Showing results by author "Sharon Bolton" in All Categories

Just before dawn in the hills near the Scottish border, a man murders a young woman. At the same time, a hot-air balloon crashes out of the sky. There's just one survivor. She's seen the killer's face - but he's also seen hers. And he won't rest until he's eliminated the only witness to his crime. Alone, scared, trusting no one, she's running to where she feels safe - but it could be the most dangerous place of all....

The heart-hammering thriller from the queen of the London crime scene. A serial killer is being closely watched by one young boy. Barney knows the killer will strike again soon. The victim will be another boy, just like him. He will drain the body of blood, and leave it on a Thames beach. There will be no clues for detectives Dana Tulloch and Mark Joesbury to find. There will be no warning about who will be next.

Despite her fascination with Jack the Ripper, Detective Constable Lacey Flint has never worked a big case or seen a dead body up close. Until now…As she leaves a south London estate one night, she is horrified to find a woman has been viciously stabbed, right next to Lacey’s car. Thrown headlong into her first murder hunt, Lacey’s quiet life changes overnight. Then Lacey receives a familiar hand-delivered letter, written in red blood, and it is clear the police have a Ripper copycat on their hands.

Former detective Lacey Flint quit the force for a safer, quieter life. Or that’s what she thought. Now living alone on her houseboat, she is trying to get over the man she loves, undercover detective Mark Joesbury. But Mark is missing in action and impossible to forget. And danger won’t leave Lacey alone. When she finds a body floating in the river near her home, wrapped in burial cloths, she can’t resist asking questions. Who is this woman, and why was she hidden in the fast-flowing depths? And who has been delivering unwanted gifts to Lacey?

A golden summer, and six talented teenagers are looking forward to the brightest of futures—until a daredevil game goes horribly wrong, leaving three strangers dead. 18-year-old Megan takes the blame for the crime, leaving her friends to get on with their lives. In return, they each agree to a 'favour', payable on her release from prison. Twenty years later Megan is free. It is payback time. And her friends start disappearing, one by one . . .

When a Cambridge student dramatically attempts to take her own life, DI Mark Joesbury realizes that the university has developed an unhealthy record of young people committing suicide in extraordinary ways. Against huge personal misgivings, Joesbury sends young policewoman DC Lacey Flint to Cambridge, with a brief to work undercover, posing as a depression-prone, vulnerable student. Psychiatrist Evi Oliver is the only person in Cambridge who knows who Lacey really is - or so they both hope.

A year ago Felicity Lloyd fled England to South Georgia, one of the most remote islands in the world, escaping her past and the man she once loved. Can she keep running her whole life? Freddie Lloyd has served time for murder - and now he wants her back. Wherever she is, he won't stop until he finds her. Will he be able to track her to the ends of the earth?

DCI Mark Joesbury has been expecting this. Monitoring a complex network of dark web sites, Joesbury and his team have spotted a new terrorist threat from the extremist, women-hating, group known as 'incels' or 'involuntary celibates.' Joesbury's team are trying to infiltrate the ring of power at its core, but the dark web is built for anonymity, and the incel army is vast. Pressure builds when the team learn the snatched child was just the first in a series of violent attacks designed to terrorise women.

A new job. A new home. A new start. It's all Anna wants. But in a closed rural community, strange traditions and a suspicion of outsiders mean everything is not as it seems. Three teenage girls have vanished at the annual Gathering as they reach their sixteenth birthday. No one seems to be investigating. And a fourth girl begs Anna for help, fearing that she will be next to disappear. Everyone has secrets. Anna is watching everyone. But who is watching Anna?

On an unassuming evening, a stranger sits down at Olive Anderson's dinner table and pretends to be her wife. But as much as the fake wife has her secrets, Olive just might have more.

Moving to remote Shetland has been unsettling enough for consultant surgeon Tora Hamilton; even before the gruesome discovery she makes one rain-drenched afternoon...Deep in the peat soil of her field she is shocked to find the perfectly preserved body of a young woman, a gaping hole where her heart has been brutally removed and three rune marks etched into her skin.

Seven strangers receive a mysterious note informing them of their impending inheritance of billionaire Logan Quick's fortune. They each receive a token and soon embark on a doomed cruise where they will have to conquer their own demons, and each other, for a chance at the money. But someone on this boat has something to hide. Can the survivors work out the truth... or are they destined to drown?

How did it all begin? I suppose it would be the day I rescued a new-born baby from a poisonous snake, heard the news of my mother’s death and encountered my first ghost... Veterinary surgeon Clara Benning is young and intelligent, but practically a recluse. Disfigured by a childhood accident, she lives alone and shies away from human contact wherever possible.

Famous killers have fan clubs. Hamish Wolfe is no different. Locked up for the rest of his life for the abduction and murder of three young women, he gets countless adoring letters every day. He's handsome, charismatic and very persuasive. His admirers are convinced he's innocent and that he's the man of their dreams. Who would join such a club?

A dark moon is rising. A perfect black circle, barely visible in the night sky, the dark moon casts its void over the wind-scorched moor, over the soaring mass of a great limestone hill, and over the town that cowers in its shadow. The dark moon is the absence of moon before the slender silver crescent of the new moon appears again and people can breathe a little easier. The month is March, and the night is clear and cold, black as pitch.

Set in the same world as The Craftsman, senior policewoman, Florence Lovelady visits the man she put away for murder thirty years earlier. It is the last time she and Larry Glassbrook will meet. He is dying. He wants her to go back to Sabden, in the shadow of Pendle Hill where they met. Four child skeletons have been uncovered near a children's home and Larry, who knows a bit about rotting corpses, isn't buying the official line that these are ancient remains. 'You knew there was something wrong in that town, Florence,' he says. 'More than just me.'

NOW YOU SEE HER.... Gillian is haunted by the disappearance of her little girl two years ago. A devastating fire burned down their home, but she remains convinced her daughter survived. NOW YOU DON’T... Ten-year-old Tom lives by the town’s neglected churchyard. Is he the only one who sees the strange, solitary child playing there? And what is she trying to tell him?

Florence Lovelady's career was made when she convicted coffin-maker Larry Glassbrook of a series of child murders 30 years ago. Like something from our worst nightmares the victims were buried...alive. Larry confessed to the crimes; it was an open and shut case. But now he's dead, and events from the past start to repeat themselves. Did she get it wrong all those years ago? Or is there something much darker at play?

Admittedly, it wasn't murder. A moment's carelessness, a tragic accident - and two children are dead. Yours. Living in a small island community, you can't escape the woman who destroyed your life. Each chance encounter is an agonizing reminder of what you've lost - your family, your future, your sanity. How long before revenge becomes irresistible? With no reason to go on living, why shouldn't you turn your darkest thoughts into deeds?

Return to the worlds of The Craftsman and Lacey Flint in this first short-story collection from Sharon Bolton, International award-winning author of The Split. This collection is available exclusively in audio and features eight short stories, each with a new introduction written and read by the author.