Showing results by publisher "Macmillan Digital Audio" in Crime Fiction

The goats of Vigàta once grazed on the trash-strewn site still known as the Pasture. Now local enterprise of a different sort flourishes: drug dealers and prostitutes of every flavour. But their discreet trade is upset when two employees of the Splendour Refuse Collection Company discover the body of engineer Silvio Luparello, one of the local movers and shakers, apparently deceased in flagrante at the Pasture. The coroner's verdict is death from natural causes - refreshingly unusual for Sicily.

When an elderly man is stabbed to death in an elevator and a crewman on an Italian fishing trawler is machine gunned by a Tunisian patrol boat off Sicily's coast, only Inspector Montalbano suspects a link between the two incidents. His investigation leads to the beautiful Karima, an impoverished housecleaner and sometime prostitute, whose young son steals other school children's midmorning snacks. But Karima disappears, and the young snack thief's life - as well as Montalbano's - is endangered.

The Terracotta Dog, the second audiobook in Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series, opens with a mysterious tête-à-tête with a mafioso, some inexplicably abandoned loot from a supermarket heist and some dying words that lead Inspector Montalbano to a secret grotto in a mountain cave where two young lovers, dead 50 years and still embracing, are watched over by a life-size terracotta dog.

Thirty nine steps rose from the busy road of Tuborgvej into Mindelunden, with its quiet graves and abiding bitter memories. Lennart Brix, head of the Copenhagen homicide team, felt he’d been walking those most of his life. Beneath the entrance arch, sheltering from the icy rain, he couldn’t help but recall that first visit almost fifty years before. A five-year-old boy, clutching the hand of his father, barely able to imagine what he was about see…

On what should be a quiet Sunday morning, Inspector Montalbano is called to a murder scene on the Sicilian coast. A man has discovered his father dead in his Vigàtan beach house: his body slumped on the dining room floor, his morning coffee spilt across the table, and a single gunshot wound at the base of his skull.

They took her children away, and she will fight to the end to get them back . . . In 1941, mixed race Ruby Darke is born into a family that seem to hate her, but why? While her two brothers dive into a life of gangland violence, Ruby has to work in their family store. As she blossoms into a beautiful young woman she crosses paths with aristocrat Cornelius Bray, a chance meeting that will change her life forever. When she finds herself pregnant, and then has twins, she is forced to give her children away.

Cold Hill House has been demolished to make way for a new housing estate. Luxury living at its best with high specification gadgets all thrown in - part exchange available for the right buyers. The first two families move in, and as soon as they do, the unearthly residents of Cold Hill begin to make themselves known. Nobody who moves into Cold Hill reaches their 40th birthday, and the old couple that have just arrived...let’s just say their days are numbered.

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?

Feeling his age as his birthday rolls round once again, Inspector Montalbano decides to cheer himself up by dealing with a young driver's road rage in his own unique way. But his joy is short-lived, as at police headquarters he receives an angry phone call from a supermarket boss; there's been a robbery at his store, and Montalbano's colleague is treating him as a suspect. On arrival at the scene, Montalbano quickly agrees with Inspector Augello that this was no ordinary break-in.

When a crazed elderly man and his sister begin firing bullets from their balcony down onto the Vigàta street below, Inspector Montalbano finds himself a reluctant television hero. A few days later, when a letter arrives containing a mysterious riddle, the Inspector becomes drawn into a perplexing treasure hunt set by an anonymous challenger. As the hunt intensifies, Montalbano is relieved to be offered the assistance of Arturo Pennisi, a young man eager to witness the detective's investigative skills firsthand.

The Perfect Murder is a suspenseful and gripping audiobook from Peter James, the best-selling author of the phenomenally successful Roy Grace series. Victor Smiley and his wife, Joan, have been married for nearly 20 years. Victor secretly loathes Joan more and more each day. Joan is bored by Victor, and his snoring drives her mad. Their marriage has reached a crisis point....

Things are not going well for Inspector Montalbano. His long-distance relationship with Livia is on the rocks, he feels himself getting even older and he's growing tired of the violence in his job. Then the dead body of a young woman is found in an illegal dump, with half her face missing. Her identity at first is unknown; a tattoo of a sphinx moth on her left shoulder links her with three other girls bearing the same mark, all recent Russian immigrants to Italy.

Bill ten Boom has walked out on everything he thought was important to him: his career, his wife, even his country. Invited to become a prosecutor at The Hague's International Criminal Court, it was a chance to start afresh. But when his first case is to examine the disappearance of 400 Roma refugees - an apparent war crime left unsolved for 10 years - it's clear this new life won't be an easy one....

The body of Joanna Franks was found at Duke's Cut on the Oxford Canal at about 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 22nd June 1859. At around 10.15 a.m. on a Saturday morning in 1989 the body of Chief Inspector Morse - though very much alive - was removed to Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital. Treatment for a perforated ulcer was later pronounced successful.

When Alan Banks receives a disturbing message from his brother, Roy, he abandons the peaceful Yorkshire Dales for the bright lights of London to seek him out. But Roy seems to have vanished into thin air. Meanwhile, DI Annie Cabbot is called to a quiet stretch of road just outside Eastvale, where a young woman has been found dead in her car. In the victim's pocket, scribbled on a slip of paper, police discover Banks' name and address.

Janek Mitter stumbles into his bathroom one morning after a night of heavy drinking, to find his beautiful young wife, Eva, floating dead in the bath. She has been brutally murdered. Yet even during his trial Mitter cannot summon a single memory of attacking Eva, nor a clue as to who could have killed her if he had not. Only once he has been convicted and locked away in an asylum for the criminally insane does he have a snatch of insight - but is it too late?

Be careful what you wish for.... John and Naomi are grieving the death of their four-year-old son from a rare genetic disorder. They desperately want another child, but they realize the odds of their next child contracting the same disease are high. Then they hear about geneticist Dr Leo Dettore. He has methods that can spare them the heartache of ever losing another child to any disease. At his clinic is where their nightmare begins.

The lazy, slow month of August at the height of the Sicilian summer is, Inspector Montalbano assures his girlfriend, Livia, as they prepare for a relaxing holiday in a villa he has found for them, far too hot for any murders to be committed. But when Livia's friends' young son goes missing, a chain of events is sparked which will certainly ruin the Chief Inspector's pleasant interlude. A secret apartment and a grisly find in an old trunk are just the beginning as Montalbano navigates his way though the case and copes with the sweltering heat.

Wednesday's Child is the sixth novel in Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks series, following on from Past Reason Hated. When two social workers, investigating reports of child abuse, appear at Brenda Scupham's door, her fear of authority leads her to comply meekly with their requests. Even when they say that they must take her seven-year old daughter, Gemma, away for tests.... It is only when they fail to return Gemma the following day that Brenda realises something has gone terribly wrong.

In Nothing But Trouble, a gripping crime thriller by best-selling crime author Kerry Wilkinson, DI Jessica Daniel has to protect the streets of Manchester from escaped prisoners - and those trying to hunt them down. Niall O'Brien is a veteran living on the edge of a run-down estate, refusing to sell his house to developers. He's the only remaining resident, alone and frightened by a series of break-ins. He's been threatening to shoot the next intruder, but he can't be serious....