Crime Mystery Suspense

No one would ever accuse famous opera star Dame Serena Levante of lacking a flare for the dramatic. Unfortunately, it's curtains down on the dysfunctional diva when she's found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her elegant home. Solving an opera singer's murder may not be the typical hairdresser's aria of expertise. But Dame Serena was the mother of Daisy's best friend Floria, so Daisy must do-or-dye her best to get to the roots of the case.

"So I thought I might take up paragliding. You know, buy one on eBay and just jump off the cliff one morning." Emily Willows is middle-aged, widowed, wealthy, and bored. When she makes those flippant remarks to her son over coffee one Friday, she has no inkling that within a few hours she will be facing the most terrifying situation of her life.

A complete crime fiction box set! Homicide detective Thomas Prescott may be retired—but a serial killer, a high-profile murder, an ill-fated cruise, and a chilling small-town crime add more than enough excitement to his hard-earned rest. This collection includes the first four books: Unforeseen, Gray Matter, The Afrikaans, and Show Me.

If not for the bodies discovered in the woods behind their new home, Garrick and Olivia Lockwood couldn't have afforded to buy number 25 The Avenue. It's the fresh start they and their two children badly need. Soon, these terrible crimes will be solved, they tell themselves, and once Garrick has remodeled, he's confident they'll sell the house for a profit. But the darkest secrets can reside on quiet, ordinary streets like this - behind the doors of well-kept houses and neighbors' friendly faces....

A family move into their dream home in Dorchester. It seems perfect, particularly for their two children, but when Philip and Jill Freeman move a buddleia bush, what they find buried beneath its roots will haunt them forever. DCI Sophie Allen is forced to probe crimes that occurred many years before, crimes that cause emotional upheavals within the local community. In a complex investigation, Sophie Allen unearths family secrets which carry on having devastating effects to this day and risk taking new lives.

It’s the night shift worker who finds them. Huddled in a hospital store cupboard is elderly Edith Higgins. Knifed to death. Sitting behind her is Staff Nurse Lily Frampton, a scalpel clasped in her blood-soaked hand. No one can understand why this kind-hearted, dedicated nurse would brutally murder a frail patient she’s spent months caring for. That same day, mild-mannered schoolteacher Rod Black is found surrounded by the battered bodies of his pupils. Why would a well-respected teacher beat five schoolboys to death?

In 1998, the American Jorgenson family had been on a year-long road trip in Australia. One humid, storming night, the mother - Elsa Jorgenson - vanished in an isolated stretch of Australian everglades. Elsa was never seen again. That night, twelve-year-old Lily Jorgenson was left alone and terrified in the family camper—even her teenage sister Iris is missing. When Iris comes racing back through the rain, she refuses to tell where she’s been. Lily is certain her sister is hiding a dark secret.

What happens when an old spook loses his mind? Does the Service have a retirement home for aging spies who can no longer remember their secrets are secret? Or are senile spies taken care of in a different, more permanent fashion? These are the paranoid concerns of David Cartwright, a Cold War–era operative and one-time head of MI5 who is sliding into dementia, and questions his grandson, River, must answer now that the spy who raised him sometimes forgets to wear pants. But River, himself an agent at Slough House, MI5’s outpost for disgraced spies, has other things to worry about.

Life is good for DI Dan Hellier until the discovery of two headless, handless bodies buried in a bog on Dartmoor. How can he identify the victims when nobody has reported them missing? The tension mounts when the death of a young man plunges Hellier into the murky world of the Garrett family. Could the peaceful, family-run Animal Rescue Centre really be a cover for murder and other criminal activity? Hellier is about to learn just how far people will go to get what they want, as he races to catch a murderer before it’s too late.

Dieter Hess, an aged spy, is dead, and John Bachelor, his MI5 handler, is in deep, deep trouble. Death has revealed that the deceased had been keeping a secret second bank account - and there's only ever one reason a spy has a secret second bank account. The question of whether he was a double agent must be resolved, and its answer may undo an entire career's worth of spy secrets.

In 1919, young couple Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley form a partnership, hiring themselves out as "young adventurers". Their first case, which involves finding documents, is more of an adventure than they expect, however. Tommy and Tuppence know that Jane Finn was carrying top secret documents when she disappeared five years ago. What they don't know is that a killer is targeting a sinister older woman because she knows all about Jane. And soon Tommy and Tuppence are themselves in grave danger.

When another resident of the Rosemary House care home is found dead in her chair one Saturday evening in December, no one is very surprised - not until the results of a routine post-mortem reveal something extraordinary. Sergeant DC Smith and his team have to tread carefully as they investigate what took place, and Smith himself has to confront some difficult memories. Others, meanwhile, seem intent on getting him to leave the force altogether.

Separate incidents with two common threads - a first wife who took her own life, and a secret the victims took to their graves. Stephanie Coburn has barely recovered from her sister's mysterious suicide before her brother-in-law and his new wife are murdered, her face disfigured beyond recognition. Stephanie never met the bride, has never even seen a clear photograph. But she knew her sister, and she knows something is desperately wrong.

London: Slough House is the MI5 branch where disgraced operatives are reassigned after they’ve messed up too badly to be trusted with real intelligence work. The “Slow Horses,” as the failed spies of Slough House are called, are doomed to spend the rest of their careers pushing paper, but they all want back in on the action. When one of their own is kidnapped and held for ransom, the agents of Slough House must defeat the odds, overturning all expectations of their competence, to breach the top-notch security of MI5’s intelligence headquarters, Regent’s Park, and steal valuable intel.

At MI5 headquarters Regent's Park, First Desk Claude Whelan is learning the rule (cover your arse) the hard way. Tasked with protecting a beleaguered prime minister, he's facing attack from all directions himself. Over at Slough House, the MI5 satellite office for outcast and demoted spies, the agents are struggling with personal problems: repressed grief, various addictions, retail paralysis, and the nagging suspicion that their newest colleague is a psychopath. Plus someone is trying to kill Roddy Ho.

When Emily Lane isn’t busy running her charming Christmas-themed store, “Under the Mistletoe”, located in the quaint tourist town of Fletcher’s Grove, she finds herself compelled to investigate not so quaint local murders. On the surface, Emily is a perfectly lovely, good-natured puzzle-solver and mystery lover. But she is hiding a secret past from everyone in town. And when Emily begins her personal investigations, Detective-Constable Sam Wilner, a smart and attractive cop—with a crush on Emily that is not completely unrequited—begins to wonder if there’s more to Emily than meets the eye.

A weekend getaway in an isolated country house is just what Caitlin needs to fix her relationship with husband Eli. Her spirits are up as they enter the spacious retreat and cool off in the nearby lake. With Eli's easy-going brother accompanying them - the party was his idea - the barbecue lit and beers cracked open, everything should be set for a perfect evening. But her husband is cold and dismissive, so Caitlin decides to drown her sorrows and heads into the wine cellar. What she finds there will change their lives forever.

A former Medal of Valor winner, Minnesota detective Alexander Rupert is now under subpoena by a grand jury on suspicion of corruption. So when he's asked to look into the false identity of a car-accident victim named James Putnam, a man who in fact died 15 years earlier, Rupert sees a potentially big case and an opportunity to regain his respectability. But the investigation puts him in the path of "the Beast", the nom de guerre of Drago Basta, a cunning veteran of the Balkan wars.

Depuis qu’un drame immense l’a frappé, Antoine ne supporte plus les injustices. Il lit les journaux, comme tout le monde, mais ça ne passe plus. Selon lui, les ordures s’en sortent. Presque toujours. Ce sont les gens bien qui perdent. Si seulement, juste une fois, il pouvait rectifier le pointage entre les bons et les salopards. Faire gagner les gentils. Bêtement.

Exit Wounds is a thrilling anthology of crime stories written by masters of the genre, including Dean Koontz, Val McDermid, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, Elly Griffiths, Dennis Lehane, Joe R. Lansdale, and others.