Showing results by publisher "Orion" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Running from her past, Rachel answers an advert to be a live-in assistant to glamorous and eccentric author Dorothy Winters. But behind the closed doors of Dorothy's mansion, she quickly discovers that nothing is as it seems. When Dorothy's manuscript throws up striking similarities to events in Rachel's own life, she becomes convinced that the past she's tried to hide is catching up with her. Then the phone calls start. The parcel arrives. The blood shows up in the bathroom. And Dorothy's friend disappears....

When Nora takes the train from London to visit her sister in the countryside, she expects to find her waiting at the station or at home cooking dinner. But when she walks into Rachel's familiar house, what she finds is entirely different: her sister has been the victim of a brutal murder. Stunned and adrift, Nora finds she can't return to her former life. An unsolved assault in the past has shaken her faith in the police, and she can't trust them to find her sister's killer.

There's something strange about Walter Kopple's farm. It begins with his grandson, who senselessly murders one of Walter's pigs. But then rumours spread that Walter's grandson heard a voice commanding him to kill. And that the voice belongs to a most peculiar creature: the pig named Pearl. Walter has always been afraid of the strangely malevolent Pearl. But as paranoia takes hold and the townspeople descend on Walter's farm with violent wrath, they begin to discover that true evil wears a human face.

Detective Matt Jackson has reached the end. His beloved wife, Polly, is the latest victim of 'NEON' - a serial killer who displays his victims in snaking neon lights - and he can't go on without her. Unable to take his life, Jackson hires a hitwoman to finish the job. But on the night of his own murder, he makes a breakthrough in the case, and at the last minute his hitwoman, Iris, is offered an irresistible alternative: help Jackson find and kill NEON in return for the detective's entire estate.

Thessaly Hanlon is four hours into a long drive home through the night when she pulls into a 24-hour roadside diner to take a break. She's exhausted, but when she hears a chillingly familiar voice from the next booth, she wonders if he'll ever sleep again. The voice is unmistakable. It belongs to Casper Sturgis, the man who murdered Thessaly's brother two decades before, and then disappeared without a trace.

The Persian War is over, and an unaccustomed decade of peace has come to ancient Athens. Philocles, an aspiring comic playwright, is making his living as a writer for hire, but this year is the highlight of his career - he has a play in a drama competition at a prestigious festival. The last thing he wants to find on his doorstep the day before is a dead body. Just who is this dead man? Is it just a robbery gone wrong? With the play that could make his name on the horizon, Philocles must find out who this man is, why he has been murdered - and why the corpse was in his doorway.

'Are you waiting for Monsieur Bellivier, madame?' Helena Folasadu should of course say no. She doesn't know the man talking to her, she doesn't know Monsieur Bellivier and she certainly isn't waiting for him. But, bored of life, and sparked by a whim, she says yes. The go-between leads her to a deserted floor in an office building and offers her a large sum of money to sit at a computer and forward emails to Monsieur Bellivier.

Who is Claire Gravesend? So wonders PI Lee Crowe when he finds her dead, in a fine cocktail dress, on top of a Rolls-Royce in the most dangerous neighbourhood in San Francisco. Claire's mother doesn't believe the coroner: her daughter did not kill herself. But the questions about the Gravesend family pile up fast. Until Crowe finds their secret home in San Francisco. Sleeping in an upstairs bedroom, he finds Claire, and as far as he can tell, she's alive....

On their first date back in law school, Natalie and Will Clarke bonded over drinks, dinner and whether they could get away with murder. Now married, they'll put the latter to the test when an unchecked danger in their community places their son in jeopardy. Working as a criminal defence attorney, Nat refuses to rely on the broken legal system to keep her family safe. She knows that if you want justice...you have to get it yourself.

A priceless flower. A dangerous past. A terrible secret. On the eve of the Second World War, the last surviving specimen of a prized camellia plant lies secreted away on an English country estate. When amateur botanist Flora Lewis is employed to infiltrate the household and acquire the coveted bloom, she embarks on a perilous journey of discovery that leads her to a blossoming romance, and into terrible danger.

Your partner has had a mysterious accident, leaving them with no memory. They don't remember anything: how you met, your first kiss, not even your wedding day. An experimental medical treatment promises a cure. A chance to relive the memories. Going through with it might bring you back together. But discovering the truth about the accident will tear you apart. Do you walk away? Or open Pandora's box?

A child in danger, an isolated house in the depths of winter - and a killer on the loose.... Snow-covered fields and moors stretch away on all sides of Herondale House. Despite rumours of an escaped killer on the run, Deborah Lindsay knows that she must control her fear - she has a young charge, 13-year-old prodigy Carreen, to care for. But the isolated Yorkshire farmhouse already holds the terrible secret of one death - and after an increasing number of sinister 'accidents', Deborah begins to wonder how long it will be before evil strikes again.... 

How do you get away with murder? You lead the world to believe that it has already been solved. Erica Nolan has lived a perfectly normal life. That is, until the day that she discovers that she is not Erica Nolan after all. That she is someone entirely different. But who? She struggles to unpick the lies that surround her until finally she is left with a crime - one that was solved decades ago. A family dead in a river, all that was left of the baby girl a carseat and a single shoe. Could she possibly be that baby? The thing about closed cases - no one is investigating them.

Philocles and his troupe of actors have taken their play, The Builders, on the road to Corinth. But when their local contact dies of a suspicious poison only hours after they arrive in the city, Philocles needs to start asking questions. But in one of the busiest trading cities in the ancient world, with rival gangs roaming the streets and a seemingly ruthless poisoner on the loose - where does he even start?

I found I didn't know who I had become. I couldn't find the woman you'd met. I only knew that if you didn't want her, neither did I. There is more than one way to stay close to someone...if you're prepared to do whatever it takes. Skye meets the feckless but handsome Johnny Strachan in the Alps, where she reluctantly falls into a heady love affair. At home, Johnny has promised to call her - this is just the beginning after all. But when Skye hears nothing from him, it seems it's actually the end.

In 1975, 15-year-old April Cooper and her 18-year-old boyfriend embark on a weeklong killing spree that results in the deaths in a dozen innocent people in Southern California's San Gabriel Valley. Was April a willing accomplice or a victim herself, abducted by an obsessed psychopath and forced into committing horrible acts? No one will ever know for sure, as April and Eric were apparently killed in a bloody shoot-out at the Death Valley compound of their final victims - a family of off-the-grid survivalists known as The Gideons. 

One day Cerys walks out of her comfortable life, never to return. Standing on a hillside at night with no phone, no possessions, watching her car set alight, she believes this is the end - that's when Lily walks into her life. The two women strike a fierce bond, and are both running from things that soon threaten to catch up with them. Can these two women keep each other safe? Can they trust each other? Or are the pasts they've escaped too much for either of them to bear?

Trapped inside a secure hospital after what may not be her first suicide attempt, Mya Dala's only contact with the outside world is a TV screen. One day, it starts to show videos of her sweet, gentle boyfriend, Marc - hand-in-hand with her doppelgänger. Convinced she has been replaced by a perfect clone, Mya plots how to get back to Marco with the help of a violently troubled inmate known as the Madboy. As she plans her escape, her memories of Marc become conflicted. It seems as if years ago he was a very different person, too.

When 18-year-old Joshua Mayo takes a man's life in a terrible accident, he leaves the scene without reporting the crime to the police. He hopes to put the awful night behind him and move on with his life. But, of course, he ends up telling his mother, Karen, what happened. Karen has raised Joshua on her own in Cedar Rapids, Iowa - and she'd thought they'd finally made it. He was doing well in school and was only months away from starting college at his dream school. After hearing his dark confession, she's forced to make a choice no parent should have to make.

After caring for his mother in her last days, Alex has gone off round the world - with no plan other than to travel and maybe recapture some of his lost youth. Beginning his travels in Indonesia, the idea of finding himself sounds appealing...but soon he finds himself in real trouble. It starts with a bus crash on a terrifying mountain road. Lucky to escape with his life, Alex loses everything else - even his identity. But then he meets Domino, a beautiful girl who takes Alex under her wing.