Showing results by publisher "Hachette UK - Bookouture" in Crime Thrillers

The charity fair at Seagrave Hall is a key date in the Saxford St. Peter calendar. New resident Eve Mallow is particularly excited by this year’s special guest: the explorer Verity Nye, who's engaged to the heir to the Hall. Eve loves Verity’s determination and can’t wait to meet her. But when they talk, Verity hints that she has something troubling on her mind. So after the festive mood is tragically interrupted by Verity’s fall from a third-floor window, Eve can’t be sure that it’s an appalling accident. Especially when one small boy claims he saw someone behind her.

Noel never should have been released from prison. My job helping ex-prisoners turn over a new leaf usually warms my heart, but as soon as I lock eyes with Noel the skin along the nape of my neck prickles. He wasn’t locked up for a petty crime; it was manslaughter. And now he’s dating my sister. Brooke says she’s never met a man who makes her feel so cherished and protected. That a single brush of his hand makes her heart flutter. A knight in shining armor who will finally lay to rest the twisted secrets in her past.

Scotland, June 1925. Socialite Cressida Fawcett has been invited to cast her interior design eye over the Stirling family’s new seat, Ayrton Castle, up in the Scottish Highlands. Thrilled to be spending the summer at the historic estate, Cressida fills her suitcase with this season’s hunting jackets–and some tartan for her little pug Ruby, of course!

When a young couple are found murdered by a remote holiday cabin, Agent Tori Hunter races to the scene: and is devastated to recognize Ally Mannion, a close friend’s daughter, and her boyfriend Reed. Who would want to snatch away their innocent lives? The first thing Tori notices is a boat drifting out on the lake. Did someone witness the attack? But with the boat offering up no clues, interviewing Ally’s heartbroken family Tori soon realizes that Ally and Reed broke in to the cabin. Were they hiding something? Or did the young couple see something they shouldn’t?

The one place she never wanted to go back to. The one place she can’t escape. When she was just five years old, Lucy Murphy witnessed her mother’s brutal murder in their home on London’s notorious Griffin Estate. The case was never solved. Now a newly qualified police officer, Lucy has been given her first job: She’s going back to the Griffin Estate. She is there to protect the estate’s vulnerable residents, including Shannon and Kian Winters, two kids struggling to deal with their alcoholic mother.

The year 1934. Kitty Underhay steps out of the battered Rolls Royce and onto the graveled driveway of Thurscomb Castle in deepest Yorkshire. She’s honored to be a bridesmaid at her cousin Lucy’s wedding to the reluctant Lord Rupert Woodcomb, but as family and friends gather for welcome drinks, Kitty dodges intrusive questions about her own marital status by taking a stroll about the castle grounds. As she passes through the manicured gardens, a fatal shot rings out....

When gunshots ring out from an exclusive family home on the edge of Northern Pine Lake, Agent Tori Hunter races through the gathering snowstorm to discover that ten-year-old Teddy Marist has disappeared. His mother and her new boyfriend are dead in the family kitchen, breakfast still cooking on the stove. And racing to track down Teddy’s father, Tori finds he is missing too. Local police are certain this is a simple case of a jealous ex-husband turned violent over his recent divorce.

Cecilia has it all. The house on the beach. The cute figure. The beautiful baby. But she’s a long way from perfect. She’s let me into her gorgeous house as her nanny because now she’s on her own, she needs a little help with her baby daughter Peyton. She barely notices me. But I see everything. While Peyton naps, I rifle through her drawers and discover the dark secrets in her past, the threatening letter from her ex-husband. It's a shame that Cecilia doesn’t have my powers of observation. If she took some time, she might just recognise me. I’ve been following her for a while, after all.

She bites her nails as she steals a glance at the stranger in the pickup truck beside her. She trusted him when he offered her a ride, but now, as he turns onto a deserted road leading into a dark pine forest, she knows she’s made a huge mistake. Special agent Beth Katz races through the dense Montana woodland toward a small, isolated cabin. She’s investigating the disappearance of her partner Dax Styles’s sister who went missing as she walked home from school, and Beth finally has a solid lead.

Nurse Kate Palmer thought the pretty Cornish village of Tinworthy would be the perfect place for a peaceful retirement. She couldn’t have been more wrong! But even she is shocked when she attends a beautiful wedding at St. Pirin’s Church and the handsome groom drops dead in front of her very eyes.

When Cressida Fawcett is invited to stay at Penbeagle House on the Cornish coast for a fancy-dress ball, she is looking forward to sipping rum cocktails clad as a pirate, watching the red-sailed boats go by, and relaxing in the sea air with her good friend Dotty. But before they can raise their glasses to toast Cressida’s former flame Lord Canterbury’s engagement, he drops dead in front of the horrified guests.

Detective Kay Sharp vowed she’d never return to her childhood home. But now Kay’s back, and only she can solve the crime that has rocked the tight-knit community of Mount Chester to its core. A dead woman has been found by Silent Lake under the dew-covered fall leaves. Kay knows the missing-person investigation could turn into a murder case at any second. But as she hunts for the culprit, her own past closes in on her. Can she find the killer before it’s too late? And will the secret she thought she’d buried stay that way?

1945. Fen Churche follows her dreams and sails for New York. She books passage on a steam ship from France to America, excited to dance the night away in the glamorous ballroom and play games on deck. Nothing will stand in the way of her trip, not even when an eccentric heiress’s diamond tiara goes missing....

When she was just 12 years old, Mackenzie Price came home to find her father bleeding to death on the kitchen floor. She will never forget that night, nor what her mother asked her to do.... Twenty years later, Detective "Mack" Price is back in Lakemore, despite vowing never to return. Determined to atone for the sins of the past, she is unstoppable in her quest for justice.

When Detective Morgan Brookes is called to Lake Thirlmere one frosty night, she’s devastated to find the body of a young woman positioned in front of the glistening reservoir. She has ligature marks on her limbs, glue residue on her eyes, and her beautiful face is as cold as ice. Knowing only a dangerous serial killer would arrange a scene so carefully, Morgan is in a race against time to stop them before more innocent lives are lost.

When the remains of two bodies are found in an open grave along a desolate highway in Stillwater, Minnesota, Special Agent Nikki Hunt knows exactly who they are. The bright blue jacket lying on the frozen earth belongs to Kellan Rhodes, the missing boy she’s desperately been trying to find for the last two days. The other body is his mother Dana, who had been Nikki’s lead suspect.

Autumn, 1921. Lady Eleanor Swift is invited to her old school, St Mary’s, as a guest speaker. Her favorite teacher, Mrs. Wadsworth, has asked that Eleanor talk about her intrepid travels around the globe - travelling the Silk Road by bicycle, crossing the Himalayas and even befriending the Maharaja of India. But in the circumstances, perhaps it would have been a good idea to talk about her career as a daring detective. Because no sooner has Eleanor brushed up on her times tables than she is greeted by terrible news: Mrs. Wadsworth has been murdered.

Eve Mallow is delighted when she’s asked to cater Founders’ Day at Southwood School. It’s the best–and most secretive–school for miles around, and Eve can’t wait to see what it’s really like. But when she arrives, the atmosphere is far from scholarly. Natalie Somerson, ex-pupil and professional gossip, is the guest of honor, but nobody seems to want her there...especially when her speech stirs up an old scandal about a secret love affair. So why was she invited?

Detective Beth Young has just joined the Cumbrian major crimes team when a body is found posed in a ritualistic manner - arms spread and graceful wings attached - at a crumbling castle in the hills of the Lake District. The entire police force are on red alert. But Beth begins to feel she’s the only one who can follow the disturbing clues left by the twisted killer. Because she doesn’t think like everyone else. To Beth, crimes are puzzles she can solve. Even if real life is a little harder.

Heavy rain pours on the small town of Denton causing the riverbanks to break and the body of a young girl to float quietly to the surface. With no crime scene to examine, the odds are against Detective Josie Quinn and her team. Mercifully, the victim’s body is perfectly preserved, right down to the baseball patch on the jacket she is wearing. Josie can’t hide her devastation - her dead ex-husband, Ray, owned one just like it.