Showing results by publisher "Hodder & Stoughton" in Crime Fiction

A group of young professionals travel to the Westman Islands off the coast of Iceland to attend an old friend's wake. When two bodies are found on a rocky beach close to the refurbished lighthouse keeper's house that the group had stayed in, medical examiner Iðunn is sent to provide the local police assistance. For Iðunn, who grew up on the island, this takes her back to the heart of her complex family and the ghosts of her own past she would prefer to keep at bay.

Jane Pyre was once part of the famous rock 'n' roll duo, the Lightning Bottles. Years later, she's the most hated - and least understood - woman in music. She was never as popular as her bandmate (and soulmate) Elijah Hart, despite writing the songs that catapulted them to fame. But ever since Elijah disappeared five years earlier and the band's rise to fame came crashing down, public hatred of Jane has risen to new levels and all she wants is to retreat. The last thing she expects is for the teenage girl next door - a Lightning Bottles super fan - to claim that Elijah is still alive.

Journalist Ruth Porter is hungry for a story. Nothing good ever happens in Manchester. Until she discovers a string of murders that have recently been attributed to the notorious Craig Malton. There are lots of people that want Malton behind bars - and that's exactly why his arrest seems too convenient . . .

When Tess hears Lydia Green is moving back to the village, she is full of excitement. As teenagers, Tess and Lydia were inseparable. Until the end of that last summer when Lydia suddenly moved away. With the recent loss of her husband and two small children to care for, Tess could really use the support of her old best friend. It feels like a bright spot of light in such a difficult time. Like fate has brought Lydia back to her. But when Tess sees Lydia for the first time in decades, in front of all the other mums at Saturday sport, Lydia pretends not to know her.

When Fauzia's brother turns up with a dead body, her perfect life is shattered. She'll protect him to the ends of the earth, but who is he running from? Keisha knows all too well that family comes first. Reeling from rejection, she's determined to make Malton pay. And she'll hurt him in the worst way imaginable. Craig Malton is on the hunt for a violent drug lord who's wreaking havoc and destruction in Manchester. Little does he know what's coming for him.

Rani's life is far from idyllic—with two small children and a partner in a tiny rented flat that has never felt like home, she has always wished for a different life. Then, Natalie moves into the large house across the road—and Rani can't help but be drawn to her. To her life of luxury, to her perfect husband, her perfect house. But not all is as it seems behind closed doors, and as Rani gets closer to Natalie, she discovers everyone has secrets—and some will stay with you for a lifetime.

Where to hide when there's nowhere left to run? Sandrine is asked to empty her late grandmother's house on a small island near the Normandy coast. She soon discovers that its elderly inhabitants haven't left the island since their arrival as children during World War II. Sandrine can tell they are terrified of someone, or something. Yet, they refuse to leave the island. What happened to the children from the holiday camp that was suddenly shut down in 1949? And who was Sandrine's grandmother really?

When little Julie goes missing in summer 1986, David and Samuel share the terrible secret of her disappearance. Thirty years later, David has become a famous author and Samuel his publisher. Both receive identical manuscript chapters telling the story of what really happened that tragic summer.

After every parents' evening, friends Nina, Bel and Rachel look forward to their regular debrief at the pub. But there will be no clinking Prosecco tonight. They are discussing an anonymous note that has been left in a child's schoolbag: this class has secrets. All the parents tell lies. As more notes are discovered, scandalous accusations are made and the school playground becomes rife with rumours. Who could be revealing the three friends' secrets? Because they thought the only people who knew everything about them were each other....

When Afrah arrives at Ravenswood Lodge Care Home for the first time, she feels far from home. Her daughter, Amira, didn't want to send her away from the comfort and familiarity of her surroundings but she's struggling to cope. Ravenswood Lodge was meant to be a safe space for Afrah. But when her belongings start vanishing, her family photographs, her jewellery, her pill boxes, Amira and the staff say it's just Afrah's imagination, it's just her failing memory. But Afrah is adamant someone is playing games with her. She knows Ravenswood Lodge isn't safe for her. Someone wants her gone.

Sam Cooper has a happy life: a good job, a blossoming relationship. Yet, there's something he can never forget - the image seared into his mind of his mother, Laurie, dying when he was a child. His father allowed his grief to tear them apart, and Sam hasn't seen him in years. Until an unexpected call from Firwood hospital, asking Sam to come home, puts in motion a chain of devastating events. On his deathbed, Sam's father makes a shocking confession.

It starts with a body - a young woman found dead in an Iowa cornfield, on one of the few family farms still managing to compete with the giants of Big Agriculture. For Sergeant Riley Fisher, newly promoted to head of investigations at the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office, an already horrific crime takes on a personal edge when she discovers the victim is an old friend, from a dark past she thought she'd left behind.

Pieter Posthumus wouldn't live anywhere but Amsterdam...though the Earth 2050 conference, with its attendant crowds, has left him feeling somewhat under siege. At least his work at the Lonely Funerals team is quiet. Then one of the delegates is attacked. Posthumus agrees to look into the case, sparking memories of his own time as a student radical. Amsterdam has always attracted people with fierce views...but is someone willing to kill for their principles? Or was the attack much more personal?

Thrust into a world where the rich, famous, and powerful hire him to solve their problems and wash their dirty laundry, Ravi finds himself in over his head with increasingly bizarre and complex cases - and the visions that he's been having of Hindu gods aren't helping. As Ravi struggles to stay ahead of danger, he wonders if the things he's seeing are a delusion - or if he might, in fact, be an unrecognised shaman of the modern world.

In the 1970s London has stopped swinging, but it's not staying still. Babs thought she had all the world ahead of her. Then she got pregnant, and the father did a runner. Salvation comes in the form of a man who'll look after her. Or so she thinks. But Stan Miller is the devil in disguise...and over the next 20 years, Babs will have reason to regret she ever met him. Can she protect her family - or will he get the better of her?

A minute can make all the difference.... Pieter Posthumus is enjoying a quiet drink in his favourite bar when the screaming starts. A minute later the owner of the guesthouse next door rushes in: one of her tenants has been murdered. Marloes, the guesthouse owner, is an odd but kind soul. Posthumus cannot believe it when she is arrested - for both her tenant Zig's murder and another death years before. He knows there are questions unanswered: what is the link between the two cases?

Sweden, 1855. 'Worst thing I ever saw...' The Minister of Justice receives a disturbing message. A massacre on one of Lapland's mountains - a priest, a law enforcement officer and a local settler have been slaughtered by one of the indigenous Sami people. The murderer is in custody; he refuses to talk. The Minister dispatches his son-in-law, a geologist, to investigate, for there is more than one reason to visit Blackåsen: it is a mountain with many secrets, a mountain that has never been mapped.

A darkly gripping new mystery in the internationally best-selling Malin Fors series. Linköping's top detective, Malin Fors, is about to take on a case that's a little too close for comfort. Her daughter has just discovered a dead body. It is that of a 79-year-old resident at the nursing home where she works. He's been hung by his own alarm cord. At first it looks like a cut-and-dry suicide.

A suicide. A drowned man. A sudden death. For some people it's just another day's work. In Amsterdam there's a council department known affectionately as the Lonely Funerals team. It exists to arrange burials for the abandoned or unknown dead, with the care and dignity that every life deserves. Pieter Posthumus hasn't been doing the job long, but he's determined to do it well. He finds that he cares deeply about the people whose files land on his desk.

Sentenced to death for a simple confidence trick, Mary Jebb escapes the gallows...but her reprieve is harsh: seven years in the unforgiving penal colony of Botany Bay. Yet Mary is determined not to be forgotten, sending two pennies, engraved with a promise, to the two men who sealed her fate. Timid artist Grace Moore jumps at the opportunity to marry handsome gentleman Michael Croxon - happy if only to get away from her drunken father.