Gripping Thriller

It’s their daughter’s graduation and Rachel and Ed Hartley are expecting it to be one of their family’s happiest days. But when she stumbles and falls on stage during the ceremony, a beautiful moment turns to chaos: Gemma has been shot, and just like that, she’s fighting for her life. PI Matthew Hill is one of the first on the scene. A cryptic message Gemma received earlier in the day suggests someone close to her was about to be exposed. But who?

When Detective Casey White is called to a murder scene on an empty stretch of coastal road, her whole team is in a panic. Could the body be their missing colleague Samantha? The promising investigator was last seen two days ago, going home after an evening of dancing with friends. Her family are beside themselves with worry. Casey’s relief is short-lived when she sees the short dark hair of another woman. Pauline Rydel has been missing for a week. Devastated that anyone would take this innocent life, the tear-shaped cuts on the victim’s face make Casey’s heart stop.

When the body of a teenage girl is found in Rydal Falls’ churchyard, Detective Morgan Brookes abandons her own birthday to attend the scene. In the dim evening light, Morgan can just make out the girl wrapped in a pristine white sheet and is certain she’s been left here for them to find. The autopsy identifies the girl as 16-year-old Shea Wilkinson, and Morgan’s heart cracks with sorrow. The beautiful teenager has been missing for weeks; could she have been suffering all this time?

For Stella, deputy editor of The Globe, the choice has always been clear. It doesn’t matter how low she has to stoop—getting the best story is what she’s built her reputation on. For Jess, The Globe’s rookie reporter, the story stops when the truth does. But she knows that the dirty tricks of the tabloids will be hard to overturn. And when a celebrity is hounded by The Globe and pays the ultimate price, Jess wonders just how much Stella and the paper are responsible.

A victim? Or a killer? One icy cold morning, the remains of a woman are discovered. She has been abused, then butchered. DI Kelly Porter knows this is the work of a monster. One who has killed before - and will do so again. Kevin Flint is a young man with no friends and a reputation for being odd. He explores the hidden corners of the Lake District and likes to creep and watch. He witnesses depravity and it excites him. But will he cross the line from bystander to perpetrator?

Twelve years ago, Jessie Tucker was attacked as she made her way home from an outdoor concert. She still walks with a limp from that night, and every day since has been a struggle to rebuild her life. The police told her she was unlucky - that she was safe after they charged a local man for the crime. But Jessie has never managed to shake the feeling that there was someone else in the park that night...someone she knew. But then, Margaret Kincaid’s murder file lands across her desk, and Jessie knows she can’t keep silent any longer.

Anna Applegate’s daughter, Michelle, drowned after a night out with a friend. Anna’s convinced Michelle’s death was deliberate, and that her boyfriend, sports star Jack Marsh, killed her. As Investigator Andrew Hunter begins to dig into the case, he quickly discovers Jack has a history of violence. And, with only his teammate for an alibi, Andrew is convinced Jack’s lying about where he was the night Michelle died. But Andrew has more to worry about than just finding out the truth about Michelle’s death because a former case is back to haunt him.

Three young girls are missing, all of them cold cases and all of them forgotten. When Detective Jess Bishop identifies a disturbing link between them, she’s determined to find out what happened to the girls as she fights to reopen their cases. Then a fourth child is taken. Eight-year-old Ava is snatched from her hospital bed, and Jess suspects right away that it’s linked to the other cases. As Ava’s illness worsens, Jess is in a race against time to save the girl before it’s too late. But is she missing something right in front of her, something that could put other lives in danger?

For young mother Fosca Sentino, accepting refuge from ex-British soldier Richard - in Tuscany to escape his tragic past - is the only way to keep her little family safe. She once risked everything to spy on Nazi commanders and pass secret information to the resistenza. But after a heartbreaking betrayal, Fosca’s best friend, Simonetta, disappeared without trace. The whole community was torn apart, and now Fosca and her son are outcasts.

In the summer heat at the Craven County Fair in rural Pennsylvania, Dr. Leah Wright is shocked to find a pregnant woman hiding from view and in labor. Leah manages to deliver the baby safely, but the woman won’t reveal her name. She's terrified, running from someone, and days later both she and her newborn son go missing....

Rachel lives a quiet life in the peaceful countryside, content with her perfect man and her lovely dog. But when she stumbles upon a body in the woods one day, all that shatters. She knows what she has to do: run. Don’t get accused of murder. But when this victim is identified as her boyfriend’s estranged wife, Rachel realises she’s already the prime suspect. With mounting evidence against her, Rachel’s only hope is to keep her past well hidden.

Los Angeles, 1985. Never was the motto sex, drugs, and rock n' roll more apt than the scene on the legendary Sunset Strip with the arrival of the underground Hollywood glam bands. While Mick Freeman, a record executive with a major label, works tirelessly to sign five toxic rockers whom he believes might flip the entire music world on its head, his wife, Jade, spends her days bored and alone at home, struggling with a midlife crisis that threatens to topple their 20-year marriage.

When Penny O’Dwyer is snatched from the quiet streets of Cahirsiveen, a small town in the west of Ireland, her family is distraught. Bright, beautiful, career-driven, she had the world at her feet. Local police scour the muddy hills surrounding the town, but, finding no leads, they turn to criminal behaviourist Jessie Boyle.

Her body floats. A bloated thing half atop the river. Naked. Pale. Mouth and eyes open wide. When two fishermen discover a corpse floating in the Clackamas river, profiler Violet Darger heads to rural Oregon to hunt another serial killer. What she discovers in the woods might change the course of her life. What secrets does the water conceal? The girl in the water marks the third such case in the area - all drowned with superficial stab wounds and discovered in a body of water - and Darger feels certain she won't be the last. The corpses are badly decomposed.

The invitation is anonymous. It doesn’t say whose funeral I must attend, only that I can’t afford to miss it. I’m sure it’s a mistake, but when I arrive, I know immediately it isn’t. The name on the gravestone stops me in my tracks: Alice Anderson. That’s my name. Or at least it was. I want to run from this crowd of slick designer clothes and sunglasses hiding prying eyes. But I can’t show my fear. I have no choice other than to stay and find out who sent the invitation. Someone here knows the secret I’d kill to keep.

Emma is so happy to have moved from the city to her husband’s small hometown. James was strangely reluctant at first – but she convinced him their little cottage is the perfect place to settle down. The perfect place to give their six-year-old son a new life. But then a woman at the school gates asks Emma if she is really married to ‘that man’. ‘Which man?’ Emma asks. The woman replies…

Longtime detective Stanford Carter and his wife, forensic scientist Jill Seacrest, have always felt one was the yin to the other's yang. Carter is formal, logical, detached, and incredibly reserved. As team leader, he displays an unflagging commitment to duty, a keen sense of logic and strategy, and the poker face of a true champion. Despite his ardent desire to learn the secrets of the universe and its plan for us all, the introspective student of Zen demonstrates an extraordinary inability to understand himself or anyone else.

Paige, Richard and me. We thought we’d be friends forever. But everything changed the day we took the shortcut home from school along the old railway line. I wish we’d gone the long way. I wish we hadn’t seen our classmate, pale and still in the undergrowth. And I wish we hadn’t promised to keep one, awful detail a secret just between us....

Our new home was meant to be a chance for us to start again; to make new friends and forget the past. And as I look around the barbeque we’ve thrown for our neighbors, I dare to dream that things will be all right. I watch my husband joking as he flips burgers and my daughter turning cartwheels on our sun-bleached lawn. And then my gaze falls on my son, Jacob, and his new girlfriend, Rose, in her light blue jeans and her green crop top. There is a worried expression clouding her beautiful eyes.... The next day I get a call from Rose’s mother that chills me to the bone.

Melissa has just finished writing her latest mystery novel and is enjoying the arrival of spring. She’s decided to let her fictional detective retire at last and perhaps put her own days of investigating behind her, too. But the ink has barely dried on the page when Melissa receives shocking news: Her estranged father has been found dead in the family home and her mother, Sylvia, is under suspicion of murder.