Detective Mystery Thriller

Mordecai Tremaine, former tobacconist and perennial lover of romance novels, has been invited to spend Christmas in the sleepy village of Sherbroome at the country retreat of one Benedict Grame. Arriving on Christmas Eve, he finds that the revelries are in full flow - but so too are tensions amongst the assortment of guests. Midnight strikes and the party-goers discover that it's not just presents nestling under the tree...there's a dead body, too. A dead body that bears a striking resemblance to Father Christmas.

When the body of a famous television academic is discovered in Greenwich Park, carefully positioned beside a megalithic stone fountain and missing a hand, DI Declan Walsh and the team of the Last Chance Saloon find themselves not only involved in a case that connects to the supernatural, but one that also involves seventeenth-century architects, ley lines, nuclear reactors, and a secret, black market organization that specializes in particular occult items; some that date all the way back to Aleister Crowley, Dr. John Dee himself, and connected to a missing treasure.

Dashiell Hammett is best known as both pioneer and master of American hard-boiled detective fiction, but these dozen and a half stories both affirm that reputation and present him in a different light. Along with the full-length treatments On the Make and The Kiss-Off, this collection includes never before and rarely published stories that explore failed romance, courage in the face of uncertainty, hypocrisy, and crass opportunism.

P. D. James meets E. L. James in Under a Silent Moon, this first novel in an exciting British crime series-a blend of literary suspense and captivating thriller that introduces formidable Detective Chief Inspector Louisa Smith - from suspense talent Elizabeth Haynes, author of the best-selling Into the Darkest Corner. In the crisp, early hours of an autumn morning, the police are called to investigate two deaths. The first is a suspected murder at a farm on the outskirts of a small village. A beautiful young woman has been found dead, her cottage drenched with blood.

A skeleton is found in a shallow grave in the churchyard. But this was not an official burial. The victim was murdered decades ago. At the same time, Detective Nikki Galena and her team are investigating the brutal slaying of local businesswoman Madeline Prospero. She was a member of an exclusive and secretive drinking club called The Briar Patch. But they've got no suspects and no one is telling them the truth. Meanwhile, the buried skeleton leads them on a trail to the village of Quintin Eaudyke. This is a troubled place. In the late 70s and 80s a reign of terror was unleashed.

In a Sussex town on the south coast of England, a widely disliked art teacher at a posh private girls' school disappears without explanation. None of her students miss her boring lessons, especially since her replacement is a devilishly hunky male teacher with a fancy car. But then her name shows up on a police missing persons list. What happened to Miss Gibbon, and why does no one seem to care?

Thomas Fool is an Information Man, an investigator tasked with cataloging and filing reports on the endless stream of violence and brutality that flows through Hell. His job holds no reward or satisfaction, because Hell has rules but no justice. Each new crime is stamped "Do Not Investigate" and dutifully filed away in the depths of the Bureaucracy. But when an important political delegation arrives and a human is found murdered in a horrific manner - extravagant even by Hell's standards - everything changes.

A mysterious stranger arrives in the small Herefordshire market town of Ledbury. He offers a solicitor, Anthony Midwinter, a generous sum to look after a package for him until spring, no questions asked. The stranger warns that it must remain sealed or else the very stability of England will come under threat. The Ledbury Lamplighters see out the year with a public ceremony extinguishing the town's lamps, a local tradition. A prominent local businessman is brutally murdered in full view of the revellers.

Who could have suspected that the exciting stag party for the groom would be the prelude to the murder of his close friend Charlie Hatton? And Charlie's death was only the first in a string of puzzling murders involving small-time gangsters, cheating husbands, and loose women. Now Chief Inspector Wexford and his assistant join forces with the groom to track down a killer....

Helen Carter has just landed her first case as a detective: a murder in an abandoned cinema. A mysterious clock-like symbol is drawn on the wall...in blood. Stranger still is what the killer left behind: the business card of an ex-cop. Since being promoted from WPC, Helen is having trouble making her mark in the male-dominated Edinburgh CID, working under Inspector Jack Craven. He’s not happy about having a woman on his team. Witnesses won’t talk to her; her colleagues don’t take her seriously.

A safari expedition in Zambia is the disguise Emily employs in order to locate a professional assassin among her fellow explorers. Along the way, she meets an extraordinary man named Cyrus.

Mary Russell is used to dark secrets - her own and those of her famous partner and husband, Sherlock Holmes. Trust is a thing slowly given, but over the course of a decade together, the two have forged an indissoluble bond. And what of the other person to whom Mary Russell has opened her heart: the couple's longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson?

A German citizen is murdered in Belfast Botanic Gardens. Investigating, DCI Gawn Girvin concludes it is a revenge killing. But she draws a blank from CCTV and forensics. The only clue is the top of a perfume bottle found at the scene. As frustration sets in, Girvin develops a hunch that by tracing the victim’s criminal connections, they’ve followed the wrong scent. A young female university student seen nearby may hold the only key to unlocking the case. And like a bloodhound, Girvin follows the new leads. But being ex-army, her cold demeanour is a magnet for risk takers.

New Orleans Detective Quinn Conners is haunted by her father’s whiskey-soaked, last words—that he solved the Hudson murder and kidnapping. It wasn’t the first time he’d made that drunken claim, and she didn’t believe him. Twenty-four hours later she found him dead by his own hand.

Grace Repton, a beautiful older woman, walks into the police station to tell Detective Matt Ballard she has information that could stop a murder. Her fiance, the infamous serial killer Jeremy Reader, has told her that he has a disciple who is going to kill using Reader's horrific methods. Reader murdered five women and was finally brought to justice by Detective Ballard. Reader is safely imprisoned in a high security prison, and claiming to be a reformed man who wants to help the police.

Nancy Warren presents a prequel to the Vampire Knitting Club series.

When a local man, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, goes missing, his parents have good reason to be concerned. Emily Willows is a friend of the family and says that she knows just the person to find him - and, as Summer Lane soon points out, the fact that this also fits in with Emily's plan to set up her very own detective agency is surely just a fortuitous coincidence.

Ten people gather together for an elegant London dinner party. By the end of the party, only nine are alive. Sometime after dinner, General Thaddeus Carlyon is brutally murdered in the hallway. Who had the strength - and motive - to murder the distinguished military hero? Nurse Latterly and Inspector Monk find the answers in a nightmarish legacy of evil.

Isobel McKenzie is an experienced and intuitive psychotherapist who is on sabbatical while recovering from illness. Reluctantly she goes to London to help out an old friend, solicitor Peter Wright, who is uneasy about the partisan nature of a proposed divorce settlement. He asks her to meet the couple, Thomas and Anne Banks, to assess the situation. Is Anne, a recovering alcoholic, possibly being coerced into signing an agreement which not only gives Thomas control of all their assets but also sole custody of their son? Isobel immediately senses that something is awry and, despite herself, ...

When the body of a boy is found in the filthy sewers of Bluegate Fields, Inspector Pitt is called to investigate. The boy was clearly upper class, so what was he doing in one of London's most dangerous slums? The boy's parents refuse to answer police queries. What are these proper, prosperous people hiding? With the help of his wife and helpmate, Charlotte, Inspector Pitt intends to find out.