Showing results by narrator "Simon Mattacks" in All Categories

Phobia is a series of five DS Jason Smith cases he worked on before we met him in the first book, Smith. We get insights into what molded him into the detective sergeant we first get a glimpse of in Smith. Smith quickly realizes that police work isn't always cut and dry. Justice is not always black and white; there are many shades of gray in between.

Helmand, 2004: Afghanistan’s most lawless province, where nearly 90 per cent of the world’s opium is grown. Gangsters and warlords battle for supremacy in the lucrative trade, territories well-known, and fiercely contested. Well Diggers, an Anglo-Dutch NGO helping the farming community, comes under attack. One man is dead and another man is missing – suspected kidnapped, so head of security Ginger Jameson calls in his old friend Alasdair ‘Mac’ MacKenzie to help.

It looks like a regular advent calendar. Until DC Becky Greene starts opening doors...and discovers a crime scene behind almost every one. The police hope it's a prank. Because if it isn't, a murderer has just surfaced - someone who's been killing for 20 years. But why now? And why has he sent it to this police station? As the country relaxes into festive cheer, Greene and DS Eddie Carmine must race against time to catch the killer. Because there are four doors left, and four murders will fill them....

With Africa's last elephants dying under the poachers' guns, Kenya rancher and former SAS officer Ian MacAdam leads a commando squad against them. Pursuing the poachers through jungled mountains and searing deserts he battles thirst, solitude, terror and lethal animals, only to find that the poachers have kidnapped a young archaeologist, Rebecca Hecht, whom he once loved and bitterly lost.

1910. Halley's Comet is coming. Harry Houdini, the most celebrated escape artist in the world, has sold-out seasons in Australia. Houdini has a new obsession: aviation. He has brought with him from Europe his own Voisin biplane, being put together and prepared in a Diggers Rest paddock by his French mechanic Brassac. Houdini is intent on claiming a record: first to fly in Australia. But he has competition from aspiring aviators in several states, and is left restless and distracted when his promotional leap-in-chains from a Melbourne bridge disturbs a corpse in the Yarra.

Heidi is writing a script to explain the financial industry, based on how the men within it approach romance. Her clueless heroine is looking for a Wall Street husband, but who’s the best option? The trader? The investment banker? The venture capitalist? Scene by sizzling scene, Heidi considers their assets. What she wants for certain is a happy ending - but when she hits a dead end, it might take a real-life finance guy to show her what a long-term investment really looks like.

On the eve of Elaine Southey's 21st birthday, Ivan Sweet has been found dead in his flat in the basement of the Southeys' historic north London home. A slick charmer to some of the tenants and a loathsome young scoundrel to others, his death doesn't draw out many tears among the house's residents and neighbours. And yet the sordid truth starts to seep into the heart of their small community. A murderer is living among them, and who's to say when they might strike again?

Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Adam Lambrianu understands only too well the fearsome family legacy he's inherited. He only wants to make his family proud, but as a renowned playboy and bad boy he has a wild and reckless reputation. Scarlet Lambrianu knows her little brother needs to step up in running the family casino business and empire, but she also worries the old gangland ways don’t interest him anymore. Adam's sure he can make his own money and build his own legacy in his own unique way. Desperate to keep Adam in line, old family friend Julie Gold is called in to help.

The Birthday Boys tells the story of Scott's doomed expedition through the voices of five men on the voyage. As Scott, Petty Officer Taff Evans, ship's doctor Edward Wilson, Lieutenant Henry Bowers and Captain Lawrence Oates step forward for their place in the narrative, the reader is gripped by the characters themselves alongside the vividly evoked period.

Princess of Mycenae, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, sister of the sacrificed Iphigenia and the cursed Orestes. Electra is forced to flee her home after witnessing the shocking revenge-murder of her father, by her mother, on his return from the Trojan War. Life beyond the palace is frightening, and the scandalous behaviour of her foreign companions disturbs her, but she needs the help of the Trojan Cassandra, and her two lovers, to survive. Driven by her own desire for vengeance, Electra's life becomes one of adventure, peril, pleasure, tragedy and love.

The festive season is in full swing - parties, champagne and Christmas crackers abound. You're having a breather at the hotel bar when a stunning young woman catches your eye. Could she really be interested in you? She flutters her eyelashes and takes your hand. Her Christmas party dress glitters with sequins. What you don't know is that your life is now in her hands - as she leads you up to her room there's only one thing that will determine whether you live or die. Are you a good person? Are you really?

Out-of-work actor Harriet is recuperating from a crash-and-burn affair with Damian - aka ‘Cockweasel’ - and making ends meet as a barista when she meets two rather lovely men. Tom is a regular at the café, and seems like such a nice guy. Smooth-talking DJ Richard is older, but in great shape - a real silver fox. Deciding to take a chance on both of them, Harriet doesn’t realise at first that she is actually dating father and son.

When an Olympic medalist is the subject of an attempted assassination, former SAS trooper Jeff Bradley knows his past is once again casting a shadow over his new life. A note left by the assassin confirms his suspicions: Bradley made an enemy back in Kosovo, and the man is out for revenge. But Jeff knows the killer is not working alone: higher up the ranks sits Avni Leka, a terrorist warlord who will stop at nothing to achieve his bloody goal.

Historian Archie Laverick, scarred mentally and physically by the Great War, travels to Berlin to research a famed Prussian general. His quiet study is shattered when he crosses paths with Esme Carmichael, a spirited young American intent on making her name as a foreign correspondent. When a shooting at a Saxon castle leaves a young Jewish woman accused of murder, Archie and Esme are drawn into a perilous hunt for the truth.

Three years ago, after an undercover police operation went disastrously wrong, CID officer Joe Clayton lost his career and his family. Forced to adopt a new identity, he lives under the radar, taking whatever jobs he can find. Always looking over his shoulder, always hunted. Now living on the tiny south coast island of Terror's Reach, home to rival business tycoons Robert Felton and Valentin Nasenko, Joe works as a bodyguard to Nasenko's wife, Cassie, and her two children. But when a burning summer's day explodes into violence, and a murderous gang targets the ultra-exclusive community...

1957. A catastrophe occurs at the pharmaceutical lab in Coventry where 16-year-old Wilf is working for the summer. A catastrophe that needs to be covered up at all costs. 2017. Phiney is shocked by the death of her grandfather, Wilf, who has jumped from a railway bridge at a Coventry station. Journalist Mat Torrington is the only witness. Left in utter disbelief, with a swarm of unanswered questions, Phiney, Mat and Wilf's wife, Dora, begin their own enquiries into Wilf's death.

Being perceived as a threat or, worse, hunted as food makes an animal attack a unique ordeal. Suddenly you’re helpless, at its mercy. When an animal strikes it is lightning fast, determined and can’t be reasoned with. Often brutally violent, such an attack can leave horrific injuries, both physical and emotional that endure long after the encounter. In Bite Club, we meet brave people from around the world who have come face to face with sharks or other deadly predators and lived to tell the tale.

Josh is a sweet, well-meaning university student with a big heart. After he impulsively steals two research mice from a campus laboratory, he hides them in the basement of Harewood Hall, a venerable building in the retirement village where he works. The mice are happy, Josh is happy—until he discovers that his charges might be carrying a deadly disease. Enter a curious cat called Harley, a devilish dog called Bobby, the arrival of some mysterious packing boxes and a strange spike in the village's water bill.

Olivia and Julian are enjoying lazy days in their Spanish villa, a well-deserved break from their busy lives. Especially for Julian, who after a lifetime as a carer was thrust into the public eye following the tragic murder of his first wife. The languid heat and peace of the villa is broken only by clifftop walks, sun-drenched lunches and cooling swims. Until a chance encounter with Gabriel—an attractive man, many years their junior—changes everything. Soon their idyllic break turns into a dangerous, high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse. Will any of them get out alive?

Seth was a priest. He served for 10 years and 163 days. Then he decided to die. Beginning with his bungled suicide attempt, Faithless charts the incidents within Seth's ministry that led him to that point. From dealing with a cult leader to performing exorcisms in haunted houses, Seth has seen the unimaginable. He has escaped from the clutches of a man who showed signs of being possessed and helped rebuild families after unthinkable tragedy.