Showing results by narrator "Cathleen McCarron" in All Categories

When a 15-year-old girl fails to make it home after school, DI Heather Filson believes she’s dealing with just another teenage runaway. The girl’s grandfather, a notorious Glasgow gangster, disagrees. Convinced one of his underworld enemies has grabbed her, he’s prepared to bathe the city in blood in order to bring his princess home.

My nine-year-old daughter Hollie should be leaving school smiling and laughing with all the other children but she’s not here. I run frantically, checking everywhere, my voice growing louder, but I can’t see her bright blue eyes and heart-shaped face anywhere. Pure panic washes over me. This is my worst nightmare. Her teacher asks me if she should call the police. My heart stops. I shake my head and pretend I’ve made a mistake. I see a look of suspicion creep into the teacher’s eyes. But the police can’t know. No one can. My hands shake as I realise I’m completely on my own.

When a skeleton is discovered hidden at the top of a gothic Victorian building in Edinburgh, which is scheduled for renovation, Cold Case Squad detective Karen Pirie is given the task of identifying the decades-old bones. Her investigation leads her back to past conflicts, false identities and buried secrets...

When a body is discovered in the remote depths of the Highlands, DCI Karen Pirie finds herself in the right place at the right time. Unearthed with someone's long-buried inheritance, the victim seems to belong to the distant past - until new evidence suggests otherwise, and Karen is called in to unravel a case where nothing is as it seems. It's not long before an overheard conversation draws Karen into the heart of a different case, however - a shocking crime she thought she'd already prevented. As she inches closer to the twisted truths at the centre of these murders, it becomes clear that she's dealing with a version of justice terrifyingly different to her own....

When a much-loved Kilmarnock police constable is found beaten to death in his home, all signs point to a burglary gone wrong. But, when a second officer is slain while walking the beat, it becomes clear that something much more sinister is afoot. Somebody is murdering cops. Harassed by an infuriating new partner and a teenage true crime podcaster, DI Heather Filson must track down a brutal killer while tensions between the police and the public explode into violence.

When a teenage joyrider crashes a stolen car and ends up in a coma, a routine DNA test could be the key to unlocking the mystery of a 20-year-old murder inquiry. Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie is an expert at solving the unsolvable. With each cold case closed, justice is served. So, finding the answer should be straightforward, but it's as twisted as the DNA helix itself.

Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend. Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything. One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world that everyone else seems to take for granted – while searching for the courage to face the dark corners she’s avoided all her life.

Everyone's invited. Everyone's a suspect. And everyone's talking about it. In a remote hunting lodge, deep in the Scottish wilderness, old friends gather for New Year. The beautiful one. The golden couple. The volatile one. The new parents. The quiet one. The city boy. The outsider. The victim. Not an accident - a murder among friends.

On a cold December morning... Caro sets off to find the truth: has her relationship with her father been based on a lifetime of lies? Cammy can't wait to surprise the woman he loves with a proposal. All he needs is the perfect ring. Lila can no longer hide her secret. She has to tell her lover's wife about their affair. After thirty years, Bernadette knows it's time. She's ready to leave her controlling husband... and never look back.

1539. Anne of Cleves wins the dangerous prize of becoming Henry VIII’s fourth wife. From the start, Anne’s royal blood, education and fierce intelligence count for nothing as the king pursues young Katherine Howard. Katherine is a pawn in the political manoeuvres of her ambitious family; unprepared for the dangers that await, she steps into their trap. At her side is kinswoman Jane Boleyn, who has served - and betrayed - one queen already: her sister-in-law Anne, who died on Henry’s scaffold. Will Jane betray a second queen to the headsman?

Edinburgh, haunted by the ghosts of its many writers, is also the cold case beat of DCI Karen Pirie. So she shouldn't be surprised when an author's manuscript appears to be a blueprint for an actual crime. Karen can't ignore the plot's chilling similarities to the unsolved case of an Edinburgh University student who vanished from her own doorstep. The manuscript seems to be the key to unlocking what happened to Lara Hardie, but there's a problem: the author died before he finished it.

When the castle she works in is sacked by the army of Prince Edward of England, kitchen maid Agnes Fitzgerald manages to escape north of Inverness to throw herself at the mercy of the Lord and Lady at Ravenscraig Castle. Although safe for now, the people of Scotland are fighting hard for their independence, and the threat of the English hangs heavy over the land. But when Agnes spies Cam Buchanan swimming in the loch, her mind turns away from war and towards love. Agnes even dares to dream of a happy future, until she learns that Cam must go and fight alongside Robert de Brus.

Lauren and her father, Niall, live alone in the Highlands, in a small village surrounded by pine forest. When a woman stumbles out onto the road one Halloween night, Niall drives her back to their house in his pickup. In the morning, she’s gone. In a community where daughters rebel, men quietly rage, and drinking is a means of forgetting, mysteries like these are not out of the ordinary. The trapper found hanging with the dead animals for two weeks. Locked doors and stone circles. The disappearance of Lauren’s mother a decade ago.

On a freezing winter morning, fishermen pull a body from the sea. It is quickly discovered that the dead man was the prime suspect in a decade-old investigation, when a prominent civil servant disappeared without trace. DCI Karen Pirie was the last detective to review the file and is drawn into a sinister world of betrayal and dark secrets. But Karen is already grappling with another case, one with even more questions and fewer answers. A skeleton has been discovered in an abandoned camper van and all clues point to a killer who never faced justice - a killer who is still out there.

From the outside, Glenfarach looks like a quaint, sleepy village, nestled in the heart of Cairngorms National Park, but things aren't what they seem. The place is thick with security cameras, and there's a strict nine o'clock curfew, because Glenfarach is the last safe haven for people who've served their sentences but can't be safely released into the general population. For Detective Constable Edward Reekie, this was supposed to be a simple delivery job—drive his new boss up to HMP Grampian and collect Marky Bishop, take him to Glenfarach, then head back home again.

Elspeth, Meggy and Xavier are locked in a flat. They don’t know where they are, and they don’t know why they’re there. They only know that the shadow man has taken them, and he won’t let them go. Desperate to escape, the three of them must find a way out of their living hell, even if it means uncovering a very dark truth. Because the shadow man isn’t a nightmare. He’s all too real.

One December wedding. One runaway bride. One winter's day to bring everyone together again... Today is the day Caro and Cammy are due to walk up the aisle. But Caro's too caught up in the trauma of her past to contemplate their happy ever after. Stacey's decision to return from L.A. is fuelled by one thing – telling Cammy how she feels before it's too late. Wedding planner, Josie, needs to sort the whole mess out, but she's just been dealt some devastating news. Can she get through the day without spilling her secret?

It's been 17 months since the Bloodsmith butchered his first victim, and Operation Maypole is still no nearer catching him. The media is whipping up a storm, and the top brass are demanding results, but the investigation is sinking fast. Now isn't the time to get distracted with other cases, but Detective Sergeant Lucy McVeigh doesn't have much choice. When Benedict Strachan was just 11, he hunted down and killed a homeless man. No one's ever figured out why Benedict did it, but now, after 16 years, he's back on the streets again.

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.

Sweden, 1732. Strong-willed Jess van Sandt knows only too well that it's a man's world. She believes she's being swindled out of her inheritance by her stepfather and she's determined to stop it. When help appears in the unlikely form of handsome Scotsman Killian Kinross, Jess finds herself both intrigued and infuriated by him. In an attempt to recover her fortune, she proposes a marriage of convenience.