Fiction > Crime and Thriller

A mountain pass, a derailed train, a locked carriage, an ancient hotel, old betrayals, murder and state secrets. 1222 metres above sea level, train 601 from Oslo to Bergen careens off iced rails as the worst snowstorm in Norwegian history gathers force around it. Marooned in the high mountains with night falling and the temperature plummeting, its 269 passengers are forced to abandon their snowbound train and decamp to a centuries-old mountain hotel. They ought to be safe from the storm here, but as dawn breaks one of them wil... read more

"Ancient blood feuds and modern conspiracies: Magnus Jonson, the Iceland-born American homicide detective seconded to Reykjavik, discovers that vengeance, in Iceland, is best served at arctic temperatures.

The year is 1740. George II is on the throne but England's remoter provinces remain largely a law unto themselves. In Lancashire a grim discovery has been made: a Squire's wife, Dolores Brockletower, lies in the woods above her home, Garlick Hall, her throat brutally slashed. Called to the scene, Coroner Titus Cragg finds the Brockletower household awash with rumour and suspicion. He enlists the help of his astute young friend, doctor Luke Fidelis, to throw light on the case. But this is a world in which forensic science is in its ... read more

In 1932, the RMS Aquitania embodies all that is gracious and refines, in a world gripped by crisis and doubt. Returning home on the luxury liner after months abroad, Rowland Sinclair and his companions dine with a suffragette, a Bishop and a retired World Prophet. The Church encounters less orthodox religion in the Aquitania’s chandeliered ballroom, where men of God rub shoulders with mystics in dinner suits. The elegant atmosphere on board is charged with tension but civility prevails... until people start to die. Then things ge... read more

Dedicated to helping the many wounded during the Great War, Bess Crawford receives a desperate request from a dying lieutenant while serving as a nurse aboard a hospital ship. "Tell my brother Jonathan that I lied," the young man says. "I did it for Mother's sake. But it has to be set right." Back home in England, Bess receives an unexpected response from the dead soldier's family, for neither Jonathan Graham, his mother, nor his younger brother admit to understanding what the message means. But the Grahams are harboring a grim se... read more

New Year's Eve, 1919. Called away from dinner at the home of friends, Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge finds a brass cartridge casing on the steps outside. While it looks identical to the countless others he'd seen during the war, this one has a mysterious engraving. Curious, he pockets it.

This work comprises three tales of intrigue and treachery, featuring the monastic sleuth. The story of Cadfael's entry into the monastery at Shrewsbury has been known hitherto only to a few readers; now the reader can discover the chain of events that led him into the Benedictine Order.

A missile tears a passenger plane from the skies over London. Everyone on board is killed, including thirty-seven special children. As terror turns to international chaos, can the government survive...?
Who would have killed them? And why? When Harry Jones starts searching for answers, he stumbles into the middle of a plot that stretches from Russia to the Islamic revolution in Egypt, from the shores of the Caspian Sea to an ancient church in rural Wiltshire. Yet every lead he pursues finds its way back to the secret corners ... read more

Washington, embroiled in the mid-term elections, did not want to hear about serial killings. But when the newspapers reported a fourth murder, when they gave the killer a name and details of his horrendous crimes, there were few people that could ignore it. Detective Robert Miller is assigned to the case, and rapidly uncover a complication. The victims do not officially exist. Their personal details do not register on any known systems. And as Miller unearths ever more disturbing facts, he starts to face truths so far-removed from ... read more

Can Monk uncover the truth behind a deadly opium conspiracy? 1864 and on the bank of the Thames, Monk is appalled at the shocking mutilation visited upon the body of a woman found on Limehouse Pier. But when enquiries into the brutal killing unearth a connection between the victim and Dr Lambourn, a brilliant, recently deceased scientist and staunch supporter for a new pharmaceutical bill aimed to regulate the sale of opium, it becomes clear that not all is as it seems. Lambourn's widow refuses to believe the official verdict that ... read more

Moscow, 1965. Former Secret Service agent Leo Demidov is forbidden to travel with his wife and daughters to New York as part of a 'Peace Tour', meant to foster better relations between the two Cold War enemies. Leo's natural paranoia reaches its peak: Why have his family been selected? What is being planned? When Leo's worst fears are realised and a tragic murder destroys everything he loves, he demands only one thing: that he is allowed to investigate and find the killer who has struck at the heart of his family. Crippled by grief... read more

Moving between the chill of Cambridge, Massachusetts and the sultry humidity of Knoxville, Tennessee, Winston Garano, a police investigator, is instructed to look into a twenty-year-old murder case. Although Win reckons there are many more pressing current cases which should have higher priority, he gets on with the task, unaware of the can of worms he will prise open. With her hallmark qualities of deft characterisation, perfect research and tense story-telling, Patricia Cornwell has created a novel which entertains, intrigues and satisfies.

The boy was born and raised on the Main Line. But he vanished on Philadelphia's mean streets - last seen in a down-town cheater's hotel. For sports agent Myron Bolitar, his client, superstar Linda Coldren, comes first, and that means unravelling the mystery of her son's kidnapping. But when Myron goes after the missing boy, he crashes through a crowd of low-lifes, blue bloods and liars on both sides of the social divide. And when family skeletons start coming out of the closet, Myron is about to find out how deadly life can get...

Detective Inspector Lynley is approached by business magnate Bernard Fairclough for a confidential review - not a formal investigation - of the circumstances of his nephew's demise. The coroner's verdict is accidental death. Recovering from the murder of his wife, Lynley has personal reasons for welcoming a spell away from London. He heads to the wild beauty of the Lake District, with Deborah and Simon St James to provide cover for his inquiries. Barbara Havers, back at base, makes her own unique contribution to the case, distrac... read more

'Not once had Terry ever been hauled in by old bill. He was sure the filth was aware of him, as he had his fingers stuck in many pies, but he was a background man and that's the way he liked it. He made sure that he kept well away from the dodgy motors, the thieves and the yards'. Terry - the lucky villain with a heart of gold - is riding for a fall. Michelle - the wife he hates and is plotting to leave - knows something is afoot, but not quite what. Billie Jo - their adored only daughter - loathes her parents quarrelling and her m... read more

The gritty new standalone crime novel from the No. 1 bestselling author of Shatter the Bones and Dark Blood. Detective Constable Ash Henderson has a dark secret! Five years ago his daughter, Rebecca, went missing on the eve of her thirteenth birthday. A year later the first card arrived: homemade, with a Polaroid picture stuck to the front - Rebecca, strapped to a chair, gagged and terrified. Every year another card: each one worse than the last. The tabloids call him The Birthday Boy. He's been snatching girls for twelve years, al... read more

At the heart of French gastronomy lies the famed black truffle of the Perigord. But France's truffles are being adulterated with cheaper ones from China, and it seems that Chinese organised crime is behind the fraud. In St Denis market, a Vietnamese family has been selling their dishes for years, until their stall is wrecked by attackers who look Chinese. Again it appears that organised crime is behind the outrage, firing the opening shots of a Viet-Chinese triad war. When vicious murder, illegal immigration and the importation of ... read more

The new Logan McRae thriller set in gritty Aberdeen, from the bestselling author of Cold Granite and Flesh House. Aberdeen's growing Polish community is under attack from a serial offender who leaves mutilated victims to be discovered on building sites -- eyes gouged out and the sockets burned. Detective Sergeant Logan McRae is assigned to the investigation, codenamed Operation Oedipus, but with the victims too scared to talk, it's going nowhere fast. When the next victim turns out to be not a newly arrived eastern european, but ... read more

Terry McCaleb was a top man at the FBI until a heart ailment forced his early retirement. Now he lives a quiet life, nursing his new heart and restoring the boat on which he lives in Los Angeles Harbor. Although he isn't looking for any excitement, when Graciela Rivers asks him to investigate her sister Gloria's death, her story hooks him immediately: the new heart beating in McCaleb's chest is Gloria's. As McCaleb investigates the evidence in the case, the suspected randomness of the crime gives way to an unsettling suspicion of a... read more

In April came the rains. In August came the heat. In November came the horror. It's paying a return visit. Lapped by the gentle waters of Locust Lake, the small resort town of Tranquility, Maine, seems like the perfect spot for Dr Claire Elliot to shelter her adolescent son, Noah, from the temptations of the big city and the lingering memory of his father's death. And she's hopeful that she can earn the trust of the town as she builds a new practice. But all her plans unravel with the onset of winter when a rash of teenage violenc... read more