Kidnapping Thriller

In the dead of night, a man’s body is found strapped to a chair in Glasgow’s Elder Park, his identity unknown. As forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod examines the scene, the violence on display suggests a gangland feud could be the cause. At the post-mortem, a bullet engraved with a snake’s head is found in the man’s stomach, lending weight to the theory. Elsewhere in the city, a major Hollywood movie is being filmed but comes to a standstill when its lead actor is reported missing. As the news spreads, Police Scotland believe the two cases may be connected.

Sadie Wilson’s heart stops the moment the phone rings. Deep in her soul, she knows what’s coming, and the voice on the other end only confirms her fears: Emma never made it to school. Her sweet, scared five-year-old climbed onto the bus for her very first day of kindergarten…and then vanished.

Special Agent Maya Gray has seen it all. She’s one of BAU’s rising stars and the go-to agent for hard-to-crack serial cases. When she receives a handwritten postcard promising to release 12 kidnapped women if she will solve 12 cold cases, she assumes it’s a hoax. Until the note mentions that among the captives is her missing sister. Case three has just landed, and the clock is ticking. The suspect, a copycat of the Moonlight Killer, seems to be using sophisticated audio equipment to stay one step ahead of his victims - and Maya herself could be next.

John Wells may have left the CIA, but it hasn't left him. A mysterious call brings a surprise meeting with the aged monarch of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah. "My kingdom is on a precipice," he tells Wells. "Powerful factions are plotting against me, and my own family is in danger. I don't know who I can trust, but I'm told I can trust you."

Three months after four-year-old Holly Gebhardt was kidnapped, she was inexplicably returned to the same park from which she’d vanished...with no memory of the ordeal. Though a local handyman was convicted, suspicion also fell on his friend - Holly’s mother, Cecily. The troubling doubts about her involvement shattered the family, forever driving a wedge between mother and daughter. Twenty years later, another girl goes missing under eerily similar circumstances. It’s just the latest in a series of kidnappings that Detective Jason Guidry thinks Holly can help solve.

Quinn Calvet was supposed to be having an epic year. She had plans with her best friend, Ximena, and sister, Ava, and to grow her following as an influencer on The Whine. Instead, Quinn finds herself third wheel to Ximena and her boyfriend or getting ditched by Ava who has turned into an overachiever, obsessed with studying and joining school clubs. It brings up Quinn's old feelings that her disability has her left behind. She tries to talk to Ava about it, but she's too busy with the newest club at school, Defend Kids.

At first glance, Jellicoe Close seems to be a perfect suburban street – well-kept houses with pristine lawns, neighbours chatting over garden fences, children playing together. But there are dark secrets behind the neat front doors, hidden dangers that include a ruthless criminal who will stop at nothing. It’s up to DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent to uncover the truth. Posing as a couple, they move into the Close, blurring the lines between professional and personal as never before.

As a child, Abby Mullen escaped the insidious Wilcox cult when it literally went down in flames. Years later, she’s the NYPD’s best hostage negotiator and a mother. She thought the worst part of her life was behind her. Until now. Armed conspiracy theorists called the Watchers have attacked the local high school - and taken her daughter hostage. With the delusional Watchers holding her child at gunpoint, the unflappable Abby might be at her breaking point. But the clock is ticking on her daughter’s life.

My life has turned out to be a web of lies. All I know for sure is that the hit men who took me into their home aren't the real villains in this story. As the Chaos Crew helps me track down answers about who I am and what happened to me all those years ago, I can't help wondering if their home could become mine, too. Especially when I discover just how delicious each of them can be in their unique ways. But to work alongside me is a dangerous game. Will winning the loyalty of these brutal men guarantee my survival - or send them to an early grave?

When Josh’s longtime partner, Grace, dies in a tragic accident, he is left with a mess of grief - and full custody of her seven-year-old son, Logan. Wanting to do right by Logan, Josh begins the process of becoming his legal guardian - something that seems suddenly urgent, though Grace always brushed it off as an unnecessary formality. But now, as Josh struggles to find the paperwork associated with Logan’s birth, he begins to wonder whether there were more troubling reasons for Grace’s reluctance to make their family official.

Orphaned at 13, Grace Silva clawed her way out of poverty and violence to become one of the most respected judges on the federal bench. Grace believes in the rule of law, lives it, breathes it. She has always been buttoned up and buttoned down. Except once.

Mary DiNunzio is a trademark Lisa Scottoline heroine - she's strong, she's smart, and she's got plenty of attitude. In recent years, she's become a big-time business-getter at Rosato & Associates, but the last person she expects to walk into her office one morning - in mile-high stilettos - is super sexy Trish Gambone, her high school rival.

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare: the call that comes in the middle of the night. When Kat Jenkins awakens to the police on her doorstep, her greatest fear is realized. Her nine-year-old son, Ethan, is missing - vanished from the cabin where he’d been on an overnight class trip. Shocked and distraught, Kat rushes to the campground, but she’s too late; the authorities have returned from their search empty-handed after losing Ethan’s trail in the mountain forest.

"Don't kill her. She's no good to us dead." These words haunt Jane MacGuire after a shocking attack shatters her world in an instant. Was it a random kidnapping attempt, or the countdown to something far more sinister?

When a series of suspicious fires leaves multiple victims dead in their homes, NYPD hostage negotiator Abby Mullen knows in her bones that the terrors of her childhood have returned. As a young girl, she narrowly escaped a fire set by Moses Wilcox, a fanatical cult leader who’s been presumed dead for thirty years. These murders have his fingerprints all over them.

In the Maya Gray series (which begins with book one, Girl One: Murder) FBI Special Agent Maya Gray, 39, has seen it all. She’s one of BAU’s rising stars and the go-to agent for hard-to-crack serial cases. When she receives a handwritten postcard promising to release 12 kidnapped women if she will solve 12 cold cases, she assumes it’s a hoax. Until the note mentions that, among the captives, is her missing sister. Maya, shaken, is forced to take it seriously.

When a horrifying attack leaves one of the four members of the Women's Murder Club struggling for her life, the others fight to keep a madman behind bars before anyone else is hurt. And Lindsay Boxer and her new partner in the San Francisco police department run flat-out to stop a series of kidnappings that has electrified the city: children are being plucked off the streets together with their nannies - but the kidnappers aren't demanding ransom.

DC Alex McKenna is meant to be resting following her last case, so she lets her boyfriend to take her to the Isle of Skye for the weekend. But what's meant to be a getaway to see the aurora borealis soon turns into a nightmare when they discover that their hotel has double booked. In desperation, they check into the only hotel with rooms available nearby - The Loch House. But from the moment they step foot in the guest house Alex knows something is very wrong. And as snow starts to fall, and night closes in, she begins to wonder if they will ever leave here alive.

Sam Capra is living the life of his dreams. He's a brilliant young CIA agent, stationed in London. His wife Lucy is seven months pregnant with their first child. They have a wonderful home, and are deeply in love. They have everything they could hope for... until they lose it all in one horrifying moment.

Detective Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler, first introduced in The Various Haunts of Men, is on a painting holiday in Venice when he is summoned home by a telephone call. He has family problems to face, and the stress and grind of running a busy police station. When a little boy is snatched as he stands with his satchel at the gate of his home, waiting for his lift to school, an ordinary community realises that terror and evil are in their very midst.