Showing results by author "Denise Mina" in All Categories

It’s just a normal morning for Anna McDonald. Gym kits, packed lunches, getting everyone up and ready. Until she opens the front door to her best friend, Estelle. Anna turns to see her own husband at the top of the stairs, suitcase in hand. They’re leaving together and they’re taking Anna’s two daughters with them. Left alone in the big, dark house, Anna can’t think, she can’t take it in. With her safe, predictable world shattered, she distracts herself with a story: a true-crime podcast.

Desire leaves a man destroyed.... A young girl's curiosity reveals secrets better left hidden.... An accidental encounter on a train ends violently.... Ambition leads to a curious exchange.... An uncanny likeness changes two lives forever.... Here is a novel in 16 chilling parts, linked by a glittering charm bracelet that brings misfortune to everyone who handles it. In Like a Charm, the cream of British and American crime writers combine for a must-have collection.

A year ago, a father and his fiancée were brutally stabbed in their opulent London townhouse, sparking the most high-profile murder investigation in recent history. Blood spatter expert Doctor Claudia O’Sheil’s evidence put the killer behind bars – or so everyone believes. Since the trial, Claudia’s learned a horrific truth: her evidence and her testimony were wrong. And someone she knows made sure of it.

It’s the case that could make DS Alex Morrow’s career. A suburban home invaded in the dead of night and a vulnerable old man taken hostage. It’s a black and white case and it shouldn’t be hard to solve… The two strangers who forced their way into the house demanded millions the family didn’t have and shouted for a man nobody had heard of. It had to be a mistake, and a bad one at that. But Alex Morrow can’t be depended on and the bosses know it.

A Glasgow post office. Martin Pavel cowers on the floor, his eyes locked on those of a terrified child. Above them a masked gunman wields an AK-47 while the boy’s grandfather calmly volunteers to help gather the money. Then the old man stands passively, hands by his sides, while the gunman raises the barrel and shoots him to shreds. Recently returned to work after the birth of her twins, DS Alex Morrow is called in to head the investigation.

When notorious millionaire banker Lars Anderson hangs himself from the old oak tree in front of his Kent mansion his death attracts no sympathy. But the legacy of a lifetime of self-serving is widespread, the carnage most acute amongst those he ought to be protecting: his family. Meanwhile, in a wealthy suburb of Glasgow, a young woman is found savagely murdered in her home. The genteel community is stunned by what appears a vicious, random attack.

Maureen O'Donnell is a psychiatric patient, stuck in an affair with Douglas, a shady therapist. She’s about to end it with him when she wakes up one morning to find him in her living room with his throat slit. Viewed by the police as both a suspect and a witness, even Maureen’s family suspects her. Panic-stricken, she retraces Douglas' last days, finding a trail of rape and deception at a psychiatric hospital where she’d been an inmate. The patients won't talk and staff are afraid. Then a second brutalised corpse is discovered and Maureen realises that her life is in danger.

Birds, Strangers and Psychos is a thrilling anthology that brings together the biggest names in mystery and crime fiction to pay homage to Alfred Hitchcock, the legendary filmmaker whose name is synonymous with suspense. Acclaimed editor Maxim Jakubowski curates 24 original short stories, each inspired by the mood, tension, and style that defined Hitchcock’s groundbreaking work.

Paddy Meehan is trawling the city for a story that will get her off the terrible night shift to which she's been consigned by her male colleagues. And then a woman, bleeding from a vicious head wound, offers her £50 to leave her alone. The very next morning the woman is found dead. Only Paddy cares enough about what's really happened to pursue a dark and brutal truth that could make her career, or kill her.

Paddy Meehan has just started work on the Scottish Daily News when a toddler is abducted. Two eleven-year-old boys are arrested for his murder and Paddy is shocked to discover that one of them is her fiance's cousin, Callum. When the boy's name is reported in the media, Paddy's family believe that she is to blame. Shunned by those closest to her, she finds herself dangerously alone.

31st August 1997. Rose Wilson is 14, but looks 16. Pimped out by her ‘boyfriend’, she has seen more of the darkness in life than someone twice her age. On the night of Princess Diana's death, Rose snaps and commits two terrible crimes. But a defence lawyer takes pity and sets out to do what he can to save her. Present day. DI Alex Morrow is a witness in the case of Michael Brown – a vicious, nasty arms dealer.

Salt water lifts blood. Only salt water. Loch Lomond is a mile deep, but the woman's body surfaced anyway. Found bludgeoned and dumped in the water, she now haunts Iain Fraser, the man who put her there. She trusted him, and now that misplaced trust is gnawing through Iain's chest. He thinks it will kill him. Nearby Helensburgh is an idyllic Victorian town. One-time home to a quarter of all the millionaires in Britain, it is quaint, sleepy and chocolate-box pretty.

The last time that Maureen O'Donnell saw Ann Harris she was nursing a couple of broken ribs and reeking of alcohol at the women's shelter. Now Ann has turned up dead hundreds of miles away, in London. Eager to escape some family difficulties of her own, Maureen travels to London to determine the circumstances of Ann's brutal death. In the seedy underworld of criminal exiles and dangerous drug lords, Maureen tries to piece together the horror of Ann's last days - and to save herself from a similarly ugly fate.

Anna and Finn investigate a young girl's disappearance which seems to be connected to an art heist years ago. Beginning in a tumble-down chateau in rural France and taking the listener on a thrilling chase across Europe, Confidence is another stellar novel from one of crime writing's most accomplished authors.

Maureen O'Donnell is facing the darkest episode in her life. She owes more than she makes in a year in back taxes; Angus Farrell, the psychologist who murdered her boyfriend, is up for trial; and her abusive father has arrived back in Glasgow. On top of it all, she has become embroiled in someone else's family feud. Ella McGee, an elderly stallholder at the fleamarket where Maureen is selling illegally imported cigarettes, is bringing a case against her son in the small claims court.

When Margo goes in search of her birth mother for the first time, she meets her aunt Nikki instead. Margo learns that her mother, Susan, was a sex worker murdered soon after Margo's adoption. To this day, Susan's killer has never been found. Nikki asks Margo for help. She has received threatening and haunting letters from the murderer for decades. She is determined to find him, but she can't do it alone.... A brilliant, thought-provoking and heart-wrenching new thriller about identity and the value of a life.

This second volume of a must-listen collection contains 15 bibliomysteries by best-selling and award-winning authors.

It's Saturday evening, 9th March 1566, and Mary, Queen of Scots, is six months pregnant. She's hosting a supper party. Outside, Edinburgh is bustling. It’s full of the great and the good and the idiot sons of the rich, here for a Parliament that will take Scotland by the shoulders and turn it from England to face Europe. Mary doesn't know that her palace is surrounded - that, right now, an army of men is creeping upstairs to her chamber. They're coming to murder David Rizzio, her friend and secretary, the handsome Italian man who is smiling across the table at her.

When Dr Susie Harriot is convicted of the brutal murder of Andrew Gow, a serial killer in her care, it looks certain that she will be given a life sentence, depriving her of her home, family and two-year-old daughter. Susie's husband, Lachlan, is convinced his wife is innocent, and is determined to find evidence to support an appeal. Every night he sits in Susie's study and goes through her papers – her case notes, her interviews with Gow, and the press cuttings from the trial.

Denise Mina is well known for her bestselling 'Tartan Noir' novels. She has twice won the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award, and her 'Paddy Meehan' series has been adapted for BBC TV. Before becoming a novelist, she studied law, and she has a particular interest in true crime. In these six episodes, she uncovers some of Scotland's most dramatic trials that continue to fascinate us years later. Also included is a bonus documentary, The Street Lawyer.