Showing results by author "A Bateman" in All Categories

In the last days before signing the peace agreement, an IRA splinter cell mounts an operation on the British mainland using English criminals. This unprecedented move intrigues MI6, and they assume command of MI5’s surveillance operation. A career criminal is released from prison and aims to win back the wife and child his sentence has cost him, but before he can, he is forced back into his old world. The stakes have changed, and his family have become leverage for the most ruthless people imaginable.

Through world wars and civil strife, the Bangor Express has never missed an issue, but now it is losing money, and Rob Cullen has absolutely no idea that he's the man to save it. It's been a long time since Rob had a real story to get his teeth into...just as well then that he can rely on the Express crew to back him up. They're like a family. A dysfunctional, highly unpopular and poverty-stricken family.

Face is a book of fictional vignettes that examines the fear and vestigial evolutionary habits that have caused women and men to cultivate the imagined reality that older women’s faces are unattractive, undesirable, and something to be "fixed".

Walter has a rubbish job, so has Margaret. But when they meet through a dating agency, neither is who they seem. Margaret's married for a start, and Walter's encounter with her husband, Billy, leaves him black and blue. Billy's a dodgy accountant for politician and racketeer Pink Harrison, who is about to come unstuck.

Forced to do the bidding of a corrupt government minister, Marianne de Bonnard agrees to plant incriminating evidence in the offices of France’s most notorious spymaster. Under cover of night, the tightrope-walking thief puts her skills to good use—until her aerial stunt is foiled when her target appears in the window and, with consummate poise, helps Marianne off the wire and into his lair. The tremors that run through her body are not just from fear.

Claudia Simcoe has left the tech world of San Francisco to start a new, quiet life in the peaceful coastal town of San Elmo Bay. Now she owns a market specializing in artisanal, locally-made goods. But then Lori Roth, one of her market's vendors, is strangled to death with a wire. And all of a sudden San Elmo stops seeming so peaceful. Especially when suspicion for the murder falls upon Claudia.

A new game reserve in South Africa plays host to six people all connected to the mysterious owner. But why are they all here? And how will they survive the weekend?

The hilarious new Mystery Man crime caper from the master of menace and mirth. Beauty is in the eye of the be header. The wife of crime writer Augustine Wogan disappeared shortly after entering the exclusive clinic of the mysterious Dr Yes, plastic surgeon extraordinaire. As fatherhood approaches, the Small Bookseller with No Name is persuaded to investigate. He soon finds himself up to his neck in murder, make-up and madness - and face to face with the most gruesome serial killer since the last one.

A media billionaire’s daughter disappears following a massacre at a Belfast student party and nobody knows if she has been kidnapped or caught in the crossfire. A controversial new abortion clinic is firebombed, and a fire-and-brimstone church movement is blamed. Hired to both find the missing daughter, and prove the church’s guilt, Dan Starkey suddenly finds himself struggling to cope with two very different investigations...or could they possibly be connected?

For many years Dan Starkey has been a journalist of some repute - mainly ill. Now he is back with his wife Patricia, and while they try for a baby, he is aiming to keep himself out of trouble. Had he not been caught in a rather awkward position when he received a phone call from Big Davie Kincaird, he might not have decided to return to the village of Groomsport. And had he not drunk too much in order to cover the awkwardness, he might not have found himself agreeing to go on honeymoon...with Big Davie.

The Small Shop Keeper With No Name is back. Hired to find the vandals responsible for spraying graffiti on an insurance magnate's advertising hoarding, he soon finds himself battling to solve murders which echo in the corridors of power.

Ex-journalist Dan Starkey is stuck in a grimy Belfast bedsit. His life is a disaster, and his only solace is the pub round the corner. He really, really needs something to get his teeth into. Fellow ex-journalist Mark Corkery provides that something. Corkery, an Internet horseracing gossip, wants him to investigate Geordie McClean, the man behind Irish American Racing. Simple enough for a man with Dan's experience, surely? But Trouble is Dan's middle name. And trouble is what he finds.

Hired to find the missing son of retired political activist Moira Doherty, Dan Starkey knows his new case is going to be challenging. Billy 'the Bear' Doherty, a criminal with a nasty drug habit, isn't an easy man to find - his mum is convinced he's been murdered. But when Moira herself is killed, Dan finds himself in the middle of a deadly game of cat and mouse.

It had been a well-orchestrated defection when King put a Russian bio-weapons scientist on a British submarine under heavy gunfire. But he should have checked. Should have checked that the asset wasn’t contaminated. Tragically infected with the biological agent she was smuggling to the West, King has been burdened not only by her fate, but of the 118 men onboard the submarine when it disappeared.  

When the past finally catches up with intelligence agent Alex King, it shatters his world. His enemy has struck at the life he was building, the world he was preparing for when a mission would one day become his last. In doing so, they have not only exploited the man’s one weakness, but have unwittingly released a wrath that will not be satisfied until one of them is the last man standing. 

Fat Boy McMaster is a hopeless heavyweight boxer, who has somehow managed to become the champion of Ireland. His devious manager has set up a St Patrick's Day fight in New York against Mike Tyson, and he wants journalist Dan Starkey to write about it. Once in New York, however, McMaster's wife is kidnapped, the Champ is chased all over town by gunmen, and there's the Big Fight to consider too...

Their symbol is an iron fist. Each finger represented by a country with an agenda. Five countries forming a new axis of evil that plots against the West and democracy. An organisation that nobody knew existed until luck intervened. MI5 has a new director, and its special operations wing has been disbanded. King and the team are scattered around the globe. British intelligence has been compromised, data breached and AI interfaced cyber-warfare a reality.

For ex-SAS and current MI5 Officer Dave Lomu, Fiji was his childhood home. Leaving under a cloud and not looking back for 20 years means there is little left for him in paradise. But when his family call for help, he returns to a world of ruthless developers, police and government corruption, and the murder of a boy and the disappearance of the half-sister he never knew he had. Lomu has a particular set of skills and is determined to get answers.

Dan Starkey arrives on Wrathlin Island to investigate the residents' belief that the Messiah is alive, female, and about to start school there: It's not a commission that turns up everyday. He finds a mess of religious intolerance and illicit drinking in a tiny community that is big on religious fervour but small on hospitality. Apart from the Messiah's mum of course, who's clung to her sanity. And her lager.

King battles with his conscience and ruthless enemies as he deposes an African dictator and installs a new leader. But is he the best man for the job, and can King make a difference in a region known only for corruption and killing?