Showing results by publisher "Quercus" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

June 8, 1954. Alan Turing, the visionary mathematician, is found dead at his home in sleepy Wilmslow, dispatched by a poisoned apple. Taking the case, Detective Constable Corell quickly learns Turing is a convicted homosexual. Confident it’s a suicide, he’s nonetheless confounded by official secrecy over Turing’s war record. What’s more, Turing’s sexuality appears to be causing alarm among the intelligence services - could he have been blackmailed by Soviet spies?

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....

Six Four. The nightmare no parent could endure. The case no detective could solve. The twist no listener could predict. For five days in January 1989, the parents of a seven-year-old Tokyo schoolgirl sat and listened to the demands of their daughter's kidnapper. They would never learn his identity. They would never see their daughter again. For the 14 years that followed, the Japanese public listened to the police's apologies. They would never forget the botched investigation that became known as Six Four.

It was a victimless crime.... Estate Agent Clara is struggling to make a sale. With her abusive ex-husband on the brink of finding where she's hiding, she needs to make a commission soon or lose her chance to escape. Boleskine House on the shores of Loch Ness has remained unsold for years, and Clara is sure that an 'innocent' fire will force the price down. But the perfect crime soon turns into the perfect nightmare: there was a witness, a stranger in the village, and he's not going to let Clara get away with it that easily....

The Lion of Mistra is the third in this epic historical series, shaped by the quest for a powerful relic which could save the endangered Byzantine Empire. It's a different world. Bayezid, leader of the Ottomans, is dead; his heirs, Suleyman and Mehmed, are at war with each other; and the dread Tamerlane, who was on the brink of invading China, is also dead. Luke is now pushed into the role of protector of Mistra.

When Leah was editor of her local paper, two teenage girls went missing. One, Hope, was middle-class and White, from a perfect nuclear family. The other, Tilly, was a Black girl from a council estate - and a habitual runaway. Leah made the decision to put Hope on the front page, and she was found the next day. Tilly got a small mention on page 18 and was never seen again. Sixteen years on Leah still blames herself for the consequences of her decision. And now strange things are happening to her.

Winner of the CWA International Dagger. In kidnapping cases, the first few hours are crucial. After that, the chances of being found alive go from slim to nearly none. Alex Prevost – beautiful, resourceful, tough – may be no ordinary victim, but her time is running out. Commandant Camille Verhoeven and his detectives have nothing to go on: no suspect, no lead, rapidly diminishing hope. All they know is that a girl was snatched off the streets of Paris and bundled into a white van. The enigma that is the fate of Alex will keep Verhoeven guessing until the bitter, bitter end.

A woman's body is found on a frozen lake, bearing the marks of grisly torture. Inspector Anna-Maria Mella knows she needs help with the case - the woman was a key player in a mining company whose tentacles reach across the globe. Lawyer Rebecka Martinsson is desperate to get back to work, to feel alive again after a case that almost destroyed her both physically and emotionally.

The future is looking bright for Billie Carlson. With her child safely home and a new relationship on the horizon, she hasn't felt so settled in years. But when Billie takes on a new client, Elizabeth Fletcher, it's clear trouble is imminent. Elizabeth has killed a man in self-defence. She met him in a bar but he'd turned aggressive, attacking Elizabeth in the middle of the night when she caught him going through her husband's desk drawers. Refusing to go to the police for fear her husband will find out, Elizabeth wants Billie to work out who he was - and what secrets he was looking for.

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.

Revered artist Kim Lord is about to unveil her most shocking show yet: Still Lives, a series of self-portraits in which she impersonates the female victims of America's most famous homicides, from Nicole Brown Simpson to the Black Dahlia. As celebrities and rich patrons pour into LA's Rocque Museum for the opening night, the attendees wait eagerly for Kim's arrival. All except Maggie Richter, museum editor and ex-girlfriend of Greg Shaw Ferguson, Kim's new boyfriend. But Kim never shows up to her party, and the crowd's impatience slowly turns to unease.

A perfect family or a perfect lie? When Jo's teenage daughter goes missing, she feels like the world is collapsing around her. Has Grace been taken, or have recent tensions between mother and daughter driven her away? With little urgency from the police, who have dismissed Grace as a teenage runaway who will soon return home, Jo takes matters into her own hands. But as she gets closer to discovering what has happened to Grace, it looks like the Jo's deepest, darkest secret is about to be uncovered, and it could destroy everything she holds dear.

In the first thaw of spring the body of a young woman surfaces in the River Torne in the far north of Sweden. Rebecka Martinsson is working as a prosecutor in nearby Kiruna, her sleep troubled by visions of a shadowy, accusing figure. Could the body belong to the girl in her dream? Joining forces with Police Inspector Anna-Maria Mella, Martinsson will need all her courage to face a killer who will kill again to keep the past buried under half a century of silent ice and snow.

Hong Kong, August 2017. On the eve of a crisis summit for world economic leaders, two Chinese Methodist ministers are killed in an apparently motiveless execution in Hong Kong’s financial district. Luck makes Detective Alex Soong one of the first officers at the scene. Yet Soong begins to suspect his involvement to be more than incidental, and the crime itself more than a senseless assassination: an instinct that is proven correct when Soong is contacted by a mysterious figure, and more massacres follow.

Anna Bella Nor is just two weeks away from revealing her controversial research on the evolutionary origin of birds when her supervisor Lars Helland is found dead with his tongue and a copy of her thesis in his lap. As the police investigate the most brutal and calculated case they've ever known, Anna remains convinced someone is trying to stop her research coming to light. She must fight to prove her innocence and fight for her life.

Bernt Lund harbours a sickness. He is a monster: in the mind of society, in the mind of his nine-year-old victims' parents, and in the mind of his fellow inmates. Lennart Oscarsson has a situation. The worst scenario imaginable for the head of Aspsås prison's department for sexual crimes. These two men's actions are about to hand DCI Ewert Grens the most profoundly sickening and impossibly sensitive case of his career, and in Stockholm's history.

Now - Living in her home in the remote countryside - the perfect place to get away from it all - Helena is a career woman with no job and a mother without a baby. She blames Ashley for destroying her life. But is what happened really Ashley's fault? Then - When Helena hires Ashley to work for her, she's startled but impressed by her fierce ambition. They form a dream team, and Helena is proud - maybe this is the protégée she's always wanted to have? But soon Helena realises that nothing will stand in the way of Ashley's drive to get to the top.

Former investment banker Johan Golding - Joe to his friends - is the newest member of the Hartley and Edwards Investigations team. And he's thrilled to be shadowing Kitt Hartley, librarian-turned-top sleuth, and her right-hand woman Grace Edwards; even if it means adjusting to the low-level madness that seems to reign in the Hartley and Edwards offices. But Joe finds himself thrown in at the deep end when a man known as Ralph Holmes goes missing on the outskirts of Carlisle.

Dear Elizabeth, I've been watching you. I hope to see you...soon. Liz Cafferky is on the up. Rescued from her dark past by the owner of a drop-in centre for older men, Liz soon finds herself as the charity's face - and the unwilling darling of the Dublin media. Amidst her claustrophobic fame, Liz barely notices a letter from a new fan. But then one of the centre's clients is brutally murdered, and Elizabeth receives another, more sinister note. Running from her own ghosts, Liz is too scared to go to the police.

At the end of a deadly bear hunt across the wilderness of Northern Sweden, the successful hunters are shaken by a grisly discovery. Across in Kurravaara, a woman is murdered with frenzied brutality: crude abuse scrawled above her bloodied bed, her young grandson nowhere to be found. Only Rebecka Martinsson sees a connection.