Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Thriller & Suspense

Salford, 1983. Lorraine Quick is a single mum, a member of a band going nowhere fast and Personnel Officer at Salford's grim Memorial Hospital. A new General Manager position is being introduced, someone to steer the institution towards Margaret Thatcher's lofty vision for the NHS. Lorraine will be pivotal in selecting the successful candidate, thanks to her recent training in psychometric testing.

Bella Beckett is clearing out her mother Betty’s house when she finds a hidden diary. On the cover, two words are written: BURN THIS. According to the diary, thirty-five years earlier, Betty witnessed the murder of Bella’s childhood friend, Vicky. The diary is quickly dismissed by the police as fiction–Betty’s attempt at creative writing–but Bella is convinced they are wrong. As she uncovers a series of dark connections, it is clear Vicky’s killer is still at large. And they weren’t just someone familiar to Betty, but a person Bella herself knows well…

It's approaching Christmas in Rome and snow is falling in a way that only happens every 20 or 30 years. The city is soon paralyzed by an unseasonably icy grip, and in the dark corners of the Pantheon a grim and mysterious story begins to unfold.

It starts with the death of a teenage runaway, killed when she leaps from a motorway bridge into the speeding traffic below. The girl's identity remains a mystery - until the discovery of the dead girl's details matches the profiles of three other girls; all recently have been reported missing. A further shocking discovery causes the whole file to be handed over to Greater Manchester Police's Counter Terrorism Unit, with leading detective constable Iona Khan in charge.

Genevieve Bowles, an award-winning songwriter, is invited to visit the newly refurbished Hotel Paradise. Genevieve knows the hotel well - in fact, her past life there has haunted her for over a decade.... Twelve years earlier, two travelers meet in Paris. Full of optimism, Genevieve and Paul head south to the Riviera, where they start work at the Hotel Paradise. But when a stranger arrives who threatens her future with Paul, Genevieve senses that events are about to spin out of control.

Egypt 2153 BC: 80 priests set out under cover of darkness with a mysterious object.... Albania, 1986: A plane takes off bound for the Sudan. Somewhere over the Sahara it disappears.... The present: a mummified corpse is discovered in the dunes with a roll of camera film and a clay obelisk inscribed with a hieroglyphic sign.... Three unconnected events - or so it seems.

Kim and Mia Timmers were just 11 years old when they were imprisoned in a local psychiatric institution, accused of murdering the man they believed to be responsible for the death of their family. Now, 10 years later, they are due for release. Detective Pieter Vos is given cause to reopen the case when the girls disappear. His investigation takes an unexpected turn when it becomes clear that someone is posing as Little Jo - Kim and Mia's other sister, who was killed along with their parents.

Detective Inspector Costello has resigned. No notice, no good-byes. Convinced that George Haggerty murdered his wife and son despite his cast-iron alibi, Costello has gone solo, determined to expose a ruthless killer without being hampered by police protocol. But is she right about Haggerty's guilt? And where has she disappeared to? DCI Colin Anderson has no time to ponder the loss of his partner of 20 years. With a badly beaten body found on a remote mountain pass, a woman with a serious head wound who won't communicate in any way and a substantial pool of blood discovered at the edge of Loch Lomond, Police Scotland have their hands full.

For years, the Stranger House has stood in the village of Illthwaite, offering refuge to travellers. People like Sam, a brilliant young mathematician, who believes that anything that can't be explained by maths isn't worth explaining. And Miguel, a historian running from a priests' seminary, who sees ghosts. Sam is an experienced young woman, Miguel a 26-year-old virgin.

Irving Levy is a man with few roots and, now that he is terminally ill, is anxious to find anyone to whom he can leave his considerable property. When he learns that there may be more to the disappearance of his younger sister, who disappeared when she was a baby, he engages the services of Hakim and Arnold to investigate. Unwittingly in mortal danger, the private detectives and Levy enter the world of Barking Park Fair and the secrets its brightly coloured attractions conceal. Secrets that lead them back to the chaotic world of postwar Europe, where few people were what they seemed.

In a hidden studio in Rome, an art expert is found dead in front of one of the most beautiful paintings Nic Costa has ever seen - an unknown Caravaggio masterpiece. But before long, tragedy will strike Nic far closer to home. The main suspect's identity is known, but he remains untouchable, protected by a fleet of lawyers and a sinister cult known as the Ekstasists. If Costa can crack the reasons for the cult's existence, he may well stand a chance of nailing his wife's killer. But the mystery will take him right back to Caravaggio himself and the reasons he had to flee Rome.

In the gorgeous grounds of Rome's Villa Borghese park the glitterati of the movie world are gathered for a world premiere. A legendary Italian movie director has come out of retirement to create a blockbuster based on Dante's Inferno. But, as Nic Costa and his colleagues attempt to guard the precious collection of historic artifacts attached to the event, the premiere is disrupted by tragedy and a horrific murder. Is a disgruntled admirer of Dante taking his revenge on the cast of the movie?

Jim says he's an undercover policeman. His daughter, Sam, thinks he's a liar. On holiday in Orkney, Sam spies on Jim as he runs secretive errands across the island. Why is he so interested in Norse mythology? And why does Sam have the eerie feeling that she too is being watched? When Sam finally discovers the truth, it will draw her into a dangerous world of darkness and deception....

Tobias Hawke was the tech genius boss of the British Institute for Deep Learning. Now his body has been found in his lab: he has been brutally murdered. Hawke was on the brink of an astonishing breakthrough in the field of artificial intelligence. His creation, 'Syd', a machine-learning device that mimics human thought, promised to change the face of humanity forever. But, in the wake of her creator's murder, Syd has gone into emergency shutdown procedure. What secrets are her neural networks hiding?

London, 1954. Eva Georgiou has just returned from her shift at the glamorous Café de Paris, when she's summoned to her second job: Greek interpreter for the Metropolitan Police. There, she is tasked with representing Zina Pavlou, a Cypriot woman who has been accused of the brutal murder of her daughter-in-law.

Detective Nic Costa finds himself a stranger in a strange land when he's sent to infiltrate the mob in a remote part of southern Italy. Roman police detective Nic Costa has been sent undercover to Italy's beautiful, remote Calabrian coast to bring in the head of the feared mob, the 'Ndrangheta, who has offered to turn state witness for reasons of his own. Hoping to reel in the biggest prize the state police have seen in years, the infamous Butcher of Palermo, Costa and his team are aware the stakes are high. But the constant deception is taking its toll....

1941. Dieter Merz is the Reich's most celebrated fighter ace, and his aerial prowess has brought him into close contact with the top echelons of Hitler's regime. But everything in the Nazi state still comes at a price. If Dieter wants help for an injured friend, he must inform on the modest, lifelong confidant always at Hitler's side: Rudolf Hess. Meanwhile, Scotsman and ex-marine Tam Moncrieff is working for MI5, attempting to sound out Germany's intention of withdrawal. With most of Europe already fallen to Hitler's armies, Germany considers the war won.

When two bodies wash up on a river bank in the Balkans, Simo Subotic is called in to investigate. It soon becomes clear that their deaths were the result of torture not seen since the Bosnian War. Meanwhile, after a drug bust prematurely ends the Tour de Balkans, former Olympic cyclist Heather Bishop is in freefall after her journalist boyfriend Ryan Mackinnon goes missing. Her desperate search for him uncovers not only Ryan's dark past, but that of a region still reeling from the trauma of war.

Madison Albi is a scientist with a very special talent - for reading minds. When she stumbles across a homeless man with whom she feels an inexplicable connection, she can't resist the dangerous impulse to use her skills to help him. But as she delves deeper into J’s mind, it becomes clear that some secrets are better off staying hidden. Is J really the man Madison believes him to be?

At Christmas 1975 a group of Californian students experiment with LSD. One of them, Michael Quinn kidnaps the son of an English professor. When he is released from jail twenty years later, a mysterious young English woman named Joni Lascelles begins to ask questions that will unravel the past.