Showing results by publisher "Soundings" in Crime Thrillers

Archaeologist Neil Watson did not expect to find the body of American veteran Norman Openheim in the ruins of the old chantry chapel. He turns to his old student friend, Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson, for help. Ironically, both men are looking at an invading force - Wes the WWII Yanks and Neil a group of Spaniards killed by outraged locals as they limped from the wreckage of the Armada. 400 years apart two strangers in a strange land have died violently - could the same motives of hatred, jealousy and revenge be at work? Wes is running out of time to find out....

Former lawyer Merrin McKenzie has returned to her hometown of St Ives, the stunning coastal town in Cornwall. She has settled back into life there in a lovely cottage, and new friendships are beginning to blossom.

London, Autumn 1916. When he slips out of a house in the early hours, Simon Wilder is too preoccupied to realise that he is being stalked. As he walks along the street, lights begin to dim as a warning that there's another Zeppelin attack. British aeroplanes attack the Zeppelin. Suddenly, it bursts into flame and lights up the whole sky. The crowds cheer as the great fireball drops slowly down and crashes in a field but the one person unable to watch is Simon Wilder.

A girl returns from boarding school to her sleepy Merseyside hometown and waits to be reunited with her childhood friend, Harriet, chief architect of all their past mischief. She roams listlessly along the shoreline and the woods still pitted with wartime trenches, and encounters ‘the Tsar’ – almost old, unhappily married, both dangerously fascinating and repulsive. Pretty, malevolent Harriet finally arrives – and over the course of the long holidays draws her friend into a scheme to beguile then humiliate the Tsar, with disastrous, shocking consequences.

Simmy Brown has a lot on her mind. Not just keeping her florist business afloat, her father’s failing health and the challenge of developing a long-term relationship with Christopher but also the approach of Mother’s Day, a busy and painful day for her. But in taking an order for a retirement party in Staveley, she is pulled into her most challenging investigation. When a daughter starts accusing her own mother of murder, Simmy, Ben and Bonnie find themselves taking different sides of the investigation. With her relationships under strain, Simmy is tried on all fronts....

Balmoral Castle, 1905. For Rose McQuinn, a handsome cottage on the Royal estate promises a summer holiday of unaccustomed luxury. As Rose travels by train with her little stepdaughter, Meg, and her trusty dog, Thane, she wonders what exciting adventures await them at the Royal household. The holiday takes a darker turn when Rose is warned not to interfere in two deaths that occur soon after her arrival. When they’re dismissed as accidents, she suspects foul play.

Former police officer Dean Matheson has been playing it safe since the case that cost him almost everything. But working as a PI doesn’t quite cut it - that is until a British woman walks into his office with a job that Dean can’t resist. The woman’s daughter, Hannah Walker, and her friend Jodie have gone missing whilst working at a ski resort in Colorado. It’s clear there’s something sinister about the girls’ disappearance, but then why are the local police department being so unhelpful?

Inspector Angel and his team are faced with a baffling case when a fruit gum found at a murder scene becomes a significant clue in their investigation. The discovery of a hospital porter, also poisoned, indicates that the killer has struck more than once, and Angel is thrown headlong into a world of blackmail and deeply buried family secrets.

After the death of leading haematologist Professor Anstruther, antiquarian book dealer Anthony Sparrow is tasked with clearing out his mansion of its books and papers. He soon begins to question the real circumstances of the old man's death: was he in fact murdered, and if so, who was responsible? The answer might be found in the personal diaries and letters which Sparrow unearths. But as he closes in on the answer, the perspective suddenly shifts and everything which he was sure about dissolves into darkness and shadows.

After a traumatic event that almost ripped Jen Garner’s family apart, life is finally starting to get back to normal. Then a woman’s body is found in the river. Shortly afterwards, a young boy is discovered wandering the streets. He refuses to speak to anyone, just repeats one name over and over, to the confusion of most of the local authorities - but Jen knows exactly who he’s asking for, and it’s enough to make her blood run cold....

linded war veteran Frederick Rowlands has escaped the bustle of London to establish a secure life for himself and his family in the countryside. But everything is about to change when an old friend, Chief Inspector Douglas, asks for his assistance in tracking down the killer of a beautiful dancer. That there is a link between the murder and St Dunstan's, the institute for blind ex-servicemen of which Rowlands himself is a member, is only one of the puzzling features of the case.

While attending a lavish masked ball in Venice, retired Scotland Yard Detective Jasper has a shock when, at the midnight démasqué, he spots a woman whose accidental death he investigated in England three years ago. Even more stunned than Jasper is the woman's husband, Lord Bantham, who has since remarried, not to mention his new wife who sees her acquired position and wealth slip away. Then there are her old friends who all seem to have known more about the 'accident' than they ever let on. Then, the resurrected lady is found dead the next morning.

Laura Hardy is recovering from a traumatic car crash. The incident proved fatal for her mother, and whilst Laura's life was spared, she is left injured, weak and grieving for her loss. Her brother, Edward, resolves that accommodating Laura at his family home, Four Winds, will provide the respite she so desperately needs. But as soon as she steps foot over the threshold, she is assailed by feelings of choking and terror, engulfed by a sense of despair.

Who does Andrew Clayton turn to when his wife has been murdered, his child is in danger, and the police think he is responsible? Despite his mistrust of Clayton, Joe Hunter accepts the job of protecting young Cole. But who is he protecting the boy from? And why? It's clear Clayton knows more about his wife's killer, but he isn't saying. And when his silence places Cole in the killer's sights, there's...No Safe Place.

Two children are abducted on their way home from school and are still missing after several weeks - no one knows whether they are alive or dead. The police are certain that ruthless local gangster Vince Formosa is behind the kidnapping, but have no proof. Forced to resign following an accidental death in police custody, former Detective Inspector Sep Black knows he's been set up. But how can he prove it? Convinced that Formosa has a mole within the police, Black sets out to expose the traitor and clear his name.

The body of an unknown woman is found in an Edinburgh close and the police are quick to label it as a random act of violence...until, that is, Detective Constable Faro finds a playing card, the nine of diamonds, planted on the corpse. His superiors scoff at his suspicions, but days later a man is attacked in the street and left badly bruised and battered, with the nine of diamonds in his pocket. Faro seizes on the connection and it is not the last calling card. But what is it that links the victims? Beset by hostile superiors and a police-hating public, Faro feels he may never crack this confounding case.

When Lindsay Ellis was a teenager she witnessed the aftermath of a violent murder involving her lover’s father. The killer was never found. Traumatised by what she saw, Lindsay had no choice but to leave her home village of Hartley Cross and its close-knit community behind. Now, years later, she must face up to the terrible memories that still haunt her. But will confronting the past finally allow Lindsay to heal, or will her return to Hartley Cross unearth dangerous secrets and put the people she has come to care about most at risk?

A prominent millionaire disappears, and as the headlines grow more cynical by the day, Jack Shepherd knows that his search for a missing retired bookie can only end in misery. But in accepting May Marsh's commission to find her husband, Shepherd doesn't anticipate how high the odds stacked against him are as he is pitched into a world of ruthless exploitation, unbending violence and a heart-stopping confrontation with old enemies - the city's criminal royalty, the Settle family.