Showing results by publisher "Orion" in Crime Thrillers

All Jay wants is to start again, to set himself up in a small, quiet town where no one knows him. Because here, no one will let him forget what they think he did the day his neighbour died in Flat 401. He just needs to keep doing what he's always done: treat people with kindness and respect, and try to stay out of trouble. But when a threatening note makes its way into the hostel he's forced to call home - Everyone is going to know what you really did - his hope for a fresh start begins to crumble.

Everyone in the village loves Joni Blackwood. She is beautiful and bold, and it's no surprise to anyone when on the annual village bonfire, she is crowned 'queen' of the festivities. After all, despite fierce competition from the charity-giving and churchgoing mothers in the village, she has won this honour five years in a row.

When Grace and Lola meet for the first time, it's at a home for young unmarried mothers. Consumed by the dark secrets that brought them there, the two forge an unlikely friendship. When the time comes, Grace is forced to give her daughter away, while Lola's parents take her son in to raise as their own. Seeking refuge after running away from home, Grace finds safety in Lola's family.

Dara Gaffney is fresh out of drama school when she lands the leading role in the revival of Eabha de Lacey's hugely successful yet controversial play. Based on the true story of the death of Cillian Butler, many claim that Eabha had an ulterior motive when she penned it. Cillian's death remains a mystery to this day, and Eabha and her brother, Austin, the only witnesses.

Life is tough for Faith Diamond. Growing up on the wrong side of London, with a family incapable of staying on the right side of the law, her future has only ever been about survival. But then a series of prostitutes are found murdered: strangled and stripped naked. The only thread linking the bodies is pimp Marshall Vella - a man connected in more ways than one with the Diamond family. Now Faith is forced to consider the possibility that the people she fights to protect might be involved in something more evil than even she could have imagined.

Thessaly Hanlon is four hours into a long drive home through the night when she pulls into a 24-hour roadside diner to take a break. She's exhausted, but when she hears a chillingly familiar voice from the next booth, she wonders if he'll ever sleep again. The voice is unmistakable. It belongs to Casper Sturgis, the man who murdered Thessaly's brother two decades before, and then disappeared without a trace.

While drug running for a local crime lord, Danny decides to call in a large debt from a young female drug addict, Micki Ashton. During a chaotic night on a riverbank, in which punches are thrown, Shaw steps in to protect the defenceless woman, but things turn deadly when Danny produces a knife and Micki is stabbed. Appalled by his friend's actions, Shaw deliberately pushes Danny into the river. Danny survives and, arrested and charged for murder, spends the next quarter of a century in prison.

Shirley Steadman, a 70-year-old living in a small town in the North East of England, loves her volunteer work at the local hospital radio. She likes giving back to the community, and even more so, she likes getting out of the house. Haunted by the presence of her son, a reluctant Royal Navy officer who was lost at sea, and still in the shadow of her long-dead abusive husband, she doesn't like being alone much. One day, at the radio station, she is playing around with the equipment and finds a frequency that was never there before.

In 1975, 15-year-old April Cooper and her 18-year-old boyfriend embark on a weeklong killing spree that results in the deaths in a dozen innocent people in Southern California's San Gabriel Valley. Was April a willing accomplice or a victim herself, abducted by an obsessed psychopath and forced into committing horrible acts? No one will ever know for sure, as April and Eric were apparently killed in a bloody shoot-out at the Death Valley compound of their final victims - a family of off-the-grid survivalists known as The Gideons.

Alma is a private detective in a near-future England, a country desperately trying to tempt people away from the delights of Shine, the immersive successor to the Internet. But most people are happy to spend their lives plugged in, and the country is decaying. Alma's partner is ill and has to be treated without fail every four hours, a task that only Alma can do. If she misses the five-minute window, her lover will die.

'Are you waiting for Monsieur Bellivier, madame?' Helena Folasadu should of course say no. She doesn't know the man talking to her, she doesn't know Monsieur Bellivier, and she certainly isn't waiting for him. But, bored of life, and sparked by a whim, she says yes. The go-between leads her to a deserted floor in an office building and offers her a large sum of money to sit at a computer and forward emails to Monsieur Bellivier.

Miri Goldstein is a party girl. Beautiful, dangerous, irresistible - and now she's dead. But the grave is not always good at keeping secrets. For those whose lives she touched, the truth is going to catch up with them. Denise Ang always played by the rules. Until she realised it couldn't protect you or the people you love from getting hurt. So when she meets Miri, a walk on the wild side is a siren song too hard to resist. Even if it means she'll be paying the price for years to come.

Gary Foster's life is finally heading in the right direction. After years of trying, his wife, Beth, is pregnant, and he recently opened a business with his brother. But one phone call changes everything. After collapsing suddenly, Beth is rushed to the hospital. Tests reveal a devastating diagnosis: an inoperable brain tumour. Their only hope is an expensive experimental treatment available abroad, with a cost that's out of their reach. And Beth's time is running out.

We've all had sleepless nights thinking about it. You're home alone. Someone breaks in. In defending yourself, you end up killing the intruder. Now you're the one the police want. That is the situation that criminal barrister Paul Reeve arrives home to find. His wife, Alice, stands in the bedroom, clutching a bloodied letter opener in her shaking hand. 'What have you done, Alice?' 'I didn't have a choice....' We would all believe the person we love most.

Last night my sister was murdered. The police think I killed her. I was there. I watched the knife go in. I saw the man who did it. And heard him laugh when he said he'd never be caught. Because he knows I have prosopagnosia - I can't recognise faces. And if I don't find the man who killed my sister, I'll be found guilty of murder.

In 2016, six students and a dog on a barge trip entered Standedge Tunnel, the longest canal tunnel in England. Six students went in, and two and a half hours later, the boat reappeared on the other side with only one of the students, unconscious, and the dog. The case of the Standedge Six was largely kept from the national media. The police investigation concluded that the only remaining student, Matthew, killed his friends, hid the bodies on the boat and returned later to move them to an undisclosed location. Matthew is in prison...but he maintains he is innocent.

When 18-year-old Ben Renshaw is found dead in city woodland, DCI Robin Lyons is plunged into one of Birmingham's most controversial cases. Months earlier, Ben and his best friend gave testimony that sent a former classmate, Alistair Heywood, to prison for a vicious sexual assault. Before the trial, the boys and their families endured months of brutal witness intimidation, for which the Heywoods, a privileged and influential local family, faced no legal repercussions. Instead, they vowed revenge.