Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Crime Fiction

A hot summer that ended in tragedy. An eccentric psychology professor specialising in psychopaths. An unexpected invitation. A killer hiding in plain sight. Are you ready to enter The Wasp Trap?

During a family holiday in Italy, you get an urgent call from your sister. There's been an accident: she hit a man with her car and he's dead. She's overcome with terror - fearing years in a foreign jail away from her child. She asks for your help. It wasn't her fault, not really. She'd cover for you, so will you do the same for her? But when the police come calling, the lies start. And you each begin to doubt your trust in one another. What really happened that night? Who is lying to who? Who will be the first to crack?

When he unexpectedly comes into a small fortune, he decides to use his newfound wealth to help out those in need. Finn also leads a quiet life, and comes into a little money of his own. Normally, their paths would never have crossed. But Martin’s ideas about who should benefit from his charitable impulses yield some unexpected results, and soon the good intentions of the one become fatally entangled with the mercenary nature of the other.

Nothing ever happens in sleepy little Fairhill. The teenagers get their kicks telling ghost stories in the old graveyard. The parents trust their kids will arrive home safe from school. Everyone knows everyone. Curtains rarely twitch. Front doors are left unlocked. But this morning all of that will change. Because Diana Brewer isn’t lying safely in her bed where she belongs. Instead she lies in a hayfield, circled by vultures, discovered by a local farmer.

Leo Balanoff is a crusading attorney with unthinkable skeletons in his closet. He's also a diagnosed pathological liar. When a predatory gangster with a long list of victims is found dead and Leo’s fingerprints show up on the murder weapon, no one believes a word he says in his defense. But he might be the FBI’s only shot at taking down the gangster's even more lethal boss.

Faith Appleford was attacked, a plastic bag tied over her head, taken to an isolated location...and then, by some miracle, she escaped. What's more, when DC Erica Somer interviews Faith, she quickly becomes convinced that Faith knows who her abductor is. Yet Faith refuses to press charges. Without more evidence, it's looking like the police may have to drop the case.

Paris is burning - and only Private's Jack Morgan can put out the fire. When Jack Morgan stops by Private's Paris office, he envisions a quick hello during an otherwise relaxing trip filled with fine food and sightseeing. But Jack is quickly pressed into duty after a call from his client, Sherman Wilkerson, asking Jack to track down his young granddaughter, who is on the run from a brutal drug dealer.

He's the best cop they've got. When a drug bust turns into a bloodbath, it's up to Inspector Macbeth and his team to clean up the mess. He's also an ex-drug addict with a troubled past. He's rewarded for his success. Power. Money. Respect. They're all within reach. But a man like him won't get to the top. Plagued by hallucinations and paranoia, Macbeth starts to unravel. He's convinced he won't get what is rightfully his. Unless he kills for it.

During the interrogation of an entitled, arrogant man suspected of giving drugs to a young girl who then died, Commissario Guido Brunetti acts rashly, doing something he will quickly come to regret. In the aftermath he begins to doubt his career choices and realises that he needs a break from the stifling problems of his work. Granted leave from the Questura, Brunetti is shipped off by his wife, Paola, to a villa owned by a wealthy relative on Sant'Erasmo, one of the largest islands in the Venetian laguna.

Every marriage has secrets. Everyone has flaws. Your wife isn't perfect - you know that - but then again nor are you. But now a serial killer is on the loose in your small town, preying on young women. Fear is driving your well-behaved young daughter off the rails, and you find yourself in bed late at night, looking at the woman who lies asleep beside you. Because you thought you knew the worst about her. The truth is you know nothing at all.

Sergeant Amy Callan and Lieutenant Caroline Cook have a lot in common. Both were army high-flyers. Both were acquainted with Jack Reacher. Both were forced to resign from the service. Now they're both dead. Both were found in their own home, naked, in a bath full of paint. Both were apparent victims of an army man - a loner, a smart guy with a score to settle, a ruthless vigilante. A man just like Jack Reacher.

One Russian magnate's dream of restoring a nation to greatness has set in motion a chain of events which will take the world to the brink of chaos. Only Frances Coffey, the CIA's most legendary spymaster, can prevent it. But to do so, she needs someone special. Enter Argylle, a troubled agent with a tarnished past who may just have the skills to take on one of the most powerful men in the world. If only he can save himself first.

It is 1940 and Mr Graham, a quietly spoken engineer and arms expert, has just finished high-level talks with the Turkish government. And now somebody wants him dead. The previous night three shots were fired at him as he stepped into his hotel room, so, terrified, he escapes in secret on a passenger steamer from Istanbul. As he journeys home, he enters a nightmarish world where friend and foe are indistinguishable. Graham can try to run, but he may not be able to hide for much longer.

After a harrowing tour in Afghanistan, intelligence officer Amy Cornwall is eager to return home to her husband and their young daughter. But as soon as she steps into the house, she knows that something is terribly wrong. Her family is missing. The kidnappers leave a message: if she wants to see her husband and daughter alive again, Amy must complete a near impossible task...and she has 48 hours to do it. She'll do whatever it takes to bring them home.

Los Angeles. August 4, 1962. The city broils through a mid-summer heat wave. Marilyn Monroe ODs. A B-movie starlet is kidnapped. The overhyped LAPD overreacts. Chief Bill Parker's looking for some getback. The Monroe deal looks like a moneymaker. He calls in Freddy Otash. The freewheeling Freddy O. Tainted ex-cop, defrocked private eye, dope fiend, and freelance extortionist. A man who lives by the maxim "Opportunity is Love." Freddy gets to work.

One freezing night in Oslo Christmas shoppers gather to listen to a Salvation Army street concert. An explosion cuts through the music, and a man in uniform falls to the ground, shot in the head at point-blank range.Harry Hole and his team have little to work with: no immediate suspect, no weapon and no motive. But when the assassin discovers he has shot the wrong man, Harry Hole’s troubles have only just begun.

The murder of two clam fishermen off the island of Pellestrina, south of the Lido on the Venetian lagoon, draws Commissario Brunetti into the island's close-knit community, bound together by a code of loyalty and a suspicion of outsiders worthy of the Mafia. When the Vice-Questore's secretary Signorina Elettra volunteers to visit the island, where she has relatives, Brunetti finds himself torn between his duty to solve the murders, concerns for Elettra's safety, and his not entirely straightforward feelings for her....

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Temptation of Forgiveness by Donna Leon, read by David Sibley. When important information is leaked from inside the Venetian Questura, Commissario Guido Brunetti is entrusted with the task of uncovering which of his colleagues is responsible. But before Brunetti can begin his investigation, he is surprised by the appearance in his office of a friend of his wife's, who is fearful that her son is using drugs. A few weeks later, Tullio Gasparini, the woman's husband, is found unconscious with a serious head injury at the foot of a bridge.

Welcome to Hampshire, 1795, where a young Jane Austen has her sights set on securing a marriage proposal from the dashing Tom Lefroy at a local ball. But when a shocking discovery is made - a milliner's lifeless body tucked away in a linen closet - Jane finds herself embroiled in an unexpected murder mystery. As she races against the clock to clear her beloved brother Georgy's name, Jane uses her sharp wits to navigate the treacherous waters of society, unmasking secrets and unearthing hidden motives along the way. With every twist and turn, Jane's determination to solve the case deepens.

A new twist to a decades old mystery. 1990. A young woman goes missing while backpacking in Thailand. She is never seen again. 2016. Her bones are discovered 6000 miles away in an English field and, within hours, the boyfriend who reported her disappearance all those years ago is dead. So begins a hunt to solve her murder that will take DI Ray Mason and PI Tina Boyd into a dark and terrifying world of corruption and deadly secrets, where murder is commonplace, and nothing and nobody is safe....