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

'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.

Jerome Burnel was once a hero. He intervened to prevent multiple killings and in doing so damned himself. His life was torn apart. He was imprisoned, brutalized. But in his final days, with the hunters circling, he tells his story to private detective Charlie Parker. He speaks of the girl who was marked for death but was saved; of the ones who tormented him and an entity that hides in a ruined stockade. Parker is not like other men. He died and was reborn. He is ready to wage war.

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 son of a struggling single mother, Jamie Conklin just wants an ordinary childhood. But Jamie is no ordinary child. Born with an unnatural ability his mum urges him to keep secret, Jamie can see what no one else can see and learn what no one else can learn. But the cost of using this ability is higher than Jamie can imagine as he discovers when an NYPD detective draws him into the pursuit of a killer who has threatened to strike from beyond the grave.

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.

Tormented and racked with guilt over the brutal slaying of his wife and daughter, Charlie Parker, ex-cop with the NYPD, agrees to track down a missing girl. It is a search that will lead him into an abyss of evil. At the same time, he is warned by an old black woman in Louisiana that "The Travelling Man" is about to strike again. Multiple strands converge with a horrific confrontation in which hunter and hunted are intimately connected by guilt.

On a lonely moor in the northeast of England, the body of a young woman is discovered near the site of a vanished church. In the south, a girl lies buried beneath a Saxon mound. To the southeast, the ruins of a priory hide a human skull. Each is a sacrifice, a summons. And something in the darkness has heard the call. But another is coming: Parker the hunter, the avenger.

Winter in Three Pines, and the sleepy village is carpeted in snow. It's a time of peace and goodwill - until a scream pierces the biting air. A spectator at the annual Boxing Day curling match has been fatally electrocuted. Despite the large crowd, there are no witnesses and - apparently - no clues. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache discovers a history of secrets and enemies in the dead woman's past.

Michael was in a hurry. He was scrambling up the ladder at Drake & Sweeney, a giant D.C. law firm with 800 lawyers. The money was good and getting better; a partnership was three years away. He was a rising star with no time to waste, no time to stop, no time to toss a few coins into the cups of panhandlers. No time for a conscience. But a violent encounter with a homeless man stopped him cold. Michael survived; his assailant did not. Who was this man?

For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, drugs...even contract killings. The vice was controlled by a small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumoured to be members of the Dixie Mafia.

It's summer in Memphis. The sweat is sticking to Rudy Baylor's shirt and creditors are nipping at his heels. Once he had aspirations of breezing through law school and punching his ticket to the good life. Now he doesn't have a job or a prayer-except for one: an insurance dispute that leaves a family devastated and opens the door for a lawsuit, if Rudy can find a way to file it. By the time Rudy gets to court, a heavyweight corporate defense team is there to meet him.

Islamic State is here, all around us. There is no defence. Only attack. On the Syria/Iraq border, a British hostage is beheaded by IS terrorists. When the executioner breaks down, he is led into a nearby tent, where a masked figure is waiting for him. This mysterious person is treated with a mixture of respect and terror. They call him the Caliph.

A MONASTERY. Hidden deep in the wilderness are the cloisters of two dozen monks - men of prayer and music, famous the world over for their glorious voices. A MURDER. But a brutal death throws the monastery doors open to the world. And through them walks the only man who can shine light upon the dark deeds within: Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. A MYSTERY. Who among the brothers has become an angel of death?

Former Chief Inspector of Homicide, Armand Gamache, has found a peace he'd never imagined possible, away from the front line of the police and in the tranquil village of Three Pines. But when his friend Clara Morrow asks for help, he can't bring himself to refuse her, despite the old wounds it threatens to re-open. Clara's husband, Peter, is missing, having failed to come home on the first anniversary of their separation, as promised.

Antoinette Conway, the tough, abrasive detective from The Secret Place, is still on the Murder Squad, but only just. She's partnered up with Stephen Moran now, and that's going well - but the rest of her working life isn't. Antoinette doesn't play well with others, and there's a vicious running campaign in the squad to get rid of her.

They watched Danilo Silva for days before they finally grabbed him. He was living alone, a quiet life on a shady street in Brazil; a simple life in a modest home, certainly not one of luxury. Certainly no evidence of the fortune they thought he had stolen. He was much thinner and his face had been altered. He spoke a different language, and spoke it very well. But Danilo had a past with many chapters. Four years earlier he had been Patrick Lanigan, a young partner in a prominent Biloxi law firm.

Three thrilling stories of the law from the master of the legal thriller: Homecoming takes us back to Ford County, the fictional setting of many of John Grisham's unforgettable stories. Jake Brigance is back, but he's not in the courtroom. He's called upon to help an old friend, Mack Stafford, a former lawyer in Clanton who three years earlier became a local legend when he stole some money from his clients, divorced his wife, filed for bankruptcy, and left his family in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again. Until now.

The office of the public defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week. As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe.

Every jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him. In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark tobacco trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake begins routinely, then swerves mysteriously off course. The jury is behaving strangely, and at least one juror is convinced he's being watched. Soon they have to be sequestered. Then a tip from an anonymous young woman suggests she is able to predict the jurors' increasingly odd behaviour.

Politics has always been a dirty game. Now justice is, too. In a crowded courtroom in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town’s water supply, causing the worst 'cancer cluster' in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it.