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

A haunted room. An unbroken seal. A murder victim whose very identity is an enigma. And then, a second death in a house surrounded by untrodden snow. Both crimes defy reason—but master detective Dr. Alan Twist reveals that even the most baffling mysteries have rational explanations.

Nathaniel Carson is dead. His family host a dinner to celebrate what would have been his 79th birthday only to have an unexpected guest arrive. Mia says she's Nathaniel's daughter. The product of an affair. But not everyone is convinced her claims are genuine. After all, Nathaniel left behind a vast fortune. The kind of money people would do anything for. The more the Carsons' get to know Mia, the more concerned they become. Can they trust her? Because every family has its secrets. But this truth might hurt the Carson's more than they expect.

The ninth title in Paul Finch's thrilling Detective Mark Heckenburg series.

In post-war Britain, Avonby estate is a crumbling relic hiding deadly secrets. Lady Melinda 'Mel' Greenway, a former army mechanic and the family’s poor relation, seeks solace in its overgrown gardens—until she unearths a body beneath the roses. The discovery drags Mel into a tangled web of lies, resentments, and buried truths, forcing her to clash with Inspector Derrin Bradley, her wartime lover turned investigator.

Growing up in one of Manchester's roughest council estates Mark (Macca) McNeil's life seems already written for him until joining forces with rough boy Todd Brown to form a gang offers him a way out. He is finally changing his life but then, there is Joanne… She is more than a fling and although they come from the same estate, but she is heading places. She loves his lavish gifts and the life he is promising her, but she doesn't want to see what Macca is capable of.

Adam lives a picture-perfect life: happy marriage, two young children, and a flourishing career as a doctor. But Adam also lives with a secret. Hospital CCTV, strangers' mobile phones, city traffic cameras–he is convinced that they are all watching him, recording his every move. All because of something terrible that happened at a drunken party when he was a student. Only two other people knew what happened that night. Two people he's long left behind. Until one of them, Clio–Adam's great unrequited love–turns up on his doorstep, and reignites a sinister pact twenty-four years in the making...

Following her harrowing pursuit of sinister cybercriminal Dantalion, and her life-changing decision to pursue personal vengeance over her case, Ericka Blackwood hit rock bottom. The only way she can find redemption is through the relentless hunting down of her former quarry. But Ericka is not the only one seeking Dantalion, whose scope has extended from orchestrating murder via the Dark Web and entered the world of international terrorism.

1941. Rupert and Adelaide Stride are raising their two daughters, Clare and Rosa, in the midst of war. When Rupert is called to fight, he dies on the beaches of Dunkirk, leaving his family to fend for themselves. 2023. Decades later, Clare and Rosa have retreated to the annex, trapped in the place where they were raised: Yew Tree House. When the rooms are put up for rent, Jack Harmon sees the perfect spot for a family holiday with his twins and detective Stella Darnell. But then the children discover a skeleton with a hole in its skull hidden in the brambles of a decommissioned WWII pill box.

Two years on from the start of a devastating pandemic, food shortages are becoming critical, and rationing looms. So it's more than embarrassing when a truck full of luxury food for Scottish Virus Minister's banquet goes missing. When Bernard and Maitland from the HET team find it, the food is missing—but there is a dead body.

Summer 1942. Abwehr intelligence officer Wilhelm Schultz is baiting a trap to lure thousands of Allied troops to their deaths. George Hogan is a devout young Canadian journalist who has caught the eye of press baron Lord Beaverbrook. Now he faces an assignment that will test his faith to breaking point. Jackie Wrenne, meanwhile, is working in Lord Louis Mountbatten's cloak-and-dagger Combined Operations headquarters and is privy to the boldest cross-Channel raid yet conceived. Three lives are interlinked by a name and a date that no Canadian will ever forget: Dieppe, 19 August 1942.

When an armed man massacres several people in central London, Claudine witnesses the whole thing. To her horror, one of the victims is her brother, Jethro. Riven by grief, Claudine retreats to the house in the Fens where she and Jethro grew up. When the police contact her, she is left reeling when they tell her Jethro orchestrated the attack. Why would a gentle, if troubled, middle-aged man cause such bloodshed – and why would he include himself in the list of victims? Claudine finds herself down a rabbit hole of mystery, caught up in Jethro's research on a medieval cult.

Jerry Larkin discovers an age-old secret buried beneath the foundation of the house that he and his wife Jane, an avid reader of ghost stories, bought six months ago in the idyllic town of Old Orange in Southern California. Jane Larkin, whose MacArthur grant led to the creation of public gardens and a farmers market in the town's central park, works against time to save what she has built as a 100-year storm moves in off the coast.

Beth is desperate to return to normality. After a years-long ordeal, her daughter is finally home and safe. But Carmel has questions she can't ignore about the cult that kidnapped her, and about the preacher who gave her another girl's name. Digging into her past, Carmel uncovers secrets which suggest that she wasn't the only lost girl—and which puts her in danger all over again. While her mother struggles to salvage the safety they've only just found, Carmel tries to come to terms with who she has become. One question, a mystery at the heart of her disappearance as a child, haunts her:

Having thwarted murderous poachers, the Veteran, Thandi and Mkhize are back in a new fight—battling to save elephant herds form being callously killed for their ivory, whilst trying to block wholesale political corruption and money laundering in contemporary South Africa. Will dwindling elephant numbers be reversed? Will the forces of good triumph over the vicious looters? Can the annual trillion-dollar money laundering trade be brought to heel by a brave whistleblower?

A collection of highly disturbing and deeply original short stories from the master of horror Graham Masterton and rising star Dawn G Harris. A belt adorned with strange markings has the power to strangle anyone who attacks its owner. A man whose wife has been placed into a portrait at the Tate decides to join her on the other side. In these and other unsettling tales, master of horror Graham Masterton and his protegee Dawn G Harris explore the dark side of human nature—from the graphic and violent to the spine-tingling and supernatural.

A notorious loan shark is shot dead, in broad daylight, right outside the front doors of the Old Bailey. The killer is arrested at the scene and Adrian Stanford is lined up to take on the toughest defence case of his career. Can he steer his client past the no-nonsense Detective Chief Superintendent ‘Iron-Rod' Stokes, hell-bent on achieving a murder conviction in his last case before retirement? That's assuming he can keep his client alive in prison long enough for the trial to go ahead.

The public think Ava's a monster. Ava thinks she's blameless. In prison, they called her Butcher Bird—but Ava's not in prison any more. Released after 25 years to a new identity and a new home, Ava finally has the quiet life she's always wanted. But someone knows who she is. The lies she's told are about to unravel.

When Rob decides the family needs to get away for the summer Jess is not convinced—won't all the things they're escaping be waiting for them on their return? But the kids are thrilled, and before long their idyllic little cottage, the sea air, and the feel of skin sticky from sun-cream, lollies and sand, begins to work its magic. Jess allows herself to sink into the holiday vibes—the family even make holiday friends. As the summer heat intensifies Jess—ever vigilant—unearths a secret—a problem she's sure she can help solve.

Summer, 1993. In the aftermath of her mother's suicide attempt, 16-year-old Prue must spend the summer holidays on a remote island in the Shetlands with her favourite Aunt Ruth and Uncle Archie, a man she's barely met since her aunt married him. Prue hopes to re-establish the relationship, and that her aunt might help her understand some of the parts of the past she has been forbidden to discuss by her mother—including the identity of her father. Prue soon finds out that her uncle was the only suspect in the disappearance of a local girl some twenty years ago.

London, 1628. Nicolaes de Pelgrom, assassin and devoted servant of George Villiers, will do whatever his master asks of him—even if that means enduring the perilous voyage to the Indies to exact a grieving widow's revenge. Making that same journey is Jeronimus Cornelisz, a conniving apothecary determined to escape the backstreets of Amsterdam and become rich beyond imagination. Hired by a criminal mastermind to escort precious cargo to the Indies, he will kill anyone who stands in his way.