Showing results by author "Kerry Wilkinson" in All Categories

I stare at the newspaper article about a baby snatched from the back of a car 30 years ago and wonder why someone would post it through my door. Looking closer, my blood freezes. The little girl in the photo has an unusual scar - just like mine. I’ve never met anyone with one like it. Is this stolen child...me? Trembling with shock, I know I have to confront my mother. My parents got me through a horrific accident, helped me find a job I love teaching art, and even with buying my own house. But was it all built on lies? 

Charley Willis was 13 years old when her parents were killed in their family home and she was found hiding in a cupboard upstairs. Fifteen years later, Charley is marrying Seth Chambers. It should be the happiest day of their lives, a chance for Charley to put her past behind her, but just hours after the ceremony, she is missing. No one saw her leave. No one knows where she is. One thing is for certain…Seth is about to discover he doesn’t really know the woman he just married. And his nightmare is only just beginning. 

When six-year-old Olivia Adams disappeared from her back garden, the small community of Stoneridge was thrown into turmoil. How could a child vanish in the middle of a cozy English village? Thirteen years on and Olivia is back. Her mother is convinced it's her but not everyone is sure. If this is the missing girl, then where has she been - and what happened to her on that sunny afternoon? If she's an imposter, then who would be bold enough to try to fool a child's own mother - and why?

On a beautiful island, under the Mediterranean sun, two families enjoy a well-deserved holiday. Then, one balmy evening, Emma's father is found unconscious on the sand. Everyone is hiding secrets. Who will you believe?

In the middle of the night, 14-year-old Samuel is woken by the sound of a terrified scream from the kitchen of his home on a quiet street. The police - finding him sobbing on the kitchen floor, cradling his mother's lifeless body - hit a dead end before the investigation has even begun: because although he witnessed the murder, Samuel is blind. But when Detective Jessica Daniel meets the boy, the way he uses just his sense of sound to accurately locate her hand to shake it convinces her that this clever young teenager could hold the key to the entire case. 

I return home to our beautiful house on a chilly winter evening expecting to find my handsome husband Richard waiting for me by the fire. We’re still so in love, and he always takes care of me. He usually comes straight back from work. But tonight, our antique clock ticks on through the dark evening, with no sign of him. Then a knock at the door shatters my perfect life. A 12-year-old-girl, Alice from the village, has been found unconscious in the field behind our house. They say she was last seen getting into Richard’s car.

A man who survived being drowned ends up in Manchester’s canal. Someone who was hit by a car is shoved in front of DC Archie Davey’s patrol vehicle. Killers generally aren’t a happy bunch, but this particular one seems to have a problem with second chances. Luckily for DI Jessica Daniel, things are looking up. She’s been assigned to work on the most crime-free estate in the city, and she’s back living with her best friend. Things could not be hunky-dorier. That is unless there’s a sinister reason why the estate is so free of trouble.... 

Lucy gets the same bus every day. She hopes to get a seat to herself, tries to avoid eye contact, and, if she’s really lucky, reads a chapter of her book. But it’s a Friday - and the bus is always crammed at the end of the week. Personal space doesn’t exist. She keeps her elbows close and clings to a pole at every juddering stop. When she gets off, something feels different. An envelope stuffed with thousands of pounds is in her bag. Is it the answer to her prayers, or the beginning of a nightmare? Because, in the end, everything has a price.

Seventeen years ago, Damian Walker abducted five women because the voices in his head told him to. Now he has been declared sane and is about to be released back onto Manchester's streets with a new identity. But within hours, there is another attack similar to his previous ones. Walker has proof it's not him - but is he reliable, and, if so, who is trying to frame him?

It started with a phone call. Just one word - ‘Jessica’ - and now Detective Inspector Jessica Daniel has a big problem. Her missing friend, Bex, called from a battered seaside payphone, and yet, by the time Jessica arrived, there was nobody there. One man claims he can help - but then he turns up on a beach stabbed to death. Jessica believes someone must be framing her. Someone who is always a step ahead. When she finds a boy whose tattoo matches Bex's, she becomes more desperate than ever for answers.

Long before Jessica Daniel became a police detective, Manchester was a ghost city after dark. Fear ruled, and people were afraid to be out by themselves, the notorious Stretford Slasher terrorizing its inhabitants. Now, twenty-five years on, the media are feeling nostalgic. But Jessica has a new case to worry about. Apparent strangers are being targeted in broad daylight, the attacker unworried about being caught. If only Jessica and her team could track him down...

Wheeling my suitcase down the familiar, hedge-lined street, I smile at the sound of children playing in the park nearby. Suddenly, there’s a screech of car brakes. I rush over to see a bent bike wheel sticking out of the ditch, and underneath, a little boy.... 

Rose Denton wakes up in her car. She has no memory of how she got there. But she knows something bad happened.... There’s blood on the windscreen and bonnet - but it’s not hers, and there’s no sign of anything or anyone she might have hit. The last thing she remembers is being in a hotel on a business trip, but now she’s miles away. Back home, her daughter’s boyfriend is missing. The last thing he did was argue with Rose over money. He left no note, no text, no clue as to his whereabouts. The police have questions - and so does Rose.

Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel has barely left her house in months, isolated from friends and colleagues. She may have given up on herself, but one man is sure she still has something to offer. DCI Jack Cole gives her a chance at redemption: an opportunity to help a neighbouring force by discovering what is going on with a reclusive community living in a stately home in the middle of nowhere. People are going missing, turning up dead with only vague links back to the house.

Paige, Richard and me. We thought we’d be friends forever. But everything changed the day we took the shortcut home from school along the old railway line. I wish we’d gone the long way. I wish we hadn’t seen our classmate, pale and still in the undergrowth. And I wish we hadn’t promised to keep one, awful detail a secret just between us.... 

Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel is first on the scene as a stolen car crashes on a misty, wet Manchester morning. The driver is dead, but the biggest shock awaits her when she discovers the body of a child wrapped in plastic in the boot of the car. As Jessica struggles to discover the identity of the driver, a thin trail leads her first to a set of clothes buried in the woods and then to a list of children's names abandoned in an allotment shed.

When Cameron and Eleanor Sexton arrive home to find their teenage babysitter missing, their immediate concern is for their young daughter. Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel is dispatched to find out what's going on, but with all apparently well, she thinks she's been sent on a fool's errand. Soon the teenager's body is discovered in an apparently random house on the other side of Manchester.

Those who play with fire are going to get burned.... Seven years ago Martin Chadwick set fire to a Manchester pub, not knowing a teenager was sleeping inside. Chadwick's release from prison is imminent, with journalists gearing up for a good old-fashioned media lynching. With the victim's father telling the papers he is out for revenge, DS Jessica Daniel is left to keep an eye on Chadwick and his fiery 18-year-old son.

I pinch the screen to zoom until I’m staring at the face of a ghost. A man with very short hair, staring directly at the camera with piercing brown eyes. He is as he was when I last saw him: wrinkles around the corners of the eyes and a knowing smirk. That’s the expression I see when I can’t sleep. My body tenses. It can’t be him. It’s not my ex-husband. It’s not David. I know that better than anyone because he didn’t walk out on me. He didn’t disappear two years ago and he’s not a missing person. I know that for a fact because I’m the one who killed him.

Anna Applegate’s daughter, Michelle, drowned after a night out with a friend. Anna’s convinced Michelle’s death was deliberate, and that her boyfriend, sports star Jack Marsh, killed her. As Investigator Andrew Hunter begins to dig into the case, he quickly discovers Jack has a history of violence. And, with only his teammate for an alibi, Andrew is convinced Jack’s lying about where he was the night Michelle died. But Andrew has more to worry about than just finding out the truth about Michelle’s death because a former case is back to haunt him.