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

For recently engaged DI Joanna Piercy, a murder is the last thing she wants to deal with. Especially one with as dark a back story as that relating to calculating landowner and farmer Jakob Grimshaw; a man who managed to make enemies of all his neighbours and what little family he still had. One thing is certain; Joanna has a tough job ahead of her.

When the body of pregnant 15-year-old Hope Lacey is discovered in a churchyard on Christmas morning, the community is shocked, but unsurprised. For Hope lived in The Home, the residence of three young girls, whose violent and disturbing pasts have seen them cloistered away. As a police investigation gets underway, the lives of Hope, Lara and Annie are examined, and the staff who work at the home are interviewed, leading to shocking and distressing revelations...and clear evidence that someone is seeking revenge.

All the neighbours were laughing, drinking out of plastic glasses and getting along. I almost felt happy. Almost forgot about the terrible argument earlier and the sinister messages I’d been receiving from a strange address all week, threatening to expose the lies behind my perfect life. As we finished with the red and gold fireworks and welcomed everyone back to our house, I believed that everything would be okay. But I didn’t know who I was inviting in.

In 523 BC, the Persian pharaoh Cambyses dispatched an army across Egypt's western desert to destroy the oracle at Siwa. Legend has it that somewhere in the middle of the Great Dune Sea his army was overwhelmed by a sandstorm and lost forever. Two and a half millennia later, a mutilated corpse is washed up on the banks of the Nile at Luxor, an antiques dealer is savagely murdered in Cairo, and a British archaeologist is found dead at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara.

Failed Shakespearean actor and would-be private detective William Power returns to Melbourne in this wry sequel that re-creates the tension and fear of wartime Australia. Bloodied and broken but somehow unbowed, he arrives in a town struggling under war-rationing and full of cocky American soldiers and lands squarely in the bosom of his childhood home in Carlton, now dominated by his sister-in-law, the odious Darlene.

Can Matt Shepherd find the truth behind what appears to be a motiveless murder? As Matt begins to uncover some dark secrets - secrets that someone will kill to protect - he soon learns that loyalty at all costs carries a lethal price.

Midsummer, 1145. Walter, the steward of Evesham Abbey, is found dead at the bottom of a well pit. The Abbot, whose relationship with the lord Sheriff of Worcestershire is strained at best, dislikes needing to call in help. However, as the death appears to have not been an accident, he grudgingly receives Undersheriff Hugh Bradecote, Serjeant Catchpoll and Underserjeant Walkelin. The trio know to step carefully with the contentious undercurrents at play.

376 AD: The Eastern Roman Empire is alone against the tide of barbarians swelling on her borders. Emperor Valens juggles the paltry border defenses to stave off invasion from the Goths north of the Danube. Meanwhile, in Constantinople, a pact between faith and politics spawns a lethal plot that will bring the dark and massive hordes from the east crashing down on these struggling borders. The fates conspire to see Numerius Vitellius Pavo thrust into the limitanei, the border legions, just before they are sent to recapture the long-lost eastern Kingdom of Bosporus.

Nemo Frisby used to be a detective. Now he drives an Uber between billionaire mansions in California. But he never lost the nose for the case - and when his housecleaner, Trinity Fox, discovers a young woman lying dead in her neighbourhood, she persuades him to help her prove it wasn't suicide. Their investigation leads them to the Bel Air home of a wealthy movie producer, who built his mansion over a Native American burial site. Ancient mythology tells of a demon who, if unearthed, can imbue evil men with terrible power.

When Meredith Mitchell bumps into her old school friend Rachel Hunter at the Chelsea Flower Show, she is shocked to discover that she was the first wife of her companion, Chief Inspector Alan Markby. But the meeting is not the only surprise; before the afternoon is out, Markby has a death on his hands.

Matt Hunter lost his faith a long time ago. Formerly a minister, now a professor of sociology, he’s writing a book that debunks the Christian faith while assisting the police with religiously motivated crimes. On holiday with his family in Oxfordshire, Matt finds himself on edge in a seemingly idyllic village, but when a local girl goes missing, he's caught up in an investigation that brings memories to the surface he would prefer to stay buried deep…He must draw on his theological knowledge to catch the killer.

In the heart of the Cotswolds, a body is found, that of a teenage girl, probably local - somebody's daughter who went out one evening and didn't come back. It's not long before she is identified: 15-year-old Lynne Wills, a habitual, underage drinker at The Silver Bells pub who, on the night of her death, was seen leaving with an unknown man.

They say moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do. Well, as far as Dan Starkey's concerned, "they" can stick it where the sun don't shine because right now helping his wife with the unpacking is the least of his worries. No sooner than Dan has moved into his new Belfast home, his best mate, Mouse, is murdered, leaving him to catch a killer, become editor of the obscenely successful scandal magazine, "Belfast Confidential", and compile the much-coveted Power List.

Out walking with his family in the local park, Jon Spicer’s life is shattered forever. The dog - aggressive and huge - appears from nowhere. At first, Jon assumes the attack was random. Soon, other events force him to think again. With his family under threat, Jon can do only one thing: fight back. The pursuit leads him to a remote Irish village where his family are originally from...

Football manager Scott Manson needs a new job, but finding one in the star-studded world of international football isn't easy. A new position in Shanghai turns out to be part of an elaborate sting operation - and in Barcelona, he's not hired as a football manager but as a detective. Barca's star player is missing, and Scott has a month to track him down. As Scott follows the trail from Paris to Antigua, he encounters the rotten heart of the beautiful game....

A few days before the summer solstice, a 92-year-old woman is found burned to death in her home. On the same day, a man's mutilated corpse is discovered, his arms ripped from their sockets, with a tarot card depicting the Fool inserted in his mouth. When the victim is identified as someone for whom the police have been looking for almost a year, detectives Anderson and Costello find themselves caught up in a case where nothing is as it seems.

Two teenagers see a dead man rising from his grave. And if that's not alarming enough, one of them is killed in a hit and run accident. Soon it seems death is all around and Bryant and May must confront a group of latter-day bodysnatchers. More graves are desecrated, further deaths occur, and when Bryant is blindfolded and taken to a secret society, he realises that this case is more complex than even he had imagined.

After a South London man is shot and killed at home, his wife swears that the offender had no feet. Even stranger, when a teacher is murdered at a local school, her pupils insist they saw disembodied feet dangling from their classroom ceiling. All across the country, victims claim the assailant was missing a body part, while others stumble upon the severed appendages. It's clear these murders are neither straightforward nor easily explained, which means there are only two people fit to investigate: DS Jamila Patel and DC Jerry Pardoe, who are used to tracking spirits intent on causing mayhem.

The newspapers called it The Bad Place. A remote farm out on the Thames estuary, where six children were held captive for two weeks. Five of them got out alive. That was 20 years ago. Now adults, they meet up annually to hold a candlelit vigil for their friend who died. The only rule is that no-one can talk about what happened the night they escaped. But at this year's event, one of them witnesses a kidnapping. A young girl, Sammi, is bundled into a van in front of their eyes.

When the remains of a missing teenager are uncovered, DC Ruth Hunter presumes the 40-year-old murder is linked to a knife fight between South London gangs in the 1950s. However, as the investigation widens, Ruth and her impetuous partner DC Lucy Henry, discover a disturbing connection to the dark criminal past of a prominent knight of the realm. Narrowing down their investigation to an infamous South London club, Ruth begins to uncover a complex web of historic police corruption, brutal protection rackets and celebrity gangsters.