Showing results by publisher "Quercus" in Thriller & Suspense

Berlin, March 1943. The mood in Germany is bleak after their stunning defeat at Stalingrad. Private Investigator Bernie Gunther is at work in the German War Crimes Bureau - weary, cynical but well aware of the value of truth in a world where that's now a rarity. When human remains are found deep in the Katyn Forest, Bernie is sent to investigate. Rumour has it that this mass grave is full of Polish officers murdered by the Russians. For Josef Goebbels, proof of Russian involvement is sure to destroy the Western Alliance, giving Germany a chance to reverse its devastating losses.

A man stands bewildered on a deserted beach on the Hebridean Isle of Harris. He cannot remember who he is. The only clue to his identity is a folded map of a path named the Coffin Road. He does not know where this search will take him. A detective from Lewis sits aboard a boat, filled with doubt. DS George Gunn knows that a bludgeoned corpse has been discovered on a remote rock 20 miles offshore. He does not know if he has what it takes to uncover how and why.

We share the triumphs and tragedies of a group of elite soldier trailblazers as they commit daring raids behind enemy lines in 1944, manage an against-the-odds escape to victory and then seek post-war retribution for the terrible murder of their captured comrades. SAS Band of Brothers is replete with action, peppered with great characters and features two of the most daring escapes of WWII. It ends with the hunted becoming the hunters - a group of men intent on seeking out the Nazis responsible for their brethren's deaths, on an ultra-deniable SAS mission to avenge a war crime.

Bruno Courrѐges is chief of police of the lovely Dordogne town of St Denis with a remit that covers the beautiful valley of the river Vézѐre. One autumn morning he comes across an abandoned car parked near a local beauty spot. Inside is a dead woman, Monique, an apparent suicide resulting from depression. But there are circumstances surrounding the death that raise Bruno's suspicions, particularly when disputes arise surrounding her Will.

Bruno's archaeologist friend Clothilde asks him to help Abby, an American woman who wants to settle in the Perigord after a grim divorce back in the United States. Abby hopes to become an official tour guide in the region, specializing in American connections, from Thomas Jefferson to Henry Miller, from the Lindbergh family to the paratroopers who dropped into the region in the summer of 1944 to support the Resistance. But that long ago summer suddenly pushes its way into the present with the revelation of three sets of bones buried deep in the woods.

Brighton, 1950: When the body of a girl is found, cut into three, Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens is reminded of a magic trick: the Zig Zag Girl. The inventor of the trick, Max Mephisto, is an old friend of Edgar's. When the dead girl turns out to be known to him, Max decides to help Edgar investigate.

Jane stumbles on the rental opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to live in a beautiful ultraminimalist house designed by an enigmatic architect, on condition she abides by a long list of exacting rules. After moving in she discovers that a previous tenant, Emma, met a mysterious death there - and starts to wonder if her own story will be a rerun of the girl before. As twist after twist catches the listener off guard, Emma's past and Jane's present become inexorably entwined in this tense portrayal of psychological obsession.

In postwar Vienna, the term peace is relative - the Americans, British and Russians govern the city in an uneasy truce, and the main difference is that now it's the Soviet secret police making people disappear rather than the Nazis. When Bernie is asked by a high-ranking Soviet official to clear an old Kripo colleague's name of the murder of an American officer, he quickly realises he's in over his head.

Bruno, now Chief of Police for the whole Vézère valley, has an unusual challenge to rise to: teaching at his friend Pamela's new cookery school. It is a daunting prospect - the disappearance of one of the school's pupils almost serves as a welcome distraction. When the woman's body is discovered in one half of a double homicide, the evidence points to something far out of the ordinary. The other murder victim is a man, covered in combat scars and with a false passport. Investigations reveal a list of enemies as long as Bruno's arm.

After Culloden, Iain MacGillivray was left for dead on Drumossie Moor. Wounded, his face brutally slashed, he survived only by pretending to be dead as the Redcoats patrolled the corpses of his Jacobite comrades. Six years later, with the clan chiefs routed and the Highlands subsumed into the British state, Iain lives a quiet life, working as a bookseller in Inverness. One day, after helping several of his regular customers, he notices a stranger lurking in the upper gallery of his shop, poring over his collection. But the man refuses to say what he's searching for.

Claire Wright likes to play other people. A struggling British actress, in New York without a green card, Claire needs work. She takes the only part she's offered: as a decoy for a firm of divorce lawyers, hired to entrap straying husbands, catching them on tape with their seductive propositions. The rules? Never hit on them directly. Make it clear you're available, but they have to proposition you, not the other way around. The firm is after evidence, not entrapment.

Boiled human bones have been found in Norwich's web of underground tunnels. When Dr Ruth Galloway discovers they were recently buried, DCI Nelson has a murder enquiry on his hands. The boiling might have been just a medieval curiosity - now it suggests a much more sinister purpose. Meanwhile, DS Judy Johnson is investigating the disappearance of a local rough sleeper. The only trace of her is the rumour that she's gone 'underground'.

Natalka from Ukraine has quit her job as a carer and joined up with retiree, Edwin, to run a detective agency on England's south coast. Despite a steady stream of minor cases, Natalka is frustrated, longing for a big juicy investigation such as murder to come the agency's way. Edwin is a big reader of obituaries, so when a local obit writer, Dan Haynes, dies, Edwin decides to look further, only to discover a series of unexpected deaths. Are the clues in the obits themselves? Edwin decides to write an obit to see what clues it throws up. Then he disappears.

Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. As a literature teacher specialising in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland, she teaches a short course on it every year. Then Clare's life and work collide tragically when one of her colleagues is found dead, a line from an R. M. Holland story by her body. The investigating police detective is convinced the writer's works somehow hold the key to the case.s....

When Nina's father dies, she inherits a gleaming dream vacation home in a balmy tropical paradise - one she had no idea existed. The house is extraordinary: state-of-the-art, all glass and marble. How did her sensible father ever have enough money for this? And why not tell her about it? Desperate to uncover why he hid such a big secret, she decides to visit.

For twenty-four-year-old Jane, finding love in New York City is even harder than making it as a playwright. So, when Jane meets Colin, a sweet software engineer, she can't believe her luck: they're perfect for each other. Even when Colin breaks off their blooming relationship after six dates, Jane is certain that this is just a stumbling block. She'll get him back. She knows she will. That is, until Colin starts dating Zoe, a perfect, luminous, up-and-coming Brooklyn artist.

It started with a splash. Jimmy, a homeless veteran grappling with PTSD, did his best to pretend he hadn't heard it - the sound of something heavy falling into the Tyne at the height of an argument between two men on the riverbank. Not his fight. Then he sees the headline: Girl in Missing Dad Plea. The girl, Carrie, reminds him of someone he lost, and this makes his mind up: it's time to stop hiding from his past. But telling Carrie what he heard - or thought he heard - turns out to be just the beginning of the story.

Bruno Courreges is chief of police of the lovely town of St Denis in the Dordogne. His main wish is to keep the local people safe and his town free from crime. But crime has a way of finding its way to him. For 30 years, Bruno's boss, chief of detectives Jalipeau, known as J-J, has been obsessed with his first case. It was never solved and Bruno knows that this failure continues to haunt J-J. A young male body was found in the woods near St Denis and never identified. For all these years, J-J has kept the skull as a reminder. He calls him 'Oscar'.

London, 1654. Oliver Cromwell is at the height of his power and has declared himself Lord Protector. Yet he has many enemies at home and abroad. London is a complex web of spies and merchants, priests and soldiers, exiles and assassins. One of the web's most fearsome spiders is Damian Seeker, agent of the Lord Protector. No one knows where Seeker comes from, who his family is, or even his real name. All that is known of him for certain is that he is utterly loyal to Cromwell and that nothing can be long hidden from him.

Moments before she dies, Nicola's grandmother Betty whispers to her that there are babies at the bottom of the garden. Nicola's mother claims she was talking nonsense. However, when Nicola's daughter finds a bone while playing in Betty's garden, it's clear that something sinister has taken place.