: RUN. Private investigator Charlie Parker is hired to find out why Riggins has fled, and from whom. Parker discovers that Riggins, an ex-soldier, has been involved in the abduction of four children from Mexico: three girls and a boy, all belonging to the cartel boss Blas Urrea - except Urrea's family is safe and well in Mexico, which means the abductees cannot be his children.

When the call comes in about a lonely woman found burned to death in a deserted cottage, Detective Lottie Parker is first on the scene. Her investigation swiftly reveals the victim has no family to mourn her. As a young girl, she was abandoned by her parents and hidden away at the Sisters of Forgiveness Convent. Has something in her tragic past led to her murder?

Dublin, Ireland and Richmond, Virginia: separated by thousands of miles - linked by murder. Five dismembered, beheaded bodies were found in Ireland five years ago - now four have been discovered in the States. But the tenth corpse in Virginia is different. A copy-cat killing. Ghoulish, perhaps, but not unusual. Then abject terror grips Scarpetta and her colleagues when the next body is found with a clear and horrifying message: the killer is armed with the most lethal weapon on earth - smallpox.

Private investigator, Dan Armstrong, lives and works in Florence and knows the world famous Ponte Vecchio well. Usually a magnet for tourists, on this occasion it is the scene of an unexplained death, and Dan finds himself involved in the intriguing case. Dan quickly discovers that the victim, an elderly jeweller, was every bit as hard as the diamonds he sold in his shop on the bridge. Few people liked him, not even his adult children, and his business dealings look murkier than the waters of the River Arno.

On a Dublin city street, packed with afternoon Christmas shoppers, a young woman appears, naked, traumatised and bearing burn marks. Tom Reynolds, now chief superintendent, is no longer head of the murder squad. But when it transpires the woman escaped from a house fire started deliberately and that there are more victims, including a baby, Tom is sucked in. What begins as a straightforward case of arson, soon becomes something much more sinister. The people in that house never wanted to be there in the first place. Now more of them are missing.

Mina Rose Cabot, age thirteen, disappeared walking home from soccer practice in Devon, Pennsylvania. Eight months later her body is found in Battery Park, New York, speared through the chest by a three-inch piece of wood. Lt. Eve Dallas knows that whoever took Mina is responsible for her death. But who took her and where has Mina been for eight long months?

The husband of a prominent and infamously ruthless barrister is found in horrific condition after a robbery and brutal assault. Now in a coma, a major investigation is launched using the newly formed, experimental Metropolitan Police Serious Crime Analysis Unit. Lynne Russell is an experienced CSI with degrees in psychology and criminology with an exceptional Masters in Investigative psychology and behaviour analysis. But Lynne's first job as team leader of MSCAN is entirely new to her: to bring together a team of three trusted officers.

Martin Scarsden's new life seems perfect, right up until the moment it's shattered by a voice mail: a single scream, abruptly cut off, from his partner, Mandalay Blonde. Racing home, he finds an unconscious man sprawled on the floor and Mandy gone. Someone has abducted her. But who and why? So starts a twisting tale of intrigue and danger, as Martin probes the past of the woman he loves, a woman who has buried her former life so deep she has never mentioned it.

The men in the secret society known as the Lords think they rule the world. And in a way, they do. Each has sold their soul to the devil at a young age in exchange for power and wealth. Like anything else, they have different levels of success. The more they’re willing to serve, the more power they have. Among them are the Spade brothers, who run Carnage. It’s where the Lords who have not held up their oath go to live out the rest of their lives in shackles. Tucked away from the world as if they never existed.

Poirot had been present when Jane bragged of her plan to "get rid of" her estranged husband. Now the monstrous man was dead. And yet the great Belgian detective couldn't help feeling he was being taken for a ride. After all, how could Jane have stabbed Lord Edgware to death in his library at exactly the same time she was seen dining with friends? And what could be her motive now that the aristocrat had finally granted her a divorce?

Lt. Eve Dallas hasn't even arrived at work when her first call of the day comes in. Alva Quirk - 46 years old, sidewalk sleeper - was beaten to death with a crowbar. Known to the local cops for handing out origami flowers to anyone who gives her change, Alva was well-liked, but with no fixed address, no job and no family, there's no one to remember her. Eve has barely had time to examine the crime scene when her second victim of the morning is discovered just a block away.

Ten years ago, DCI Oldroyd was the only person who could see the monster hiding behind Adam Blake’s charm. Oldroyd proved that Blake was a deadly serial killer, responsible for murdering many innocent people. Having vowed to take revenge on Oldroyd, on a crisp autumn morning Blake escapes from jail… Hours later, in the Yorkshire market town of Otley, a man is found strangled inside the old courthouse. Written in bold black ink across the victim’s forehead is a single chilling word: vindicta—revenge. Oldroyd’s blood runs cold when he picks up a call and hears an all-too-familiar voice.