Showing results by narrator "Colin Mace" in All Categories

It's Friday the thirteenth and Detective Inspector Andy Horton’s luck is about to run out. His Harley-Davidson is vandalized, a strange symbol etched into the paintwork. A convicted murderer, Luke Felton, a name he recognizes, has gone missing. A decomposing corpse washes up in Portsmouth Harbour. A mysterious phone call leads him to another in a windswept garden in Portchester. To make matters worse, Horton's nit-picking boss, DCI Lorraine Bliss, has returned early from her secondment to HQ. Horton's got a lot on his plate. Can he connect the dots before anyone else dies?

A cold, grey January morning. A woman with a gun in her hand. A corpse on an abandoned golf course. Detective Inspector Andy Horton is taking a break on the Isle of Wight. But even when he’s on holiday trouble follows him... On an abandoned golf course, Horton finds a distraught, young woman with a gun in her hand, crouching over one of the derelict bunkers. Then the smell hits him. A dead man lies there. Dressed in walking gear, his body decomposing. The woman with the gun says she’s his sister. The local police think she killed her brother, but Horton’s not so sure.

Detective Inspector Andy Horton has a lot on his plate. A celebrity receives threatening phone calls. A nursing home resident is assaulted. A man is found in a pit with several of his fingers severed. Perry Jackson and his team are filming a new TV series about wrecks in the Solent and staying at the large and luxurious Royal Hotel on Portsmouth’s seafront. Shortly after they’ve checked in, Jackson receives a series of threatening phone calls telling him to watch his back and you’ve been warned. Horton thinks it’s a publicity stunt to promote the new TV show.

Britain and Germany are at war and Sexton Blake is in the thick of it. As the battle for the Western Front rages, adventuring detective Sexton Blake pits his intellect and physical prowess against the machinations of the Kaiser. A band of intrepid allies join Blake to take on the forces of evil in three classic stories, collected here for the first time. From uncovering secret German naval bases to dangling from zeppelins, fighting atop moving trains and escaping firing squads, Blake moves through war-torn Europe solving mysteries and fighting against tyranny.

Coming back from war is never easy, as Sergeant Dave Henley’s platoon discovers all too quickly when they return from fighting in Afghanistan. Life at home is very different than on the battlefield – for everyone. When they are summoned back to Helmand to protect the US team assigned to destroy the opium crop, it is almost a relief to the soldiers, if not to their wives, girlfriends, and families, who are turned inside out once more by their men’s sudden departure.

Locus Winner for Best First Novel. In a wretched third world of the future, a young priest from England pursues the mystery of a disease. Although Father John has lost his faith, he does his best to administer prayers and medicine to the people of a Borderer town in what long ago was northern Africa. He wonders why so many in the Endless City are dying of bludrut - myeloid leukemia - and begins to suspect that the reason is the koiyl leaf, which the people chew as an opiate.

They say blood is thicker than water. They never mention alcohol. Ex special forces soldier Alex Abbott has a lead on the killer of his dead brother. If only he can stay off the booze long enough to hunt it down. But the skeletons in Abbott's closet are mounting up faster than the bodies in their bags, and Abbott needs to get his focus back if he's going to get his revenge. His pursuit takes him to the North of England, where Abbott infiltrates a local gang, forced to carry out jobs to maintain his cover.

The stakes are high, and time is running out... When a charred body is discovered on a burning boat at Horsea Marina, Detective Inspector Andy Horton is called to investigate. The victim is identified as Tom Brundall, a wealthy financier from Guernsey, who was terminally ill. Puzzled, Horton wonders why a dying man would return to his hometown of Portsmouth and who would want to kill him. As Horton digs deeper, another body surfaces, forcing him to grapple with not just the victims' pasts but also the unresolved mystery of his own mother's disappearance three decades earlier.

One time king of the underworld, Jack Spot was known as one of the most powerful criminals in Britain—amassing incredible wealth, and being associated with a string of women, throughout his 30-year career. From taking to the streets of London in the thirties and associating with the pantheon of criminals who led the '60s organisations, Jack Spot’s tale is a gripping cocktail of dastardly crimes and glamourous associations.

Midlands police chase a serial killer who inflicts death by the new urban weapon of choice. Given the targets seem enveloped in love affairs and deceitful liaisons, Chief Inspector Gavin Roscoe suspects a motive of jealousy and revenge. But as the number of victims increases, the connection between them wears thin. Is it really a broken heart holding the crossbow? And if it's not some crazed Cupid, who has their finger on the trigger? Plucky Detective Sergeant Sunita Roy doesn't think they are looking in the right places. Yet without evidence, her theory won't hold water.

Romance & Finance is the story of Goldash, a pleasant poet and ambidextrous snooker player, who meets his dream lady, Oya, a medical doctor and medical psychic, purely by chance in a bookshop whilst studying in London. Oya and Goldash have a very special, loving relationship. Their extraordinary love affair is ended by tragedy after just 21 months, and his life falls apart. After that, when he gives up on everything and lets himself go, Mili, a psychic and doctor of finance, comes into his life.

Damian Lucas is a Robin Hood conman, specialising in taking money from corrupt companies and donating the proceeds to museums and libraries. One step away from danger at all times, he's currently hiding from the Russian Mob and furious industrialists, each with valid reasons for hunting him. But, when Richard Evans, a onetime mentor and family friend is found dead in Deptford beside the last known resting place of Christopher Marlowe, Damian is sent a message from beyond the grave that sends him on a treasure hunt across England

When underworld loan shark Davie Saunders is gunned down at his daughter's wedding, his loved ones are sure that a rival East End crime family is responsible. Davie's widow and daughters must now step up and take control of Davie's empire, but from the beginning it's clear they're in way over their heads. Shy bride Mia has no experience of giving orders, self-centred middle-child Kelsey is more concerned with keeping her affair with bodyguard Todd a secret, and baby of the family Scarlett is very firmly kept out of the business while she finishes her education.

The wartime double agent with a transmitter in his cell to contact suffragettes; the doctor hanged as he smiled to the farewells of lovers on the scaffold; the con who defied a gangland godfather and escaped the bromide in the prison tea; aristocrats and arsonists.... The screws who guard Britain's prisons have seen them all. Banged Up! is the story of six of the country's most notorious jails—Durham, Wandsworth, Pentonville, Wormwood Scrubs, Dartmoor and Holloway—and of the men and women who entered their gates.

In a remote refugee camp, many diverse lives collide. A child with a love of wizards and an ageing rock star share their fate with a collection of disparate visitors when the camp is attacked. Years later, they find a way to tell their stories.

It's December 2016, and Toby and Angelica are going back to their fathers farm for Christmas. Now that they live in London, and Berlin respectively eschewing the family trade in favour of more creative pursuits, this return to the pastoral also feels like a return to the parochial. Their father is at the end of the worst year of his life. His wife, Marie, died suddenly in a tragic accident. Struggling in every way and in desperate need of help with work, he hired Damien, who moved in to the other property on the farm.

The intrepid Sexton Blake enters the roaring '60s - and it's all happening. Psychics and aliens clash on a secret volcanic base as the fate of the world lies in peril, the hunters become the hunted as a series of horrific murders strike a peaceful village, a scientist uses new techniques to bring ancient creatures to life and a brilliantly planned heist gets double-crossed - and triple-crossed!

As dawn breaks on a snowy February morning, a refrigerated lorry is found parked in the heart of London's Chinatown. Inside, 12 women, apparently illegal immigrants, are dead from hypothermia. But in the cab, DC Max Wolfe finds 13 passports. Twelve dead women. Twelve passports. The hunt for the missing woman will take Max Wolfe into the dark heart of the world of human smuggling, mass migration and 21st-century slave markets.

It's never too late to grow up.... This is the story of Scott, who finds his belongings outside in a bin bag one day and realises he may have made a Big Mistake; Gail, who wishes her husband were under guarantee so she could send him back and get a refund; Nat, who discovers that growing up isn't all it's cracked up to be; and Rosie, who just wants her dad back - or if not, then at least some new glitter nail polish. Four lives, one story: love, loss and learning to be a grown-up.

Comprised of three more 'Golden Age' stories from Union Jack, in which Sexton Blake discusses the various reporters, adventurers, Scotland Yard men and private detectives with whom he worked. The Case of the Seventh Key by W. W. Sayer (1925), Ghost Mobile by Gwyn Evans (1931) and Tree of Evil by Rex Hardinge (1932).