Showing results by publisher "Hodder & Stoughton" in Crime Thrillers

Number-one best-seller John Grisham returns with his most suspenseful thriller yet. Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of the USA only four active federal judges have been murdered. Judge Raymond Fawcett just became number five. I did not know Judge Fawcett, but I know who killed him, and why. I am a lawyer, and I am in prison. It's a long story.

Billy Summers is a man in a room with a gun. He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he’ll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first there is one last hit. Billy is among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done. So what could possibly go wrong? How about everything.

In The Whistler, Lacy Stoltz investigated a corrupt judge who was taking millions in bribes from a crime syndicate. She put the criminals away, but only after being attacked and nearly killed. Three years later, and approaching 40, she is tired of her work for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct and ready for a change. Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby's father was murdered 20 years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold.

Worldwide best-seller John Grisham goes rogue with his most suspenseful thriller yet.... Sometimes you have to fight dirty to get clean. Sebastian Rudd takes the cases no one else wants to take: the drug-addled punk accused of murdering two little girls; a crime lord on death row; a homeowner accused of shooting at a SWAT team. l Rudd believes that every person accused of a crime is entitled to a fair trial - even if he has to cheat to get one.

When Carl Lee Hailey guns down the hoodlums who have raped his 10-year-old daughter, the people of Clanton see it as a crime of blood and call for his acquittal. But when extremists outside Clanton hear that a black man has killed two white men, they invade the town, determined to destroy anything and anyone that opposes their sense of justice. Jake Brigance has been hired to defend Hailey. It's the kind of case that can make or break a young lawyer.

Pete Banning was Clanton's favourite son, a returning war hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, father, neighbour and a faithful member of the Methodist Church. Then one cool October morning in 1946, he rose early, drove into town, walked into the church, and calmly shot and killed the Reverend Dexter Bell. As if the murder wasn't shocking enough, it was even more baffling that Pete's only statement about it - to the sheriff, to his defense attorney, to the judge, to his family and friends and to the people of Clanton - was 'I have nothing to say'.

The classic legal thriller and huge bestseller from master of the genre John Grisham. David Zinc has it all: Big firm, big salary, life in the lawyer's fast lane. Until the day he snaps and throws it all away. Leaving the world of corporate law far behind, he talks himself into a new job with Finley & Figg. A self-styled 'boutique' firm with only two partners, Oscar Finley and Wally Figg are ambulance-chasing street lawyers who hustle nickel-and-dime cases, dreaming of landing the big win.

In suburban Georgetown, a killer's Reeboks whisper on the floor of a posh home. In a seedy D.C. porno house, a patron is swiftly garroted to death. The next day America learns that two of its Supreme Court justices have been assassinated. And in New Orleans, a young law student prepares a legal brief. To Darby Shaw it was no more than a legal shot in the dark, a brilliant guess. To the Washington establishment it's political dynamite.

Relentless phone calls interrupt the peace of a warm August morning in Three Pines. Though the tiny Québec village is impossible to find on any map, someone has managed to track down Armand Gamache, head of homicide at the Sûreté, as he sits with his wife in their back garden. Reine-Marie watches with increasing unease as her husband refuses to pick up, though he clearly knows who is on the other end. When he finally answers, his rage shatters the calm of their quiet Sunday morning.

In Amsterdam, three people are butchered in a canal house, their remains arranged around the crucified form of their patriarch, De Jaager: fixer, go-between and confidante of the assassin named Louis. The men responsible for the murders are Serbian war criminals. They believe they can escape retribution by retreating to their homeland.

Lacy Stoltz never expected to be in the firing line. Investigating judicial misconduct by Florida's 1,000 judges, her cases so far have been relatively unexciting. That's until she meets Greg Myers, an indicted lawyer with an assumed name who has an extraordinary tale to tell. Myers is representing a whistle-blower who knows of a judge involved in organised crime. Along with her gangster associates, this judge has facilitated the building of a casino on an Indian reservation. At least two people who opposed the scheme are dead.

On their first night in Paris, the Gamaches gather for a family dinner with Armand's godfather, the billionaire Stephen Horowitz. But the evening ends in horror when Stephen is knocked down and critically injured in what Armand is convinced is no accident, but a deliberate attempt on an elderly man's life. When a strange key is found in Stephen's possession it sends Armand on a desperate search for the truth that will take him from the top of the Tour Eiffel to the bowels of the Paris Archives.

Wyatt Riggins, the boyfriend of rising Maine artist Zetta Nadeau, has gone missing, leaving behind a cell phone containing a single-word message: RUN. Private investigator Charlie Parker is hired to find out why Riggins has fled, and from whom. Parker discovers that Riggins, an ex-soldier, has been involved in the abduction of four children from Mexico: three girls and a boy, all belonging to the cartel boss Blas Urrea - except Urrea's family is safe and well in Mexico, which means the abductees cannot be his children.

When Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is asked to provide crowd control at a statistics lecture given at the Université de l'Estrie in Quebec, he is dubious. Why ask the head of homicide to provide security for what sounds like a minor, even mundane lecture? But dangerous ideas about who deserves to live in order for society to thrive are rapidly gaining popularity, fuelled by the research of the eminent Professor Abigail Robinson. Yet for every person seduced by her theories, there is another who is horrified by them.

For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, drugs...even contract killings. The vice was controlled by a small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumoured to be members of the Dixie Mafia.

Meg Varnum. Maggie Littleton. Meg Upton. Different names for the same person, depending on the town, depending on the job. I'm not a con artist as much as an avenger. A righter of wrongs. But nothing about me is real, other than my desire to hold men like you accountable for the things you've done. I don't break any laws, and what I take is given willingly. I can't be blamed for how easy it is to manipulate you. It's a discipline involving confidence, cleverness and deception.

Politics has always been a dirty game. Now justice is, too. In a crowded courtroom in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town’s water supply, causing the worst 'cancer cluster' in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it.

The air is unbearably tense as Armand Gamache returns to the Sûreté du Québec for his first day of work since his demotion from its command to head of homicide. Amid blistering personal social media attacks, Gamache sets out on his first assignment - to find a missing woman. But as he leads the search for Vivienne Godin, Three Pines itself is threatened when the river breaks its banks, and a province-wide emergency is declared.

Thirteen years ago, DI Helen Birch's little brother Charlie disappeared. Two days ago, Birch was part of a raid on one of Scotland's most feared criminal organisations. Yesterday, Charlie came back.... Now Birch has a choice: save her career, or save Charlie? As she interrogates her brother, we see his story, in a brilliantly tense and clever story about what people will do to survive and the lines they'll cross to protect those they love.

He's their lawyer. He's their insider. He's their spy. Kyle McAvoy grew up in his father’s small-town law office in York, Pennsylvania. He excelled in college, was elected editor-in-chief of The Yale Law Journal, and his future has limitless potential. But Kyle has a secret, a dark one, an episode from college that he has tried to forget. The secret, though, falls into the hands of the wrong people, and Kyle is forced to take a job he doesn’t want - even though it’s a job most law students can only dream about.