Gripping Thriller

The gorgeous French stone villa is just as I remembered it. I was anxious about coming back here after all this time. But as I see the faces of my best friends, I know I made the right decision. A weekend away is just what I need. That was until Frederick arrived… Putting on a smile, I pretend that his presence doesn’t affect me. But as I make my way down to an old wine cellar to get supplies for our first dinner together, I sense Frederick near me in the dim light. And then it happens: the old door swings shut, trapping us both inside.

When Jem knocked on the door of an isolated cottage overlooking the beautiful Neptune Cove, she was hoping for help fixing a birthday cake baking disaster. She was not expecting to find the tenant dead on the tiled floor, specks of blood on the collar of his navy and red satin pajamas. The victim is Arthur Ajax, a handsome and wealthy American businessman who arrived in the Isles of Scilly as a tourist 10 months ago and never left.

Tommy Belanger was raised in a dysfunctional family, plagued with abject poverty, incest, alcohol and child abuse. His life was filled with grief, hunger and horror. The family had been moved from one poverty-stricken two-bedroom shack to another. Always hoping for a better tomorrow. Landing in a home the mirror image of the one they had escaped.

When three nine-year-old boys go missing on a field trip to Lakemore’s annual spring festival, panic tears through the small town. Detective Mackenzie Price and her partner, Nick Blackwood, lead the search, but no trace of the boys is found - until one of them is found murdered, a note stuffed down his throat.

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?

Archaeologist Louise Cantor returns home to Sweden, and makes a devastating discovery: her only child, twenty-eight-year-old Henrik, dead in his bed. The police rule his death a suicide, but she knows he was murdered; her quest to find out what really happened to Henrik takes her across the globe to Barcelona, where her son kept a secret apartment; Sydney, Australia, to find Aron, her estranged ex-husband and Henrik's father; and to Maputo, Mozambique, where she learns the awful truth behind an AIDS hospice.

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.

DCI Warren Jones has a bad feeling when the body of a young woman turns up in Beaconsfield Woods. She’s been raped and strangled but the murderer has been careful to leave no DNA evidence. There are, of course, suspects - boyfriend, father - to check out but, worryingly, it looks more and more like a stranger murder. Warren’s worst fears are confirmed when another young woman is killed in the same way. The MO fits that of Richard Cameron who served 12 years for rape. But Cameron never killed his victims and he has a cast-iron alibi.

Lindisfarne, AD 793. There had been portents - famine, whirlwinds, lightning from clear skies, serpents seen flying through the air. But when the raiders came, no one was prepared. They came from the North, their dragon-prowed longships gliding out of the dawn mist as they descended on the kingdom's most sacred site. It is 8th June AD 793, and with the pillage of the monastery on Lindisfarne, the Viking Age has begun. While his fellow monks flee before the Norse onslaught, one young novice stands his ground.

The remote town of Crooked Creek has barely recovered from its most recent tragedy when wildfires tear through the mountains. Detective Ellie Reeves is grappling with her own heartbreak - she has just discovered she was adopted and that her childhood was a lie. Under the scorching summer sun, Ellie is called to a river where a body has been found. She spots a lone woman’s shoe caught in a nearby tangle of vines, and a pearl necklace scattered by the water’s edge. Was the victim - whoever she was - caught in the fire, or is something more sinister at play?

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....

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.

To light the way ahead, he must burn his past...When Harvey Stone betrays his foster-father, John Cartwright, by failing to carry out one of his bloody requests, a series of events unfold, opening doors to the past that should have remained closed for eternity. A killer is awoken, and his sights are set on revenge. Racked with guilt, Harvey takes one last glance at the house where he and sister grew up before turning his back on the family that raised him, setting a course to find his sister’s killer.

After being gone for two decades, Maddy’s half sister, Emily, is back in town to settle their late father’s estate. Emily’s not the troubled girl Maddy remembers from their volatile childhood. Apparently, all is well. It can’t possibly matter anymore that Maddy married Emily’s first love, but the pictures Maddy finds on her husband’s phone tell a different story. Suspicions of an affair are hard to ignore.

Between her work in Cornwall’s oldest library and catching up with old friends over tea and chocolate biscuits, Jemima Jago is spending the season the only way she knows how: sunbathing, swimming, and sailing. But her postcard-perfect summer is turned upside down when the body of well-to-do businessman Hermie Castleberry is found on the sweeping white sands at the foot of Candlewick Castle.

As day breaks over the fairground, Detective Katie Scott forces herself to take in another disturbing scene in front of her. A woman, the same age as her, found slumped in the carriage of the Ferris wheel, red lipstick dragged across her lips, her throat cut. Katie doesn’t want to believe that the serial killer picking off women across the state has found their way to the small town of Pine Valley, California, but when her team finds a gold engagement ring hanging nearby, it’s a terrifying, but undeniable fact.

Police photographer Sukey Reynolds is called to investigate a seemingly routine break-in at the beautiful Dearley Manor estate, but when she arrives, she is shocked to find the body of someone she knows all too well. The owner of Dearley Manor is none other than the wealthy woman whom Sukey’s husband, Paul Reynolds, left her for...and she has been brutally murdered. With her close personal connection, Sukey is officially pulled off the case. But as the police close in on Paul, convinced he is guilty, Sukey realises she has no choice but to try and prove his innocence.

Melissa couldn’t be happier that summer has arrived. She’s delighted to have her mother back by her side, and she is extending her beloved Hawthorn Cottage so her new family can live together. Meanwhile, Melissa’s mother, Sylvia, is back in good health and enjoying a brief stay at a stately retirement home. She loves getting to know the residents, until first a dog and then his owner are both found dead in the dining room. Like mother, like daughter, Sylvia decides to do a little investigating of her own.

When I left my parents’ home in Kentucky, I never thought I’d see my sister again. For years, we kept a terrible secret, and eventually it tore us apart. But when I get the call to say that my sister has been killed and my teenage niece Hannah is coming to live with us, I leave the past behind. Hannah is family, and I need to keep her safe. I know what could happen to her if I don’t. When my niece arrives, she bonds with my daughter Cassie instantly. But then I hear a scream from the girls’ bedroom. And in the garden, someone has lit a fire. It’s a warning.

After a betrayal that sent their marriage into freefall, Hannah and Sam are desperate for a fresh start with their eight-year-old daughter Lily—and where better than picture-perfect Owl Cottage in beautiful Cornwall. But something about the holiday home stirs dark memories for Hannah… When she finds dead creatures on the doorstep and hears mysterious knocks at the door, Hannah can’t help wondering whether someone is messing with her—or whether the past she’s been running from has finally claimed her sanity.