British Suspense

Ten years ago, Mary Morstan’s father, an officer in an Indian regiment, vanished. Four years later, elegant pearls began to arrive, six in total, and now she holds an invitation to meet her mysterious anonymous benefactor. As Miss Morstan shares this peculiar tale with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, she urges the detectives to accompany her. Her only clues to her father’s disappearance: a map of a fortress with the names of four strangers and an assertion that she’s been dreadfully wronged.

When Mother Dorothy's godmother dies of a heart attack and leaves all her money to the convent, Sister Joan is uneasy. While on visiting duty at the hospital, she makes some tacit enquiries. Things don't seem quite right. The nursing staff are always away from their posts at crucial times. The surly young doctor seems very out of sorts. Then a little girl goes missing. Sister Joan knows there's something truly sinister going on. She teams up with Detective Sergeant Mill, but can they get to the bottom of things before tragedy strikes?

DCI Kett is back, heading Norfolk Constabulary’s brand-new Extreme Crime Task Force. And it’s just in time. The body of a woman bound in thorns has been discovered in Norwich’s historic Cow Tower. In her mouth is a severed finger wrapped in a scrap of red cloth, and the first few lines of a fairy tale. “Once upon a time, a young maiden waited to be saved from a hideous monster.” The finger belongs to another missing woman, and if Kett, Porter and Savage want to find her alive they must follow a chain of blood-drenched riddles, each victim leading to the next.

As a family liaison offer, DC Maggie Neville has seen parents crumble under the weight of their child’s death. Imogen Tyler is no different. Her son’s fall was witnessed by the school caretaker, and another pupil is under suspicion/being questioned, but Imogen is paralysed by questions. Why was he at the school so early? Why was he with a girl who wasn’t a friend?

It's New Year's Eve and the stage is set for a lavish party in one of Edinburgh's best postcodes. It's a moment for old friends to set the past to rights-and move on. The night sky is alive with fireworks and the champagne is flowing. But the celebration fails to materialize. Because someone at this party is going to die tonight. Midnight approaches and the countdown begins—but it seems one of the guests doesn't want a resolution. They want revenge.

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.

Dorothy Martin’s husband, Alan Nesbitt, is heavily involved in the complex and lengthy process of choosing a new bishop for Sherebury Cathedral. The very day that the short list is announced publicly, one of the candidates is found murdered in his own church. With a long list of possible suspects, including Alan himself, Dorothy and Alan start to delve into the history of the victim, hoping to find some clue to a motive for murder. Then a second candidate is found dead, and the case becomes very complicated indeed. Who is murdering England’s clergymen and why …?

Lizzie Bennet’s beloved sister Jane has just married Darcy’s best friend, Bingley, and the Bennet family and Darcy are paying the newlyweds a visit at Bingley’s family home, Netherfield Park. It doesn’t take long for their country retreat to turn into an investigation, though, when a long-dead body is discovered stuffed up the parlor chimney. The locals are convinced that Netherfield is cursed, but Lizzie and Darcy know better than to believe in such nonsense and are determined to uncover the truth about what happened to the mysterious man in the chimney.

It's not always a question of "whodunit?" Sometimes there's more mystery in the why or how. And although we usually know the unhealthy fates of both victim and perpetrator, what of those clever few who plan and carry out the perfect crime? The ones who aren't brought down even though they're found out? And what about those who do the finding out who witness a murder or who identify the murderer but keep the information to themselves? These are some of the mysteries that we follow through those six stories.

Georgina Drake’s job photographing beautiful Hartington Hall takes a dramatic turn when she enters the ancient ice house to find the lady of the manor dead on the floor. The second wife of the irascible owner of the hall, Karen Berry had plenty of enemies. Her death could have been an accident, but when Georgina hears how Karen had argued with her husband, alienated her two step-daughters, and fired the long-standing housekeeper for theft, she’s not convinced.

Ex-DCI Luke Sackville is asked by Globo Energy to investigate two environmental movements. Both groups promote protests and nonviolent civil disobedience, but when members of his Ethics Team go undercover they discover this is a facade. Beneath the surface sinister forces are at work. Luke becomes embroiled in a race to find and stop a murderer who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Sow the Wind is the sixth book in the series of crime thrillers featuring Luke Sackville and his Ethics Team.

Three friends go on a foodie road trip to the Scottish Highlands and Islands to celebrate their pending retirement, expecting stunning scenery, great food, fine wines, and a chance to reminisce about the good old days. When they somehow secure a reservation at a remote and extremely exclusive restaurant set on a private island in Loch Broom, they know they’re in for a once-in-a-lifetime dining experience.

London, 1849 When a boy is found drowned in the River Thames at Hungerford Stairs, novelist Charles Dickens and Superintendent Jones of Bow Street are mystified to discover that the child is not the missing youngster for whom they have been searching. As Dickens and Jones delve deeper into London's poverty-stricken backstreets, they stumble across two more bodies. A serial killer is on the loose. And Charles is terrified that someone close to him may be one of the victims.

Dr. James Macintosh, the bishop of Greyle, was a mysterious man. For a long time, nobody even knew his last name...until his body is found emaciated and battered having been pushed face-first off the edge of a cliff. Inspector Littlejohn faces an incredibly peculiar case. How to explain the savage murder of a gentle bishop? Did he know too much about the secretive citizens of Cape Marvin? Above all, why was the bishop's body so undernourished that death by violence won out by only a few days over death by starvation?

England 1921. Lady Elizabeth Gaskins is throwing a big party to celebrate her birthday. But when an odious guest gets killed and steals her thunder, her father, the Earl of Buxley, becomes a suspect. After all, he came to blows with the dead man in front of several witnesses. Determined to find out who murdered his childhood friend, Lord Buxley summons a detective from Scotland Yard. Not to be outdone, Lady Bess and her spunky cohorts, the oldest Dowager Countess and great aunts, embark on a hunt for the killer.

The new audiobook from Sunday Times number-one best seller Martina Cole sees the return of her iconic heroine DCI Kate Burrows. If you liked The Ladykiller you'll love Damaged. When the bodies of missing schoolgirls start turning up, former DCI Kate Burrows is dragged out of retirement. A new Grantley serial killer is in town and DCI Annie Carr turns to Kate for help.

London, 1878. One April morning, a small boat bearing a young woman’s corpse floats down the murky waters of the Thames. When the victim is identified as Rose Albert, daughter of a prominent judge, the Scotland Yard director gives the case to Michael Corravan, one of the only senior inspectors remaining after a corruption scandal the previous autumn left the division in ruins. Reluctantly, Corravan abandons his ongoing case, a search for the missing wife of a shipping magnate, handing it over to his young colleague, Mr. Stiles.

Arthur Finch-Hatten is six-feet-four-inches of hot, ripped, loaded English billionaire nobleman who is wasting his life and his earldom so audaciously that his younger brother is suing him for control. Arthur stands to lose everything, including his cover as an MI-6 spy. Genevieve is a lawyer, not a babysitter, and certainly not a dog trainer. She is just about to become a full barrister when her mentor dies unexpectedly. She is shuffled off to another barrister, one who’s nothing at all like her kind, decent former mentor, and then she is assigned the office’s worst case: Arthur.

Although Perry, the earl of the house, and his sister, Poppy, are surprisingly accommodating to their jetlagged guests, Lucy feels uneasy after a fallen portrait sparks talk of a deadly family omen. But real trouble begins when a body, bludgeoned by the chapel's gold-plated reliquary, is found in a hidden, sealed off room. Considering the weapon and the clandestine location, Lucy wouldn't be shocked if the murder was an inside job.

When Sukey Reynolds receives news of a death at the elegant Mariners Hotel, she is intrigued. Who could possibly have wanted to hurt Dr. Whistler, a shy and retiring archaeology professor? The dusty documents he was carrying couldn’t possibly be of value, could they? You would never expect this sophisticated establishment to be home to murder. What secrets are hiding inside the charming Mariners Hotel?