Showing results by publisher "Hodder & Stoughton" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

As India celebrates the arrival of a momentous new decade, Inspector Persis Wadia stands vigil in the basement of Malabar House, home to the city's most unwanted unit of police officers. Six months after joining the force she remains India's first female police detective, mistrusted, sidelined and now consigned to the midnight shift. And so, when the phone rings to report the murder of prominent English diplomat Sir James Herriot, the country's most sensational case falls into her lap.

Booker shortlisted author Jill Paton Walsh returns with the second Imogen Quy mystery. Biography is usually a safe profession. Even rather sedate. But more than one biographer has found that writing about the late great mathematician Gideon Summerfield leads to a hasty retreat. Or something more deadly....

They have never seen a murder like it. A talented tattoo artist is using poison instead of ink. His victim is a young woman. And on her skin he's left a message: 'the second'. Drafted in to investigate, NYPD detective Lincoln Rhyme and his associate Amelia Sachs find the scene has been scrubbed of evidence. All except for one trace - a scrap of paper that connects this case with one they will never forget.

In suburban Georgetown, a killer's Reeboks whisper on the floor of a posh home. In a seedy D.C. porno house, a patron is swiftly garroted to death. The next day America learns that two of its Supreme Court justices have been assassinated. And in New Orleans, a young law student prepares a legal brief. To Darby Shaw it was no more than a legal shot in the dark, a brilliant guess. To the Washington establishment it's political dynamite.

Matt Mason is attempting to put the army behind him, building a life for himself training anti-poaching forces on a Kenyan game reserve. He's looking forward to meeting up with his eldest child, Jo, who has graduated naval college and taken a summer job working on a billionaire's yacht in the Red Sea. But then he receives a call informing him that Jo's boat is missing, likely abducted by Somali pirates. Mason must call in favours from old contacts as he follows Jo's trail.

Mina McCreery's sister Evelyn disappeared 19 years ago. Her life has been defined by the intense public interest in the case. Now an anxious and reclusive adult, she lives alone on her family's destocked sheep farm. When Lane, a private investigator, approaches her with an offer to reinvestigate the case, she rejects him. The attention has had nothing but negative consequences for her and her family, and never brought them closer to an answer.

'No sign of foul play,' says Dr Carr after the post-mortem on Agatha Dawson. The case is closed. But Lord Peter Wimsey is not satisfied... With no clues to work on, he begins his own investigation. No clues, that is, until the sudden, senseless murder of Agatha's maid. What is going on in the mysterious Mrs Forrest's Mayfair flat? And can Wimsey catch a desperate murderer before he himself becomes one of the victims?

The fourth book in Chris Ryan's Extreme series. The Chris Ryan Extreme books take you even further into the heart of the mission with more extreme action, more extreme language and more extreme pace. Like Call of Duty or Medal of Honour you'll feel part of the team. Chris Ryan Extreme: Silent Kill has previously been published as four separate shorter missions. Now in one book to keep you at the heart of the action. Northern Ireland, 1993. For high-flying MI5 officer Avery Chance the real war has only just begun.

Newlyweds Sam Statler and Annie Potter are ready to begin their lives together in a small town in upstate New York. Whilst Annie spends most of her time alone, Sam, her therapist husband, works long hours in his home office, tending to the egos of his mostly female clientele. Little does Sam know that through a vent in the ceiling, every word of his sessions can be heard from the room upstairs. The pharmacist's wife, contemplating a divorce. The well-known painter whose boyfriend doesn't satisfy her in bed. Who could resist eavesdropping?

Former SAS trooper turned undercover cop Dan 'Spider' Shepherd knows there are no easy solutions in the war against terrorism. But when a killer starts to target pardoned IRA terrorists, Shepherd has to put his life on the line to protect his former enemies. While he is undercover in Belfast, a grief-stricken Saudi whose two sons died under torture in the name of the War on Terror is planning to avenge their deaths. As the Muslim assassin closes in on his prey, Shepherd realises that the only way to save lives is to become a killer himself.

In the green depths of spring, morning breaks on a woman splayed in a bed of flowers - her eyes wide, her neck broken. Her death is a mystery; so is the woman herself. But as Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team peer into the dark corners of the victim's past, they expose a secret that rots at the very heart of their community - a secret that will implicate someone they've trusted for years. And as Gamache knows too well, in the flickering shadows of death, the truth may be just a trick of the light.

Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line - for his friends and for his job with MI5. So when one of his former apprentices is kidnapped in the badlands of Pakistan, Shepherd doesn't hesitate to join a rescue mission.But when the plan goes horribly wrong, Shepherd, ends up in the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists. His SAS training is of little help as his captors beat and torture him. Shepherd's MI5 controller, Charlotte Button, is determined to get her man out of harm's way, but to do that she's going to have to break all the rules.

Summer is in full swing in the picturesque Sussex countryside, and Maisie Cooper is bound for the annual Bitling Fair. Maisie expects to enjoy homemade cakes, a glass of cider and a spot of Morris dancing. But what she doesn't bargain for is the tensions running high between the villagers of East Bitling and the disagreements being stirred up by the high and mighty Lady Catherine, from the big house on the hill.

The best of the golden age crime writers, praised by all the top modern writers in the field including P. D. James and Ruth Rendell, Dorothy L. Sayers created the immortal Lord Peter Wimsey. This book of short stories is his ninth appearance and introduces another detective, Montague Egg. Poisoned port, pet cats in peril, purloined pearls...Lord Peter Wimsey solves the mysteries of the man who was blown into the fourth dimension and the murder in fancy dress.

When Amber Hewerdine consults a hypnotherapist as a desperate last resort, she doesn't expect that anything much will change. She doesn't expect it to help with her chronic insomnia. And she doesn't expect to hear herself, under hypnosis, saying words that mean nothing to her: 'Kind, cruel, kind of cruel'. These are words she has seen somewhere before, if only she could remember where….

Gaby Mortimer is the woman who has it all. But everything changes when she finds a body on the common near her home. Because the evidence keeps leading back to her. And the police seem sure she's guilty.... Under Your Skin is an unpredictable, exquisitely twisty story, which proves that there are only three rules in life that mean anything: Assume nothing. Believe no one. Check everything.

Emperor Domitian is hosting a banquet for the senators in honour of fallen soldiers, and it's an invitation Aelianus and Justinus Camillus dare not refuse. On arrival, they enter a black-painted room furnished with couches resembling those found in mausoleums, complete with a tombstone bearing each of the senators' names. As the evening progresses the brothers conclude that Domitian has finally turned against them for their uncle's part in a plot to oust his father and start to wonder if they'll ever see the light of day again....

In Amsterdam, three people are butchered in a canal house, their remains arranged around the crucified form of their patriarch, De Jaager: fixer, go-between and confidante of the assassin named Louis. The men responsible for the murders are Serbian war criminals. They believe they can escape retribution by retreating to their homeland.

Sean McNally has sworn his oath to the IRA. But then he'd turned his back on the violence and the hatred, and gone south to the Republic. Life was good, until they came for him to do one last job. But in its aftermath, McNally is captured and is facing a lifetime's imprisonment. Unless he dares think the unthinkable...and becomes a tout.

Helena is beautiful, successful and living in married bliss in Exeter. But she's hiding a secret that could tear her perfect life apart. When the notes begin to arrive, she realises someone else must know. But what might her husband and his overbearing family do if they find out the truth? Thea is reeling from her best friend Helena's death. But when she starts digging into the circumstances, she receives a threatening note warning her to stop. She knows her friend's death wasn't an accident. This was murder. And she is determined to get revenge.