Showing results by publisher "Quercus" in Thriller & Suspense

Life has changed for Private Investigator Billie Carlson. After years of chasing down every lead possible, she's finally found her son, Lucas, and brought him safely home to Glasgow. One afternoon, Billie gets a call from an unknown number. The man on the end of the phone refuses to tell her his name, but he explains that his brother, Omar, is being held in prison after stabbing two men outside a block of flats. He wants Billie to investigate what happened that night and find out any information that might help Omar. Reluctantly, Billie takes on the case.

The Iberian Peninsula, 1809. French troops led by one of Napoleon's best generals are amassing on the border. Wellington's outnumbered force and his unreliable Spanish allies need to pick off the smaller French units if they are to stand their ground. For that they need information: accurate intelligence on numbers, arms, and whereabouts. That's where Captain Keane and his company of reformed scouting officers are invaluable tools--despite being unpopular with the regular soldiers.

Maddie and Ian's love story began with a chance encounter at a party, while she was a travel writer visiting her best friend, Jo. Now, almost two decades later, they are married with a beautiful son, Charlie, and living the perfect suburban life in middle America.

For 150 years, above the Scottish cliffs, Caldonbrae Hall has sat as a beacon of excellence in the ancestral castle of Lord William Hope. A boarding school for girls, it promises a future where its pupils will emerge 'resilient and ready to serve society'. Rose Christie, a 26-year-old Classics teacher, is the first new hire for the school in more than a decade. At first, Rose feels overwhelmed in the face of this elite establishment, but soon after her arrival she begins to understand that she may have more to fear than her own ineptitude.

It is London 2012 and Stratford in the East End is at the centre of the world. But next to the Olympic Park are some of the poorest and most crime-ridden streets in the city. PI Lee Arnold and his assistant, Mumtaz Hakim, run a detective agency in a community fraught with conflict and tension. Approached by a frightened woman, they start to investigate her stalker. But soon their enquiries turn in a far more sinister direction.

London in 1919 was a city of ghosts and absences, haunted by the men who marched away but never came back from 'the war to end all wars.' Grace Armstrong believes that she has come to terms with her own loss, the death of her fiancé, the brilliant and dazzling best friend of her brother. He was declared Missing in Action during the Battle of the Somme, but he starts to reappear both in her waking life and dreams. Grace is appalled when a body, dragged from the Thames, is identified as Catherine Smith, who has lodged with Grace and her family before suddenly disappearing.

Billie Carlson left the police force under a cloud. Once a promising young officer, she now works as a private investigator, rooting out insurance scams and spying on cheating spouses. One morning a distraught young woman comes into her office saying that her baby has been stolen. Her story seems unbelievable, yet something about her makes Billie want to help - Billie knows what it's like to lose someone too. To get to the bottom of the case, Billie must rattle some dangerous cages and rely on old police friends for inside help.

PI Billie Carlson is in Cleveland following a lead on the whereabouts of her son, Lucas. But when the trail goes cold, she is forced to return to Glasgow and a life of waiting and praying that one day she might see him again. Back in the office and ready to throw herself into work, she picks up a call from Lars, an old friend from her teenage years in Sweden. He tells her some devastating news. His younger sister, Astrid, was found dead in the Highlands, frozen to death with traces of drugs and alcohol in her system.

Ex-soldier Lee Arnold and his Muslim assistant Mumtaz Hakim run a detective agency in London's ethnically diverse, crime-ridden East End. Mumtaz is approached by an Egyptian woman, Salwa, whose husband is in Belmarsh on terrorism charges. Salwa convinces Mumtaz of her husband's innocence and persuades her to go undercover to prove it. But Salwa is not what she seems. Trapped in an old tunnel that leads to the London docks, will Mumtaz escape with her life?

A money-laundering accountant disappears in Romania. The hitman hired to disappear him is found dead in a Glasgow flat. And the owner of the flat, the accountant's widow, claims she knows nothing about it. Crime reporter Rosie Gilmour isn't convinced by Helen Lewis's innocent facade - she is convinced Helen was the one who ordered the hit on her husband, and she's going to prove it.

Private investigator and ex-soldier Lee Arnold and police superintendent Paul Venus are by no means friends, but when Venus' son, Harry, is kidnapped and ransom demands arrive from an address in Arnold's patch in east London, the superintendent doesn't know who else to turn to. Arnold and his Muslim assistant, Mumtaz Hakim, soon find themselves chasing leads into several of the East End's uneasily coexisting communities.

Kerry Casey is still reeling from the bombshell that her lover, undercover cop Vinny Burns, has gone missing in Spain. She's pregnant with his baby and will do anything to find him. One night, driving along a country road, Kerry and her Uncle Danny are ambushed by gunmen. In the confusion that follows, shots are fired and two men are murdered. Kerry and Danny can only look on as the bodies are dragged from their assailant's car and placed in their own. The police arrive in minutes. With cocaine, dead bodies and guns in the car, it looks like an open-and-shut case.

Twenty years ago, Mari vanished while backpacking through Thailand with her boyfriend, Luke. He was accused of murder, but has always insisted he's innocent. Besides, her body was never found. Now, he's finally ready to talk. And filmmaker Cassidy Chambers wants to be the one to uncover what really happened, back then, in the dark of the jungle. But as she delves deeper into the past, Cassidy begins to fear what lies ahead, and the secrets buried along the way.

A sadistic killer with a grudge against Rosie Gilmour is on the loose in Glasgow. Thomas Boag escaped from his first court appearance facing charges on a brutal murder. He's suspected in the disappearances of two other people. Now he's out for revenge. Rosie tries to distract herself with a new story: refugees trafficked into Glasgow and used as modern-day slaves - or worse. But this investigation soon leads her into dangerous territory as it takes her up against some of Glasgow's nastiest characters, and all the while, somewhere out there, Boag is laying his trap....

1871. An age of discovery and progress. But for the Wainwright family, residents of the gloomy Teesbank Hall in County Durham, the secrets of the past continue to overshadow their lives. Harriet would not have taken the job of governess in such a remote place unless she wanted to hide from something or someone. Her charge is Eleanor, the daughter of the house, a fiercely bright 18-year-old, tortured by demons and feared by relations and staff alike.

Amid the desolate wilderness of the Great Plains of Nebraska, a region so isolated you could drive for hours without seeing another human being, sits Hatchery House. Having served as a church, an asylum and an orphanage, Hatchery is now a treatment facility for orphaned or abandoned children with psychiatric disorders. Haunted by patients past and present, only the most vulnerable find a home within its walls. Dr Lorelei 'Lore' Webber, a former FBI psychiatrist, has almost grown used to the unorthodox methods used at Hatchery House.

It's been 10 years since Pretty Boy left the big city - today he's back. No one knows why, but it's clear that revenge is on his mind: he is determined to make the person responsible for his exile from the London scene finally pay. But his plans seem derailed when he takes possession of a bracelet, unaware that its original owner has set a high price for its safe return. Suddenly, the hunter becomes the hunted and Pretty Boy will have to find out if it is indeed a 'good day to die'.

A breathtakingly tense thriller from the author of The Wrong Girl, about one woman's determination to defend what's hers - and how quickly a straightforward plan can spiral out of control. Perfect for fans of Katerina Diamond's The Secret and Fiona Barton's The Widow. Shortly after Christmas, a message arrives at Sophie's house, scrawled across her own round robin newsletter: 'He's going to leave you. Let's see how smug you are then, you stupid bitch.'

Physically and emotionally battered after the shocking events of Fight Back, Glasgow gang leader Kerry Casey must pick herself up and get straight back into the fray. When London gangsters William 'Wolfie' Wolfe and his tough-talking daughter Hannah approach her with millions of pounds worth of stolen diamonds and offer her an alliance in return for helping to sell them, she jumps at the chance to have someone on her side for a change. But there were more than diamonds in the loot Wolfie stole, and its former owners will stop at nothing to get it back.

Ruby Winter is surprised when her reclusive father invites a strange solider into their house. Intrigued, she tries to eavesdrop on their conversation, but is alarmed when she hears a fight break out. She dashes into the kitchen to save her dad, but he's not the one in trouble. The soldier has been stabbed and is bleeding out on the floor. Refusing her pleas to call an ambulance, her dad urges her to pack a bag—they have to run. As they try to escape her dad is shot and Ruby is chased by one of the soldier's comrades but is hidden by Lucas, a boy she has ignored up till now.