Showing results by publisher "Soundings" in Suspense

DS Wesley Peterson, newly arrived in the West Country town of Tradmouth, has his hands full when a child goes missing and a young woman is brutally murdered on a lonely cliff path. Then his old friend, archaeologist Neil Watson, unearths the skeletons of a strangled woman and a newborn baby in the cellar of an ancient merchant's house nearby. As the investigation continues, Wesley begins to suspect that these deaths, centuries apart, may be linked by age-old motives of jealousy, a sexual obsession and desperate longing.

Lieutenant John Pearce is in London seeking protection for his friends, the Pelicans, from a reluctant Admiralty. Sitting in the tavern where they were first press ganged, Pearce considers his future. Lacking the evidence of perjury he once had to bring Captain Ralph Barclay to justice, his prospects are not promising. Ralph Barclay’s young wife, Emily, is refusing to live under the same roof as him and she has the means to get her own way: the evidence Pearce believes was lost at sea.

Why did literary legend Wynn Staniland suddenly become a recluse in the 1980s? Most assumed he stopped writing because of his wife's bizarre suicide. And now a promising young author called Zac Wilkinson is working on Staniland's biography and hopes to reveal the true story to a waiting world. When Wilkinson is found brutally murdered, DI Wesley Peterson finds links to the unexplained poisoning of a middle-aged couple - and Staniland appears to be the connection.

A middle-aged man jumps under a tube train at Shepherd's Bush station, and a teenage girl is killed in a hit-and-run in a country lane puzzlingly far from her home on the White City Estate: two unrelated incidents which occupy DCI Bill Slider and his team during a slack period. At least it's a change of speed after the grind of domestics, burglaries and Community Liaison. But links to a cold case - another dead teenager, pulled out of the River Thames - create doubts as to whether they are indeed unrelated.

1957. Lord James Harrington and his wife, Beth, run a country hotel in the village of Cavendish, deep in the heart of West Sussex. James and Beth are discussing the latest Cavendish Players production, The Devil Incarnate, when their cleaner informs them that farmer Alec Grimes is missing.

When a skeleton is discovered on a Devon smallholding, DS Wesley Peterson, a keen amateur archaeologist, is intrigued by the possibility that it is a Viking corpse, buried in keeping with ancient traditions. But he has a rather more urgent crime to solve - the disappearance of a Danish tourist. Wesley finds disturbing evidence that the attractive Dane has been abducted. His boss, Gerry Heffernan, believes that Ingeborg's disappearance is linked to a spate of brutal robberies and that she witnessed something she shouldn't have.

In June 1940, the Channel Islands become the only part of Great Britain to be occupied by Hitler's forces. Hedy Bercu, a young Jewish girl from Vienna who fled to Jersey two years earlier to escape the Anschluss, finds herself once more entrapped by the Nazis, this time with no escape. Hedy's War follows her struggle to survive the Occupation and avoid deportation to the camps. Despite her racial status, Hedy finds work with the German authorities and embarks on acts of resistance.

A year on from the mysterious disappearance of Jenny Bercival, DI Wesley Peterson is called in when the body of a strangled woman is found. The discovery mars the festivities of the Palkin Festival, held each year to celebrate the life of John Palkin, a 14th-century mayor of Tradmouth who made his fortune from trade and piracy. Could there be a link between the two women?

John Pearce is going home. But he has to avoid capture by an Algerine warship, having his Pelicans pressed into a British frigate, and that's before they are at risk of being hanged for desertion once home. Then there is the problem of Emily Barclay and their son, Adam. By cunning and bluff, he protects his friends but not his troubled love life. In a whirlwind of action, there are forged wills, devious trades, contrived murders and dangerous spy missions, with so much deceit that Pearce does not know whom to trust. All he can hope to do is survive.

Amory Ames might be wealthy, but she is unhappily married to playboy Milo and so willingly accepts her former fiancé Gil Trent's plea for help in preventing his sister Emmeline from meeting a similar fate. Amory and Gil set off for the Brightwell, a sprawling seaside hotel in Devon where Emmeline and her intended, Rupert Howe, are holidaying. An unresolved history between Gil and Rupert surfaces, and after a late-night quarrel the luxurious hotel is one guest fewer by morning.

An excavation at the lost gardens of Earlsacre Hall is called to a halt when a skeleton is discovered under a 300-year-old stone plinth, a corpse that seems to have been buried alive. But DS Wesley has a more recent murder case to solve. A man has been found stabbed to death in a caravan at a popular holiday park, and the only clue to his identity is a newspaper cutting about the restoration of Earlsacre. Does local solicitor Brian Willerby have the answer?

When Darren Hatman reports his daughter, Leanne, missing, DI Wesley Peterson isn't too concerned. However, Darren's claim that a photographer has been stalking her soon changes Wesley's opinion. Leanne works at Eyecliffe Castle, now converted into a luxury hotel. When Darren is found murdered on the grounds, the police fear that Leanne has met a similar fate.

Thea Osbourne is only too happy to have a bit of peace and quiet. The only positive thing that came out of her recent house sitting disasters is her blossoming relationship with DI Phil Hollis and she relishes the thought of their spending some quality time together. Even meeting Phil’s childhood acquaintance, the eccentric Ariadne, cannot detract from Thea’s happiness. But the bad luck that plagues the hapless Thea and her beloved spaniel Hepzipah is never far away.

Thea Osborne sets off to Frampton Mansell with confidence. Despite her first disastrous house-sitting venture, which drew her into a murder investigation, Thea, and her spaniel Hepzibah, are sure of a wonderful stay at the relaxed country estate of the Philipses. But it seems that she’s jinxed. Busying herself with her duties, she finds a body hanging from the rafters of one of the barns. Detective Superintendent Phil Hollis oversees the subsequent investigation and is more than a little surprised to find Thea once again at the scene.

1860, Wimborne, Dorset. Rebecca Tullidge, miserably married to her callous husband, is having an affair with a railway officer, John Bedloe. Much to her distress, she trips over her lover's dead body on the railway tracks. Determined to win votes for the upcoming election of mayor, Mr Feltham calls for Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Lemming to solve the hideous crime, which takes longer than anticipated.

During a blackout on the streets of London in late 1944, a young Polish land girl, Rosa Nowak, is suddenly and brutally killed. But the police, their resources already stretched by war regulations and the thriving black market, cannot find any reason why someone would want to murder an innocent refugee. For the former police inspector John Madden, the crime hits close to home. Rosa was working on his farm, and he feels personally responsible for not protecting her.

While Bea Abbot worries that she’s lost control of her domestic agency, she’s asked to find some domestic help for an eccentric little musician falsely accused of murder. She doesn’t realize how dangerous this might be until Jeremy - fleeing from attempts on his life - lands up on her doorstep. Researching the gang who’d used an attractive girl to entrap Jeremy, Bea finds traces of them throughout high society. Can Bea keep Jeremy - and herself - alive, while all he thinks about is composing a song for pretty, dead Josie?

1949. An unsigned letter arrives on the desk of Chief Inspector Derry of the Canterbury police. Enclosed is a jade pendant, identical to the one that went missing from the body of an actress murdered a decade previously. The case had been shut quickly at the time - the accused vagrant gave a written confession and was sentenced to the gallows - but the necklace was never recovered. Until now. Inspector Madden is asked to investigate the letter's worrying claims by his old friend....

World War Two has ended, but the peace is threatened when a shocking murder takes place in the Sussex countryside. Before long, police discover a link to another killing hundreds of miles away.... Scotland Yard detective Billy Styles is on the case, but a strange twist of fate brings former DI John Madden into the investigations. As the victim count rises, it becomes clear that to catch this serial killer they must act quickly.

Dr James Earle and his wife live in comfortable seclusion near the Hog's Back, a ridge in the North Downs in the beautiful Surrey countryside. When Dr Earle disappears from his cottage, Inspector French is called in to investigate. At first he suspects a simple domestic intrigue - and begins to uncover a web of romantic entanglements beneath the couple's peaceful rural life. The case soon takes a more complex turn.