Just before dawn in the hills near the Scottish border, a man murders a young woman. At the same time, a hot-air balloon crashes out of the sky. There's just one survivor. She's seen the killer's face - but he's also seen hers. And he won't rest until he's eliminated the only witness to his crime. Alone, scared, trusting no one, she's running to where she feels safe - but it could be the most dangerous place of all....

Florence Lovelady's career was made when she convicted coffin-maker Larry Glassbrook of a series of child murders 30 years ago. Like something from our worst nightmares the victims were buried...alive. Larry confessed to the crimes; it was an open and shut case. But now he's dead, and events from the past start to repeat themselves. Did she get it wrong all those years ago? Or is there something much darker at play?

Despite her fascination with Jack the Ripper, Detective Constable Lacey Flint has never worked a big case or seen a dead body up close. Until now…As she leaves a south London estate one night, she is horrified to find a woman has been viciously stabbed, right next to Lacey’s car. Thrown headlong into her first murder hunt, Lacey’s quiet life changes overnight. Then Lacey receives a familiar hand-delivered letter, written in red blood, and it is clear the police have a Ripper copycat on their hands.

NOW YOU SEE HER.... Gillian is haunted by the disappearance of her little girl two years ago. A devastating fire burned down their home, but she remains convinced her daughter survived. NOW YOU DON’T... Ten-year-old Tom lives by the town’s neglected churchyard. Is he the only one who sees the strange, solitary child playing there? And what is she trying to tell him?

A golden summer, and six talented friends are looking forward to the brightest of futures - until a daredevil game goes horribly wrong and a woman and two children are killed. Eighteen-year-old Megan takes the blame, leaving the others free to get on with their lives. In return, they each agree to a 'favour', payable on her release from prison. Twenty years later Megan is free. Let the games begin.

Admittedly, it wasn't murder. A moment's carelessness, a tragic accident - and two children are dead. Yours. Living in a small island community, you can't escape the woman who destroyed your life. Each chance encounter is an agonizing reminder of what you've lost - your family, your future, your sanity. How long before revenge becomes irresistible? With no reason to go on living, why shouldn't you turn your darkest thoughts into deeds?

How did it all begin? I suppose it would be the day I rescued a new-born baby from a poisonous snake, heard the news of my mother’s death and encountered my first ghost... Veterinary surgeon Clara Benning is young and intelligent, but practically a recluse. Disfigured by a childhood accident, she lives alone and shies away from human contact wherever possible.

Moving to remote Shetland has been unsettling enough for consultant surgeon Tora Hamilton; even before the gruesome discovery she makes one rain-drenched afternoon...Deep in the peat soil of her field she is shocked to find the perfectly preserved body of a young woman, a gaping hole where her heart has been brutally removed and three rune marks etched into her skin.

Return to the worlds of The Craftsman and Lacey Flint in this first short-story collection from Sharon Bolton, International award-winning author of The Split. This collection is available exclusively in audio and features eight short stories, each with a new introduction written and read by the author.

A dark moon is rising. A perfect black circle, barely visible in the night sky, the dark moon casts its void over the wind-scorched moor, over the soaring mass of a great limestone hill, and over the town that cowers in its shadow. The dark moon is the absence of moon before the slender silver crescent of the new moon appears again and people can breathe a little easier. The month is March, and the night is clear and cold, black as pitch.

Zoe didn't meet her daughter the way most mothers do. She finds five-year-old Maddie alone and dirty on a countryside road. Frightened for Maddie's safety, she picks her up and takes her back to her father, not knowing what she's about to step into. Because Maddie wasn't just lost; she was there to lure her serial killer dad's new victim. After escaping from the clutches of Maddie's dangerous father, she bonds with the little girl. Only Maddie knows what it was like to be at that house. And when no family members come forward to claim Maddie, Zoe decides to adopt her. 

To those who think they know her, Eliza Curran has it all: two healthy children, a stunning home and a wealthy, adoring husband. No one would guess the reality of her life: trapped in an unhappy marriage to a controlling man, she longs for a way out. When she takes on a new tenant, her life changes unexpectedly. Dan Jones is charming and perceptive, and quickly becomes a close friend to the whole family. But Dan's arrival threatens to tip Eliza's fragile world out of balance. And when someone has as many secrets as Eliza does, the smallest slip could destroy everything.

The white-washed Italian villa is perfect. I thought it might feel odd, living in a stranger’s house for the summer, but as my husband and children swim in the infinity pool, I start to relax. And then, in the back of a wardrobe, I find something that shatters everything.... Sparkling green eyes, square jaw, lopsided smile. A young man with his arm around a beautiful woman. The picture is old and faded, but I’d recognize him anywhere. The man is my husband.

Christine and Jessica cross paths working at the advertising agency Christine runs with her husband. These two women are about to uncover the dark secrets of their own traumatic pasts. But they have no idea that they are connected. The shocking truth of what happened at the wedding all those years ago, and what became of Margaret, is going to blow their lives apart in more ways than each of them could ever have imagined....

Ellen was just trying to help a stranger. That was how it started: giving a few minutes respite to a flustered young mother sitting opposite her on the train. A few minutes holding her baby while the mother makes an urgent call. The weight of the child in her arms making Ellen's heart ache for what she can never have. Five minutes pass. Ten. The train pulls into a station and Ellen is stunned to see the mother hurrying away down the platform without looking back.