Crime Fiction Suspense

An apparent accidental death turns out to be only the first of many murders. Ben Kendall was a troubled man. Coming back from Vietnam with PTSD and scars that no one else could see, he hid away from the world, filling his house with an ever-increasing amount of stuff, until finally the piles collapsed and he was found dead, crushed beneath his own belongings. But what on first glance looks to be the tragic accidental death of a hoarder maybe something much more - and much deadlier

The 16th Parker novel, Butcher’s Moon, is more than twice as long most of the master heister’s adventures, and absolutely jammed with the action, violence, and nerve-jangling tension listeners have come to expect. Back in the corrupt town where he lost his money, and nearly his life, in Slayground, Parker assembles a stunning cast of characters from throughout his career for one gigantic, blowout job: starting - and finishing - a gang war. It feels like the Parker novel to end all Parker novels, and for nearly 25 years, that’s what it was.

A knife that cut too deep, a slash that still burns, failures piled high and flammable. I held my losses at bay with knives, with guns, my hands, my bike, my brothers, my iron will. But not my heart. No, my heart was the flame that would light the match, ignite the blaze. I am the enforcer - the killer when called upon, the ruthless hound on demand, the one who cleans the mess left behind. I am the protector - I can make you bleed, smash you to pieces. But she smashed all my excuses, and I shattered hers.

The last time DCI Jamie Carver involved a would-be victim in his hunt for a serial killer, it ended badly. Now they want him to do it again, only this time the 'victim' is a Dominatrix. As if he hasn't enough on his plate - a brutal killer poised to strike again; shadows of the past that still haunt his dreams; an investigation under mounting pressure to succeed; a beautiful woman whose bizzare lifestyle may be the key to finding the killer. And that's not counting the young girl whose life he's trying to save from ruin or the ambitious colleague scheming to bring him down.

A mild-mannered car salesman...a womanizing bartender...a beloved minister with a devoted family. Except for the fact that each of the murder victims is male, Minnesota police can't find a connection between the crimes. But that's because what links them can't be seen with the naked eye.

World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization, the Illuminati. Desperate to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra.

Architect Douglas Layton has lost everything. The balcony of one of his beautiful music halls collapsed during a packed performance, killing dozens. Layton knows the flaw was not in his design; someone else must have caused the dreadful catastrophe. But with no proof, Layton finds himself facing a five-year prison sentence. When he is finally freed, Layton starts over with a new name and identity, taking a job as a set painter. But as Layton begins to discover dead bodies hidden within theater halls across London, it soon becomes clear something darker is chasing him.

In The Golden Egg, as the first leaves of autumn begin to fall, Vice Questore Patta asks Brunetti to look into a minor violation committed by the mayor’s future daughter-in-law. Brunetti has no interest in helping his boss amass political favors, but he has little choice but to comply. Then Brunetti’s wife, Paola, comes to him with a request of her own. The mentally handicapped man who worked at their dry cleaners has just died of a sleeping pill overdose, and Paola loathes the idea that he lived and died without anyone noticing him, or helping him.

When Robin Ellacott opens an unexpected delivery, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman's severed leg. Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but just as alarmed. He suspects that four people from his past could be responsible - and any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality. With the police focusing on the one suspect Strike has essentially ruled out, he and Robin take matters into their own hands and delve into the dark and twisted worlds of the other three men.

Esme is a start-up success who runs her own successful media company and heads up a series of investigative podcasts. She also has a beautiful home, where she lives with her sister, Michelle, and her son, Zachary. Sure, there’s an ex-husband hanging around - Owen likes to pop round a bit too often - but everything is civilised and amicable. She has life all tied up. But Esme knows that any successful podcaster is only as good as her last story, so she sets out on a new series of interviews to get to the truth behind Simone Fischer’s high-profile murder of her husband.

Skilled, stealthy, and anonymous, Jack Reacher is the perfect man for the job: to assassinate the vice president of the United States. Theoretically. The head of a high-level Secret Service security detail wants Reacher to find the holes in her system - and fast. A group of desperate men already has the vice president in its sights. And it will stop at nothing to realize its objective.

One September morning, Doug accidentally runs right into another surfer on the beach. There are rules about these things. The other guy should call Doug a jerk, Doug should say, "my bad", and they should both paddle back out and move on. Problem is, the other surfer doesn't want to move on. He wants to fight. And for once in his life, Doug wants to fight back.

A judge’s first murder trial. A defense attorney in over his head. A prosecutor out for blood and glory. The accused, who is possibly innocent. And the killer, who may have just committed the perfect crime.

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he is approached by a woman asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough - who went missing in mysterious circumstances in 1974. Strike has never tackled a cold case before, let alone one 40 years old. But despite the slim chance of success, he is intrigued and takes it on; adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency, Robin Ellacott, are currently working on.

Trick Baby tells the story of White Folks, a blue-eyed, light-haired con artist whose pale skin allows him to pass in the streets as a white man. Folks is tormented early in life, rejected by other children and branded a "trick baby," a child conceived between a hooker and her trick. Refusing to abandon his life in the ghetto and a chance at revenge, Folks is taken under the wing of an older mentor, Blue. What happens next is unbelievable.

When a troubled young man named Billy asks Cormoran Strike to help him investigate a crime he witnessed as a child, the private eye is left deeply troubled. While Billy is obviously mentally distressed and cannot remember many concrete details, there is something sincere about him and his story. But before Strike can question him further, Billy bolts from his office in a panic.

Mike and Callie Simpkins moved north to restart their lives and get their finances back on track. Their son Braxton immerses himself in an online game-world of crime and gangs. When he decides to meet some of the players in the real world, tragedy strikes. Detective John Swift must untangle a web of virtual and real crimes in order to solve this complex mystery. And as the family copes with unimaginable grief, even Braxton’s stepfather, Mike, comes under suspicion.

It's Easter, and on a glorious Spring day in peaceful Three Pines, someone waits for night to fall. They plan to raise the dead.... When Chief Inspector Gamache of the Surete du Quebec arrives the next morning, he faces an unusual crime scene. A séance in an old abandoned house has gone horrifically wrong and someone has been seemingly frightened to death. In indyllic Three Pines, terrible secrets lie buried, and even Gamache has something to hide. One of his own team is about to betray him. But how far will they go to ensure Gamache's downfall?

A movie director is charged with murdering an actress during sex, and then staging her death to make it look like a suicide. In a seemingly unrelated case, a loner is murdered, leaving the sheriff's department with no clues. One unsettling revelation after another leaves a retired FBI agent and an L.A. detective thinking they've unmasked a most frightening killer with almost inconceivable calculation.

No one saw the first attack coming. A perfectly orchestrated assault on a mass-transit railroad line that left countless Americans dead. Intelligence experts are convinced this is no ordinary terrorist attack. To pull off something like this, it would take a deep-state traitor with dark foreign connections. And to stop them, it will take someone who isn't afraid to shed blood. Enter Barry Rivers, the Rig Warrior. An urban legend in the intelligence community, he has been living off the radar for years. But when he sees his country under attack, he contacts his nephew, an FBI agent.