Showing titles in Crime Thrillers

Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta is under suspicion and criminal investigation. And the nightmare perpetuated on Scarpetta's doorstep continues as she discovers that the so-called Werewolf murders may have extended to New York City and into the darkest corners of her past.

Alex Reeve - known as OPERATIVE 66 - is a former special-ops soldier and one of the UK's most lethal weapons. Previously a member of SC9, an elite covert unit with a remit to assassinate the country's enemies, Reeve was framed for treason and now lives a nomadic existence - as the merciless killers he once trained alongside hunt him down. For a chance of a normal life, Reeve must expose and dismantle the sinister SC9. So when a series of brutal killings in Germany have all the hallmarks of an SC9 tactic.

Young girls are disappearing around the country, and there is nothing to connect them to one another. Dr Tony Hill sets his team an exercise: they are given the details and asked to discover links between the cases. Only one officer comes up with a theory that is ridiculed...until one of their own is murdered. For Tony Hill the murder becomes a matter for personal revenge, and, joined by colleague Carol Jordan, he embarks on a game where hunter and hunted can all too easily be reversed.

Here are twenty meticulously plotted, intimate portraits of humanity at its best and worst, featuring assassins, CIA agents, gangsters, and more. A drug-dealing hit man unburdens his fears to a stranger. A rookie cop is assigned to the department’s file room. A ruthless killer only kills bad guys. A methodical bodyguard quits his job when he’s outsmarted. A military mission is planned to perfection. Each story is entirely distinct. And with their economical prose and unexpected twists, each could only have been written by the creator of Jack Reacher.

My name's Ernest Cunningham. I used to be a fan of reading Golden Age murder mysteries, until I found myself with a haphazard career getting stuck in the middle of real-life ones. I'd hoped, this Christmas, that any self-respecting murderer would kick their feet up and take it easy over the holidays. I was wrong.

When the body of a woman is found hanging from a tree in her front garden, rookie Detective Morgan Brookes is first on the scene. But Olivia Potter is past saving. And when her husband and daughters cannot be traced, Morgan knows there is more to this tragedy. And then she finds them. Lying huddled together in the dark basement, each of their faces covered with a small cotton cloth, their bodies cold to the touch. But as Morgan kneels beside the family, she realizes that one of the girls is still breathing.

Chicago surgeon Emily Hartford has never quite shaken off the dust of her hometown in Michigan. She may be a professional success and have a princely boyfriend in the Windy City, but she can’t seem to let go of being “the coroner’s daughter” from Freeport. Once again, she finds herself pulled back to her hometown when Jeremiah—the eleven-year-old son of her best friend, Jo—goes missing on the frigid shores of Lake Michigan.

It’s senior-year spring break, and Noelle Meyer and Evan Sinclair have been kidnapped. Neither knows why they were chosen, only that they share a tragic past: Evan’s father got away with killing Noelle’s mother, effectively ruining her family when the death was ruled an accident. Despite the connection that should have made them enemies, the teens instead unite to face their other common denominator—their abductors. Noelle and Evan survive one sadistic circumstance after another, eventually making a harrowing escape. But every happy ending comes at a price…

When the body of a young woman is found by the coast in Land’s End, Cornwall, Detective Lauren Pengelly and her deputy Matt Price are first on the scene. Sophie Bethany Yates was well-known around the docks – a pretty girl from up the coast, always dreaming of something more. As locals jostle the barricades for a better look, whispers go round that Sophie’s boyfriend Samuel was more than capable of murder.

Attorney Nate Shepherd’s newest client stands accused of a fatal hit and run. While Nate doesn’t believe that the CEO of Carrefour’s largest charity would ever smash into a person and flee the scene, a blood-streaked van says otherwise. A freewheeling prosecutor is certain that Nate’s client did it, and more, that the killing wasn’t an accident at all. With help from old friends and an intriguing new one, Nate uncovers incriminating acts, secret relationships, and a massive motive that has him scrambling for answers.

George Smiley is one of the most brilliantly realised characters in British fiction. Bespectacled, tubby, eternally middle-aged, and deceptively ordinary, he has a mind like a steel trap and is said to possess 'the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin'. Miss Ailsa Brimley is in a quandary. She's received a peculiar letter from Mrs Stella Rode, saying that she fears her husband – an assistant master at Carne School - is trying to kill her. Reluctant to go to the police, Miss Brimley calls upon her old wartime colleague, George Smiley.

Watching her friend dragged away in handcuffs, Josie couldn't believe for one second that Gretchen had killed that poor boy. Confession or not, someone else was involved. She would find out who... When the body of a young student is found on the driveway of a local Denton home, a photograph pinned to his collar, Detective Josie Quinn is first on the scene. The house belongs to Gretchen Palmer, a dedicated member of Josie’s team, missing for the last 24 hours. Working around the clock, Josie is stopped in her tracks when Gretchen hands herself in to the police.

Relentless phone calls interrupt the peace of a warm August morning in Three Pines. Though the tiny Québec village is impossible to find on any map, someone has managed to track down Armand Gamache, head of homicide at the Sûreté, as he sits with his wife in their back garden. Reine-Marie watches with increasing unease as her husband refuses to pick up, though he clearly knows who is on the other end. When he finally answers, his rage shatters the calm of their quiet Sunday morning.

A pair of hikers find a tarp-wrapped body in a clearing in the woods. When a search in the surrounding area yields two more, Sheriff Bree Taggert knows they’ve stumbled onto a serial killer’s dumping ground. With the help of investigator Matt Flynn, Bree works the case. They go to interview Jana, the best friend of one of the victims. But when they arrive at her apartment, it’s been ransacked and set on fire. And Jana is missing.

Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She's even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life - as she sees it - is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy. And then she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on, but it's enough. Now everything's changed.

'And in Edinburgh of all places. I mean, you never think of that sort of thing happening in Edinburgh, do you...?' 'That sort of thing' is the brutal abduction and murder of two young girls. And now a third is missing, presumably gone to the same sad end. Detective Sergeant John Rebus, smoking and drinking too much, his own young daughter spirited away south by his disenchanted wife, is one of many policemen hunting the killer.

From seat No.9, Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, ahead, across the gangway in seat No.8, a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp. What Poirot did not yet realize was that behind him, in seat No.2, sat the slumped, lifeless body of a woman.

It was supposed to be a routine road accident recovery, but the moment Detective Josie Quinn sees the passenger—pale and painfully thin, a sharp tool lodged in her stomach—it’s clear she was the victim of something far more sinister, and likely dead before the crash. Watching the driver taken away in an ambulance, questions spin through Josie’s mind. Where were these two women going? Was the driver trying to save a life, or hide a body? And—most heartbreaking of all—is there a child in danger, crying out for help with no reply?

Libby Hall never really wanted to be noticed. But after she saves the children in her care from a fire, she finds herself headline news. And horrified by the attention. It all reminds her of what happened nine years ago. The last time she saw her best friend alive. Which is why the house swap is such a godsend. Libby and her husband, Jamie, exchange their flat in Bath for a beautiful, secluded house in Cornwall. It's a chance to heal their marriage. But this stylish Cornish home isn't the getaway they'd hoped for.

When Elisabeth Quemener dies she leaves a small parcel with the instructions that it must only be opened by Astrid Oake. The trouble is, no one knows who Astrid Oake is… Elisabeth’s family turn to Touissants detective agency for help but, when Mila Shepherd and Carter Jackson try to track Astrid down, their frustration soon mounts. Their only clue is a photo of two young women holding the hands of a tiny child. The women are smiling but Mila is haunted by the sadness in their eyes. Is this Astrid and Elisabeth and if so, who is the child?