Showing results for "The Mystery Guest" in Crime Fiction

Recently, there had been some strange goings on at Styles St Mary. Evelyn, constant companion to old Mrs Inglethorp, had stormed out of the house muttering something about "a lot of sharks". And with her, something indefinable had gone from the atmosphere. Her presence had spelt security; now the air seemed rife with suspicion and impending evil.

D.I. Duncan McAdam is dispatched home to the Misty Isle. A body has been found buried in a remote location on the Waternish peninsula. Well-preserved in the peat, Isla Matheson—missing for the better part of two decades—is revealed to a shocked island community. A teenage runaway is dead...and no one is talking.

We all have that friend - the one who doesn't quite belong. Dinah Marshall is that person and knows it. After someone drops out, she's invited to spend the weekend at a luxury holiday home with women she's known since university. However, the gulf between them has widened since then, and Dinah is conscious of being the only one with no money, career, partner or children. Feeling like an outsider, she takes to snooping around the house. She's fascinated by its owners - and when she discovers she can secretly stay an extra night, that fascination quickly spirals into obsession.

On an island off the windswept Irish coast, guests gather for the wedding of the year – the marriage of Jules Keegan and Will Slater. Old friends. Past grudges. Happy families.Hidden jealousies. Thirteen guests.One body. The wedding cake has barely been cut when one of the guests is found dead. And as a storm unleashes its fury on the island, everyone is trapped. All have a secret. All have a motive.One guest won’t leave this wedding alive....

The second novel in the Martini Club series, The Summer Guests is an exhilarating and gripping thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author.

The resort of their dreams. A destination to die for. Welcome to paradise! Or so the staff say when they greet the Hamiltons at the idyllic Asana Fushi resort in the Maldives. And it starts off that way: champagne picnics on powder-white sand, snorkelling in the serene blue sea and moonlit walks under the stars. But lies lurk beneath the luxury because each of the guests has a secret, and they're not the only ones.

When British twenty-somethings Ruth and Adam are offered the chance to spend the summer housesitting in New York, they can’t say no. Young, in love and on the cusp of professional success, they feel as if luck is finally on their side. So the moment that Eden turns up on the doorstep, drenched from a summer storm, it seems only right to share a bit of that good fortune. Beautiful and charismatic, Eden claims to be a friend of the homeowners, who told her she could stay whenever she was in New York. They know you’re not supposed to talk to strangers....

DC Alex McKenna is meant to be resting following her last case, so she lets her boyfriend to take her to the Isle of Skye for the weekend. But what's meant to be a getaway to see the aurora borealis soon turns into a nightmare when they discover that their hotel has double booked. In desperation, they check into the only hotel with rooms available nearby - The Loch House. But from the moment they step foot in the guest house Alex knows something is very wrong. And as snow starts to fall, and night closes in, she begins to wonder if they will ever leave here alive.

Laila and her husband, James, arrive for a week's holiday in the Maldives, much in need of a fresh start. While James spends his time exploring the island, Laila relaxes by the pool and finds herself drawn to the seemingly perfect family who arrived on the same flight as them. Emilia is on holiday with her husband and 12-year-old twin boys. She has no idea who Laila is or that she has been watching her family since they arrived. Emilia is enjoying her holiday far too much to worry about anyone else. But five days later Emilia's world is blown apart by a horrifying accident.

Four people walked into the dining room that night. One would never leave. Matthew: the perfect husband. Titus: the perfect son. Charlie: the perfect illusion. Rachel: the perfect stranger. Charlie didn’t want her at the book club. Matthew wouldn’t listen. And that’s how Charlie finds himself slumped beside his husband’s body, their son sitting silently at the dinner table, while Rachel calls 999, the bloody knife still gripped in her hand.

As the guests arrive at beautiful, remote Mitchell’s Inn, they’re all looking forward to a relaxing weekend deep in the forest, miles from anywhere. They watch their fellow guests with interest, from a polite distance. With a violent storm raging, the group finds itself completely cut off from the outside world. Nobody can get in - or out. And then the first body is found...and the horrifying truth comes to light. There’s a killer among them - and nowhere to run.

Five old university friends gather on the eve of their flatmate’s memorial at a beautiful riverside house. Host Caro is as perfect as always. Shy, awkward Lily’s now a bestselling author. Sports hero George loves suburban fatherhood. Bad-boy Travis only gets his highs from meditation. And gatecrasher Elle is still a troublemaker. Estranged for years, they’re finally ready to reminisce over dry martinis and delicious food. But there’s more than that on the menu. Because each guest is hiding a dark secret about their time at Oxford

Here for the first time are three never-before-published mysteries by Edmund Crispin, Ngaio Marsh and Leo Bruce. Together with a newly unearthed short story by Ethel Lina White that inspired Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, and a complete short novel by Christianna Brand, this diverse mix of tales by some of the world’s most popular classic crime writers contains something for everyone.

Since losing his knighthood, Crispin Guest has reinvented himself as an investigator for hire known as the Tracker. But his reputation will once again be put to the test with his latest case. Jacob of Provençal, a Jewish physician at the king's court, is missing a set of documents that he claims contain the power to bring forth a dangerous demon. Meanwhile, it seems a monster has already been unleashed on the city. Vulnerable street children are being abducted and murdered, their mutilated bodies the only clues left behind.

The envelope is unremarkable. There is no return address. It contains a single folded sheet of white paper. The envelope drops through the mail slot like any other piece of post. But for the nine complete strangers who receive it—each of them recognising just one name, their own, on the enclosed list—it will be the most life altering letter they ever receive. It could also be the last, as one by one, they start to meet their end.

An uninvited guest. A missing identity. A trail of deadly secrets. When a horrified bridesmaid finds the body of a young woman at a wedding reception, it makes the bride and groom’s choice of a Saints and Sinners theme all the more macabre. There are no means of identification and nobody knows the victim. The bride is convinced someone is trying to sabotage her big day. The groom is sure it’s a dreadful mistake. It’s up to brilliant psychologist Alex Delaware and LAPD Lieutenant Milo Sturgis to uncover the truth.

In late 14th-century London, disgraced former knight Crispin Guest spies a body hurtling from the uppermost reaches of London Bridge. Crispin’s attempted rescue fails, however, and the man - an armorer with a shop on the bridge - dies. While whispers in the street claim that it was a suicide, Crispin is unconvinced. He discovers that the armorer had promised Sir Thomas Saunfayl something that would make him unbeatable in battle.

Daniel Kent has to get away. He's lost his job, his fiancée, his self-respect. The accident’s the final straw; Dan needs to make a new life in the sun. As soon as he sees the house, complete with gîte, in the picture-postcard region of the Dordogne, France, he knows this is his opportunity; not only to run his own dream business but also to escape the past. But shortly after arriving in the beautiful bastide town of Monpazier, strange things begin to happen.

After an ill-considered action one night in London, disgraced knight Crispin Guest heeds the summons of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has specifically requested Guest’s presence. The archbishop has received letters threatening violence against the bones of saint and martyr Thomas à Beckett, the greatest treasure on display in the cathedral in Canterbury. Guest, who has been living by his wits since being stripped of his honor, his title, and his lands, has earned a reputation for solving seemingly impossible puzzles and finding lost objects.

Once a Knight of the Realm, Crispin Guest was stripped of his title and his lands and now must earn his living with his wits. In various corners of late fourteenth-century London, Guest has become known as the Tracker, a man who can solve any puzzle or find any missing object - for a price. Because of that reputation, Guest is sought out by Nicholas Flamel, a famed alchemist. Both Flamel's wife and his apprentice are missing, and he wants Guest to find them and bring them home.