Showing results by publisher "Hodder & Stoughton" in Crime Fiction

All Beth has to do is drive her son to his Under-14s away match, watch him play, and bring him home. Just because she knows that her former best friend lives near the football ground, that doesn't mean she has to drive past her house and try to catch a glimpse of her. Why would Beth do that, and risk dredging up painful memories? She hasn't seen Flora Braid for 12 years. But she can't resist. She parks outside Flora's house and watches from across the road as Flora and her children, Thomas and Emily, step out of the car. Except....

Alice knows her father is guilty of many things. He's guilty of abandoning her. He's guilty of being unfaithful to her mother. But is he guilty of murder? Now on Death Row, he has seven days to live. Some people want him released. Others will kill to keep him just where he is. Alice has only one chance to save him. But should she?

A grisly murder is committed at a health resort situated in a recently renovated farmhouse, which turns out to be notorious for being haunted. Attorney Thora Gudmundsdottir is called upon by the owner of the resort—the prime suspect in the case—to represent him. Her investigations uncover some very disturbing occurrences at the farm decades earlier—things that have never before seen the light of day....

It is deep winter. The darkness is unending. The private detective named Jaycob Eklund has vanished, and Charlie Parker is dispatched to track him down. Parker's employer, Edgar Ross, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has his own reasons for wanting Eklund found. Eklund is no ordinary investigator. He is obsessively tracking a series of homicides and disappearances, each linked to reports of hauntings.

For centuries the Koh-i-Noor diamond has set man against man and king against king. Now part of the British Crown Jewels, the priceless gem is a prize that many have killed to possess. So when the Crown Jewels go on display in Mumbai, security is everyone's principal concern. And yet, on the very day Inspector Chopra visits the exhibition, the diamond is stolen from under his nose. The heist is daring and seemingly impossible.

A young local student has apparently committed suicide. Her body is found in an abandoned car on a lonely country road. She didn't own a car. Didn't even drive. How did she get there? Where did she die? Who moved her, and why? Meanwhile a man in his 60s is found dead in a gully up on the wild moorland. He is wearing an expensive suit and carrying no identification. Post-mortem findings indicate he died from injuries sustained during the fall. But what was he doing up there? And why are there no signs of a car in the vicinity?

The first phone call shocks a family. The second tracks two missing couples. A third from beyond the grave? How are these events connected? And what is searching for its prey out on the ice. The Prey is a horror novel guaranteed to surprise and chill, for fans of Catriona Ward, CJ Tudor and Stephen King.

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.

1945. In the waning months of World War II, Japan hid vast quantities of gold and other stolen valuables in boobytrapped underground caches all across the Philippines. By 1947 some of that loot was recovered, not by treasure hunters, but by the United States government, which told no one about the find. Present day. Retired Justice Department operative, Cotton Malone, is in Switzerland doing a favor for a friend. But what was supposed to be a simple operation turns violen.

'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?

Fear kills - the fourth electrifying Kathryn Dance thriller by master of suspense and number-one best-selling author Jeffery Deaver. One mistake is all it takes. Busted back to rookie after losing her gun in an interrogation gone bad, California Bureau of Investigation agent Kathryn Dance finds herself making routine insurance checks after a roadhouse fire. But Dance is a highly trained expert in body language: Her most deadly weapon is her instinct, and they can't take that away from her.

Friendships forged in the heat of combat can be stronger than anything. So when SAS trooper Matt Standing is told that the former Navy SEAL who saved his life is in trouble, he doesn't hesitate to go to his aid - even if that means flying halfway around the world to Los Angeles. Navy SEAL-turned-bodyguard Bobby-Ray Barnes has been accused of killing the man he was supposed to be protecting. Three other bodyguards were also killed, and now Bobby-Ray is on the run. The dead client was a Russian oligarch with connections to the Kremlin.

It is spring, and the mummified body of a young Jewish woman is discovered buried in the Maine woods. It is clear that she gave birth shortly before her death. But there is no sign of a baby. Private detective Charlie Parker is engaged by the lawyer Moxie Castin to shadow the police investigation and find the infant, but Parker is not the only searcher. Someone else is following the trail left by the woman, someone with an interest in more than a missing child, someone prepared to leave bodies in his wake.

Roach, a bookseller and a loner, is content to spend her days hoarding true crime proofs, listening to murder podcasts, and sneering at the predictable tastes of her normie customers. That is, until Laura joins the bookshop. Everyone loves Laura, with her neat outfits, literary tote bags and beautiful poetry. But Laura has a dark side that only Roach can see, and when Roach uncovers her tragic past, curiosity blooms into obsession. As Roach's boundaries disintegrate, it becomes clear that she will do anything to infiltrate Laura's life—and at any cost.

With hideous murders in the streets of Rome, a lone female traveller arrives with an agenda of her own. But when her corpse is dragged out of the river bearing signs of foul play, Flavia Albia is drawn in, concerned about her fellow Briton's fate. Albia's quest to find the killer becomes deeply personal when she discovers a man at the centre of the plot is an old adversary of hers. Will she be obsessed by revenge? Can she let the past go, or will it consume her?

Oswald de Lacy was never meant to be the Lord of Somerhill Manor. Despatched to a monastery at the age of seven, sent back at seventeen when his father and two older brothers are killed by the Plague, Oswald has no experience of running an estate. He finds the years of pestilence and neglect have changed the old place dramatically, not to mention the attitude of the surviving peasants. Yet some things never change.

Behind the events you know are the killers you don't. When diplomacy fails, we're the ones who gear up. Officially we don't exist, but every government in the world uses our services. We've been saving the world, and your ass, for 100 years. Seventeen people have done this job before me. I am 18. The most feared assassin in the world. But to be the best you must beat the best. My next target is 17, just as one day 19 will hunt me down. It's a dog-eat-dog world and it gets lonely at the top. Nobody gets to stay for long. But while we're here, all that matters is that we win.

Full of shocks, intensity and suspense from first minute to last, Banquet of Consequences reveals Lynley and Havers under pressure. The suicide of William Goldacre is devastating to those left behind. But what was the cause of his tragedy, and how far might the consequences reach? Is there a link between the young man's leap from a Dorset cliff and a horrific poisoning in Cambridge? Following various career-threatening misdemeanours, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers is desperate to redeem herself.

It starts with a lie. The kind we've all told - to a former acquaintance we can't quite place but still, for some reason, feel the need to impress. The story of our life, embellished for the benefit of the happily married lawyer with the kids and the lovely home. And the next thing you know, you're having dinner at their house and accepting an invitation to join them on holiday - swept up in their perfect life, the kind you always dreamed of.... Which turns out to be less than perfect.

Casey Jordan is being driven across the country by a serial killer. Maybe. Behind the wheel is Josh Baxter, a stranger Casey met by the college ride-share board, who also has a good reason for leaving university in the middle of term. On the road, they share their stories, carefully avoiding the subject dominating the news - the Campus Killer, who's tied up and stabbed three students in the span of a year, has just struck again. Travelling the lengthy journey between university and their final destination, Casey begins to notice discrepancies in Josh's story.