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

Southern Brooklyn, July 1996. Fire hydrants are open and spraying water on the sizzling blacktop. Punk kids have to make their own fun. Bobby Santovasco and his pal Zeke like to throw rocks at cars getting off the Belt Parkway. They think it's dumb and harmless until it's too late to think otherwise. Then there's Jack Cornacchia, a widower who lives with his high school age daughter Amelia and reads meters for Con Ed but also has a secret life as a vigilante, righting neighbourhood wrongs through acts of violence.

London, 1863: prostitutes in the Waterloo area are turning up dead, their sexual organs mutilated and removed. When another girl goes missing, fears grow that the killer may have claimed their latest victim. The police are at a loss, and so it falls to courtesan and professional detective Heloise Chancey to investigate. With the assistance of her trusty Chinese maid, Amah Li Leen, Heloise inches closer to the truth. But when Amah is implicated in the brutal plot, Heloise must reconsider whom she can trust before the killer strikes again.

Eve and Neil live in the beautiful Cumbrian town of Tarnside. After years of trying for a baby, they are in the final stages of adopting four-year-old Milly. They just have to pass the 'settling in' period - three months of living together as a family under watchful eyes - and then they can make it official. For Eve, her heartbreak is nearly at an end. She now has this perfect little girl in her life, a little girl who calls her mummy. But Eve's dream of a happy family is fragile.

In the fiery environment of an election season, with tensions stoked by an unrelenting heat wave, Danny Walker goes about the business of being a carefree boy. But when a horrific act of violence is visited on his family, his sense of innocence is shattered and his grip on reality slowly begins to fracture. In lean, lyrical prose - reminiscent of the work of J. M. Coetzee and Cormac McCarthy - Zimbabwean writer Ian Holding delivers a mesmerising coming-of-age tale of guilt and responsibility set within the fault lines of modern Africa.

City banker Joseph Ashcroft has stolen £1.34 billion from his own bank. He has given it - untraceably - to impoverished strangers worldwide and has fled. Why has he done this? And will he get away with it? Joseph knows that if he leaves the country, he will easily be tracked down. So he opts for hiding close by - first in the city, then in the woods near the home of his estranged family. An ex-soldier, he's adept at the art of camouflage. On Joseph's trail is Ben Lancaster, the bank's head of security and, as it happens, a former army friend with whom he shares a violent, guilt-ridden past. The hunt is on.

When Bea Hanlon follows her preacher husband, Max, to a remote island in the Pacific, she soon sees that their mission will bring anything but salvation.... Advent Island is a place beyond the reaches of Bea's most fitful imaginings. It's not just the rats and the hordes of mosquitoes and the weevils in the powdered milk. Past the confines of their stuffy little house, amidst the damp and the dust and the sweltering heat, rumours are spreading of devil chasers who roam the island on the hunt for evil spirits. And then there are the noises from the church at night.

Who can you trust if you can't trust yourself? Twenty-seven-year-old Lizzie has a great relationship with her teenage stepson, Sam, even though they could pass for brother and sister. When Sam becomes sullen and withdrawn, Lizzie starts to suspect that something sinister is going on at school. But no-one believes her, and then suspicion falls on Lizzie herself....

In his Cornish hideaway, retired Detective Inspector Frank Elder's solitary life is disturbed by a call from his estranged wife, telling him his 17-year-old daughter, Katherine, is running wild, unbalanced by a rape he feels he should have prevented. Meanwhile, in London, the capture of a violent criminal goes badly wrong, and Detective Sergeant Maddy Birch is uneasy about the reasons why, an uneasiness that is compounded when she starts to believe she is being stalked.

Telegraph operator Lucy Drake is a master of Morse code, but the presence of Sir Colin Beckwith at a rival news agency puts her livelihood at risk. Despite their rivalry, Lucy realises Colin's connections could be just what her family needs to turn the tide of their long legal battle over their stolen fortune. When she negotiates an unlikely alliance with him, neither of them realises how far the web of treachery they're wading into will take them.

Five years ago Susannah Harper's son, Joel, went missing without trace. Bereft of her son and then of her husband, Susannah has rebuilt her life around helping others. But then, on the last night of Hull Fair, a fortune-teller makes an eerie prediction. She tells her that this Christmas Eve, Joel will finally come back to her. As her carefully constructed life begins to unravel, Susannah is forced to confront the buried truths of her family's past.

Behind the famous rhyme lies a murderous conspiracy that goes far beyond Guy Fawkes and his ill-fated Gunpowder Plot. In a desperate race against time, spy Christian Hardy must uncover a web of deceit that runs from the cock-fighting pits of Shoe Lane, to the tunnels beneath a bear-baiting arena in Southwark, and from the bad lands of Clerkenwell to a brutal firefight in The Globe theatre. But of the forces ranged against Hardy, all pale beside the renegade Spanish agent codenamed Realm.

Mia Cosgrove is a high-flying psychotherapist with a thriving practice, but when she receives a desperate phone call from her oldest friend, Lysette, she puts her life on hold to rush to her side. A friend of Lysette's, Sarah, has plunged to her death from the top of a multistorey car park, an unsent text message on her phone, simply saying 'I'm sorry x.' At first the police are convinced it's a suicide, but as more deaths rock the rural community, the police aren't so certain....

'My name is Ruby. I live with Barbara and Mick. They're not my real parents, but they tell me what to do and what to say. I'm supposed to say that my bruises and black eye came from falling down the stairs. But there are things I won't say. I won't tell them I'm going to hunt for my real parents. I'm going to be with my real family. And I'm not going to let Mick stop me.'

Sir Leonard Wallace, the famous chief of the Secret Service, finds that the peace of Europe is threatened by a gang engaged in the theft and sale of national secrets. Wallace gets busy and is assisted by the gang leader's own fear of him as well as his anxiety to get the Englishman into his power. Wallace's investigations, his startling discoveries and his escapes from death make this one of the most exciting books ever written by Alexander Wilson.

Paul and Mikey are on the run, apparently from the press surrounding their house after Mikey's release from prison. His crime: child murder, committed when he was a boy. As they travel, they move from one disturbing scenario to the next, eventually involving themselves with a bizarre religious cult. The power between the brothers begins to shift, and we realise there is more to their history than Paul has allowed us to know.

February 14, 1993: Sheffield United supporters remember it as the day their team won a famous victory against Manchester United. The date is lodged in Anna Young's brain for a different reason. That was the day her sister, Jessica, was abducted. Fast forward 20 years. The case has long since gone cold. But Anna made a promise to look after her little sister. And it's a promise she intends to keep no matter how long it takes....

When Jen goes to her grandmother's house for the last time, she's determined not to dwell on the past. As a child Jen adored Lily and suspected she might be a witch, but the spell was broken long ago, and now her death means there won't be any reconciliation. In Lily's house Jen and her daughter, Marianne, reluctantly confront the secrets of the past and present - and discover how dangerous we become when we're trying to protect the ones we love.

Loreena Picket may be blind, but she's a dutiful niece and talented pianist for her uncle's congregation...but they're both hiding a terrible secret. Loreena can kill people with the touch of her hand. While her uncle sees her as an angel of mercy, helping usher the terminally ill members of his flock into the afterlife, Loreena has her doubts. The true nature of her talent will be tested and will force her to consider how far she is willing to go....

In Glory, Kansas, the bakery not only brings together ingredients for sweet treats but is the place where a wounded hero can forge a forever kind of love. Back in his hometown, Jack McConnell has returned battle scarred, but Betsy sees only the hero who once saved her life and set her heart on fire. Now she's burning to save him in return. However, Jack realizes the only way he'll be worthy of the hero's mantle she's pinned to his shoulders is to save Betsy one last time - from himself.

Sam is a war photographer famous for her hauntingly beautiful pictures of the dead. After a particularly gruelling assignment, she checks in to an expensive hotel. Unfortunately she has chosen the exact moment terrorists attack the hotel. Abhi, the manager, thought his hotel was a safe haven, a place where he could be himself. Now stuck inside his office, he is desperately trying to keep those safe who're still alive....