Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Crime Thrillers

When Alison Maxwell, a well-known Glaswegian journalist with an irresistible sexual attraction to both sexes, is found murdered the police look no further than the owner of the scarf used to strangle her. Lindsay Gordon, however, has other ideas. Maxwell was a serial seductress who kept a secret record of her encounters – including one with Lindsay herself. Recalling the threats that followed the end of the relationship, Lindsay knows all too well the feelings of rage, fear and passion that Alison Maxwell could invoke.

Outside the Hope & Glory pub, a man has been left to die. A victim of extraordinary violence, he will never walk or speak again. He remains in hospital, nameless, until criminal defence lawyer Sarah Kellerman walks onto his ward. Sarah barely recognises the man she once worked with. He was honourable and kind - what was he involved in? Who wanted him dead?

Twenty years ago, Tatia was adopted into a well-off home where she seemed happy, settled. Then the youngest boy in the family dies in an accident, and she gets the blame. Did she do it? Tatia is cast out, away from her remaining adopted siblings Joel and Poppy. Now she yearns for a home to call her own. So when she see families going on holiday, leaving their beautiful homes empty, there seems no harm in living their lives while they are gone. But somehow, people keep ending up dead. Did she kill them?

Sean Tennant and Molly Winter are living quietly, and cautiously, in Houston when a troubled, obsessive stranger shatters the safety they have carefully constructed for themselves. Sean, a former soldier, becomes a hero when he stops a man with a gun at the mall. His newfound notoriety exposes him to the wrath of two men he thought were safely in his past. Sean and Molly will need to draw on all their strength, and devotion to each other, to manage to elude their enemies.

A young girl has mysteriously disappeared in Rome. On the case are Clemente and Marcus, two members of the ancient Penitenzeri: a unique team, linked to the Vatican, and trained in the detection of true evil. Sandra, a brilliant forensics expert with a tragic past, is also working on the case. When their paths cross, they uncover a terrible secret world, hidden in the dark recesses of Rome....

Longlisted for the Audiobook Download of the Year, 2007.
Back in Rome after their dramatic adventures in Venice, Detectives Costa, Peroni, and Leo Falcone are rebuilding their lives. But they team up once again when faced with the sudden appearance of fresh bloodstains on a missing young boy's T-shirt in a small museum exhibit displaying supposed evidence of communication from souls in Purgatory. Soon they find themselves embroiled in a mystery involving both the ancient cult of Mithras and the sinister House of Bones.

Andrew, the manager of Shanamore Holiday Cottages, watches his only guest via a hidden camera in her room. One night the unthinkable happens: a shadowy figure emerges onscreen, kills her and destroys the camera. But who is the murderer? How did they know about the camera? And how will Andrew live with himself?

By day, Maeve Fly works at the happiest place in the world as every child's favorite ice princess. By the neon night glow of the Sunset Strip, Maeve haunts the dive bars with a drink in one hand and a book in the other, imitating her misanthropic literary heroes. But when Gideon Green—her best friend's brother—moves to town, he awakens something dangerous within her, and the world she knows suddenly shifts beneath her feet. Untethered, Maeve ditches her discontented act and tries on a new persona. A bolder, bloodier one, inspired by the pages of American Psycho.

Novelist Aaron Holland Broussard is shattered when his daughter Fannie Mae dies suddenly. As he tries to honour her memory by saving two young men from a life of crime amid their opioid-ravaged community, he is drawn into a network of villainy that includes a violent former Klansman, a far-from-holy minister, a biker club posing as evangelicals and a murderer who has been hiding in plain sight. Aaron's only ally is state police officer Ruby Spotted Horse, a no-nonsense woman who harbours some powerful secrets in her cellar.

Dresden, East Germany, 1980. A man's body is found buried in concrete at a building site in the new town district. When People's Police Homicide Captain Karin Müller arrives at the scene, she discovers that all of the body's identifiable features have been removed - including its fingertips. The deeper Müller digs, the more the Stasi begin to hamper her investigations. She soon realises that this crime is just one part of a clandestine battle between two secret services - the Stasi of East Germany and Britain's MI6.

Ex-cop Bierce has been in prison for over 20 years, following his conviction for the murders of his wife and son. He has no memory of the tragedy and has never been able to say with certainty that he didn't do it - except he cannot imagine why on earth he would have killed his beloved family.

Life is good for university friends Sarah, Ruth, Charlotte and Kathy - it's summer, exams are over and they're escaping to a cabin by the Blue Pool. But then Sarah disappears without a trace. Twenty-five years later, a man walks into a police station claiming to know something about the missing girl. Suddenly the three women - now estranged - all become suspects. For not everything was as it seemed, and the greater the secret, the deeper it lies....

Jane Whitefield helps people disappear. Fleeing desperate situations, Jane's clients come to her for new identities, new lives where they won't be found. And when people need Jane's services, they come to the old house in rural New York where she was raised. It's there Jane finds Sara, a young woman in serious trouble. Sara's boyfriend found out she had a lover, then made Sara watch as he murdered the man. Acquitted despite Sara's testimony, now he's trying to find her and kill her.

Caught as a teenager at a wild party, and sent home in disgrace, Lucy Sheridan is finally returning to Summer River 13 years later. Lucy now works for a private investigation firm, and Summer River is now a trendy spot in California's wine country. Mason Fletcher, has changed, too, setting up a security firm of his own. But when he and Lucy make a shocking discovery inside her aunt’s house, Mason is determined to protect her.

Growing up in one of Manchester's roughest council estates Mark (Macca) McNeil's life seems already written for him until joining forces with rough boy Todd Brown to form a gang offers him a way out. He is finally changing his life but then, there is Joanne… She is more than a fling and although they come from the same estate, but she is heading places. She loves his lavish gifts and the life he is promising her, but she doesn't want to see what Macca is capable of.

In a hidden studio in Rome, an art expert is found dead in front of one of the most beautiful paintings Nic Costa has ever seen - an unknown Caravaggio masterpiece. But before long, tragedy will strike Nic far closer to home. The main suspect's identity is known, but he remains untouchable, protected by a fleet of lawyers and a sinister cult known as the Ekstasists. If Costa can crack the reasons for the cult's existence, he may well stand a chance of nailing his wife's killer. But the mystery will take him right back to Caravaggio himself and the reasons he had to flee Rome.

Things are looking up for Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni - their humiliating exile in Venice is nearly at an end, and their long-awaited holiday is about to begin...

Cherry Magraw can never forget the date her mother and brother were killed–the night of her ninth birthday. When her father was jailed for their murders, she lost everyone she loved. Twenty years later, Cherry is a freelance journalist investigating domestic abuse and the secret world of the family courts, when she gets a letter from her father–still in prison for the killings–which contains a startling request.

Twenty years ago, a mysterious group called the Blue Demon committed a series of bizarre and ritualistic crimes evoking the legacy of the lost race of the Etruscans, and leaving in their wake a group of dead students, a murdered couple, a cryptic message and a kidnapped child. Now, the leaders of the G8 are descending on Rome for a summit at the Quirinale Palace.

The death of his wife has left Michael Keats bereft; the subsequent discovery of her adultery devastates him. Michael resolves to discover the identity of her lover. That journey leads him to northern Italy where he becomes embroiled in a story of passion and treachery amongst the Partisans and villagers during the darkest days of World War II. As Michael gets closer to the truth he realizes that some secrets should never be told.