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

A bumper collection of delightful stories featuring Bruno, chief of police and France's favourite cop, all set in the beautiful Dordogne valley and the ravishing Perigord region of the south west. Here is a landscape of meandering rivers with medieval castles overlooking their banks, of lush hillsides and spreading vineyards, of delicious local wines and world renowned cuisine.

Ex-Berlin cop and private detective Bernie Gunther has seen his share of bad guys. But when the worst guys of all are the ones running the show, it's much harder to stay out of their reach. Hired by a wealthy industrialist to investigate the murder of his daughter and her husband in an apparent botched robbery, Bernie soon finds himself drawn into the complex - not to mention lethal - internal politics and corruption of the Nazi party.

The Night Hawks, a group of metal detectorists, are searching for buried treasure when they find a body on the beach in North Norfolk. At first Nelson thinks that the dead man might be an asylum seeker but he turns out to be a local boy, Jem Taylor, recently released from prison. Ruth is more interested in the treasure, a hoard of Bronze Age weapons. Nelson at first thinks that Taylor's death is accidental drowning, but a second death suggests murder.

St Denis may be picturesque and sleepy, but it has more than its fair share of murder and mystery, as Bruno knows all too well. When Bruno is invited to the 90th birthday of a powerful local patriarch - a war hero with high-level political connections in France, Russia and Israel - he encounters a family with more secrets than even he had imagined.

On a wet Monday in January, Jess Mount receives the devastating news that she hasn't got long left to live. She doesn't hear it from a doctor, though. She discovers it when her Facebook timeline skips forward 18 months and family and friends start posting tributes to her - following her death.

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 victim carries no identification and her fingerprints are not known to the French Police or Interpol.The only clue to the woman's identity is that her dentistry looks American, but Bruno's inquiries at local hotels and gites yield no trace of a missing foreign woman. The chateau of Commarque, begun in the 11th century, was founded by a Bishop of Sarlat and entrusted to the Knights Templar. In the rocks beneath it are caves.

When Nina's father dies, she inherits a gleaming dream vacation home in a balmy tropical paradise - one she had no idea existed. The house is extraordinary: state-of-the-art, all glass and marble. How did her sensible father ever have enough money for this? And why not tell her about it? Desperate to uncover why he hid such a big secret, she decides to visit.

1957, Munich. Bernie Gunther's latest move in a long string of varied careers sees him working for an insurance company. It makes a kind of sense: both cops and insurance companies have a vested interest in figuring out when people are lying to them, and Bernie has a lifetime of experience to call on. Sent to Athens to investigate a claim from a fellow German for a ship that has sunk, Bernie takes an instant dislike to the claimant. When he discovers the ship in question once belonged to a Greek Jew deported to Auschwitz, he is convinced the sinking was no accident.

Written by a retired British soldier, Trouble at Zero Hour is a breathless and vivid story, dramatising three of the key Allied operations that turned the tide of the Second World War. 6 June, 1944, somewhere over the Normandy coastline: Robbie Stokes sits in a glider, his Bren resting on the floor between his outstretched legs. The nose lowers and the glider descends rapidly: 10 minutes of stomach-churning twists and turns until suddenly the call goes up to 'brace'. The belly makes contact with the ground and the first Allied troops tumble out into occupied Europe.

On her 60th birthday, a woman commits suicide. When the case lands on Detective Carl Mørck's desk, he can't imagine what this has to do with Department Q, Copenhagen's cold cases division. It's a tragedy to be sure, but the cause of death seems to be clear. But his superior, Marcus Jacobsen, is convinced that this is not in fact a suicide, but a murder related to an unsolved case that has been plaguing him since 1988. At Marcus' behest, Carl and the Department Q gang—Rose, Assad, and Gordon—reluctantly begin to investigate.

DCI Nelson has been receiving threatening letters telling him to 'go to the stone circle and rescue the innocent who is buried there'. He is shaken, not only because children are very much on his mind, with Michelle's baby due to be born, but because although the letters are anonymous, they are somehow familiar. They read like the letters that first drew him into the case of The Crossing Places, and to Ruth. But the author of those letters is dead....

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.

A serial killer is loose in Yorkshire and has claimed three victims in three months. Eleven days before each murder, a large purple V is painted on the front door of the victim's house. The victims, all of whom have some association with the occult, are found drained of blood with two red marks on their neck. When Ruby Barnett comes home one evening to find a large purple V on her front door, it becomes clear she is the so-called Vampire Killer's next victim.

Bruno Courreges is chief of police of the lovely town of St Denis in the Dordogne. His main wish is to keep the local people safe and his town free from crime. But crime has a way of finding its way to him. For 30 years, Bruno's boss, chief of detectives Jalipeau, known as J-J, has been obsessed with his first case. It was never solved and Bruno knows that this failure continues to haunt J-J. A young male body was found in the woods near St Denis and never identified. For all these years, J-J has kept the skull as a reminder. He calls him 'Oscar'.

Twelve-year-old Sophie and her mother, Amelia-Rose, move to London from Massachusetts where they meet the charismatic Matty Melgren, who quickly becomes an intrinsic part of their lives. But as the relationship between the two adults fractures, a serial killer begins targeting young women with a striking resemblance to Amelia-Rose. When Matty is eventually sent down for multiple murders, questions remain as to his guilt—questions that ultimately destroy both women.

The French Riviera, 1956. A world-weary Bernie Gunther is working under a false name as a hotel concierge. His attempts to keep his nose clean go horribly awry when a wartime acquaintance sucks him into a blackmail plot involving one of the most famous British writers of the 20th century and the Cambridge Spies. Bernie is missing his old detective life when his past walks through the door in the shape of Harold Hennig, a former captain in the Nazi security service - the man who, in 1945, was responsible for the deaths of thousands, among them a woman Bernie loved.

Brighton, 1963. Edgar Stephens has been promoted to Superintendent and is married to his former sergeant, Emma Holmes. Edgar's wartime partner in arms, magician Max Mephisto, is a movie star in Hollywood, while his daughter Ruby has her own TV show. The funeral of an old friend highlights just how much the gang's lives have changed in the last nine years. Edgar is struggling with fresh responsibilities and the new swinging Brighton of rioting mods and rockers; Emma is chafing against the restrictions of life as a housewife.

Elizabeth II's coronation is looming, but the murder of their wartime commander, Colonel Cartwright, spoils the happy mood for DI Edgar Stephens and magician Max Mephisto. A playbill featuring another deceased comrade is found in Colonel Cartwright's possession, and a playing card, the ace of hearts: the blood card. The wartime connection and the suggestion of magic are enough for him to put Stephens and Mephisto on the case.

Five German schoolgirls are missing. Four have been found dead. But unlike the undesirables who make up the majority of dead and missing people in Hitler's Berlin, these girls were blonde and blue-eyed - the Aryan flower of German maidenhood - and their gruesome deaths recall ritual killings.