British Thrillers

When the body of an old man is found lying in the ruins of St Benet’s Abbey, his throat cut, a knife resting in his open hand, DI John Tanner and DC Jenny Evans are given no choice but to accept a ruling of death by misadventure. But when the body goes missing from its tomb, after a priest is found nailed to a cross, and another impaled on a stake, everything begins to point back to the murder of a teenage girl, thrown from the top of a church tower, some 43 years before.

As a politician, Emma has sacrificed a great deal for her career—including her marriage and her relationship with her teenage daughter, Flora. The glare of the spotlight is unnerving for Emma, particularly when it leads to countless insults, threats, and trolling as she tries to work in the public eye. As a woman, she knows her reputation is worth its weight in gold but as a politician, she discovers it only takes one slip-up to destroy it completely.

A body caught on the end of a mast, another skewered by a rhond hook, and a chain of evidence Tanner simply cannot accept. As a twisting gale howls its way over Barton Broad, DS Jenny Evans joins a handsome old friend to help rescue the crew of an overturned boat. But when they discover a body, snagged on the end of the mast, one murder soon follows another, leaving DI John Tanner facing a race against time, desperate to prove that the most obvious suspect isn’t who everyone seems to think it is.

A crippled cargo ship drifts helplessly in the face of an oncoming hurricane-force storm. On board, a passenger whose presence means the world is watching. Only the skill, determination and raw courage of a lifeboat crew and the British military forces despatched to save them offer any hope of survival. But set against the savagery of the Atlantic even that might not be enough....

The peace of Kielder Water is shattered when tourists open a barrel they found floating in the reservoir at dawn. Detectives Stone and Oliver are called to examine the skeletal remains inside. The tourists are eliminated from the investigation, but that same day a second body is discovered - this one with skin. Have the police let the killer leave the scene? While Stone investigates the remains, Oliver travels to Iceland to gather evidence and track down the tourists who have fled. Someone will do anything to protect the secrets of the past.

You are Dead is the 11th thrilling crime novel in Peter James' Roy Grace series, narrated by Daniel Weyman. They were marked for death. The last words Jamie Ball hears from his fiancée, Logan Somerville, are in a terrified mobile phone call. She has just driven into the underground car park beneath the block of flats where they live in Brighton. Then she screams and the phone goes dead.

DS Karen Hart’s happy world is shattered the moment she finds her fiancé Mike’s mother murdered on what should have been a night of celebration. And even worse, someone has sewn the soft skin around Lorraine’s eyes shut… Karen’s entire soul aches to uncover Lorraine’s killer. But her team cannot let her be a part of the investigation, and she is forced to watch from the sidelines.

Virtual romance becomes a terrifying obsession in Peter James' tenth Roy Grace novel, Want You Dead.... Single girl, 29, smouldering redhead, love life that's crashed and burned. Seeks new flame to rekindle her fire. Fun, friendship and - who knows - maybe more? When Red Westwood meets handsome, charming and rich Bryce Laurent through an online dating agency, there is an instant attraction. But as their love blossoms, the truth about his past, and his dark side, begins to emerge.

Robbie Parsons is one of London's finest, a black cab driver who knows the city by heart. In his backseat is a man with a gun in his hand - a man who brazenly committed a crime in front of the Artemis Club then jumped in and ordered Parsons to drive. As the criminal eventually escapes to Nairobi, Detective Superintendent Richard Jury comes across the case. He knew one of the victims, a professor of astrophysics and an expert gambler. Feeling personally affronted, Jury enlists his whole gang of merry characters to contend with a case that involves Tanzanian gem mines, a closed Reno casino, and a hidden pub.

The grisly headline leaves nothing to the imagination: "Woman's torso recovered from Tokyo Bay. Believed to be missing British bartender Lily Bridges." The only suspect is Lucy Fly. Her friend is dead, her lover has disappeared, and as far as anyone is concerned, she's as good as guilty. Trapped in the interrogation room, Lucy begins to unravel two stories. One, for the police, is a spare outline, offering more questions than answers. The other - the real one, if you believe her - is a gripping dive into an obsessive mind, revealing the checkered past that brought her to Japan.

Her name is Sandy. You might know her as the loving wife of Detective Superintendent Roy Grace. But there's more to her than meets the eye. A woman with a dubious past, a complicated present and an uncertain future. Then she was gone. Her disappearance caused a nationwide search. Even the best detective on the force couldn't find her. They thought she was dead. Where did she go? Why did she run? What would cause a woman to leave her whole life behind and simply vanish?

Thirty years ago, a group of five child detectives: Tommy, Luke, Tess, Jane and Daniel, along with their dog, Dexter, made the national press with their crime solving. Nicknamed the Magpies, their adventures were written up as novels by author Reginald Troughton and released to children around the world, including a ten-year-old Declan Walsh. But now, someone is targeting the Magpies, with Reginald brutally murdered while writing a last "lost" adventure.

Everyone told Cara Shelly that she was crazy to set up a café in the shadow of eccentric Kentish stately home Tanton Towers. But three years later, the Happy Huffkin café is thriving, and Cara considers the Tanton Towers staff - and its eccentric owners, Max and Alison - to be like family. But one summer evening, Alison comes hurtling down to the café to beg her for help. Daphne Hanson, queen of the Towers' costume-clad dancing troupe is lying dead in the orangery. Strangled! But by whom? And why?

DCI Matilda Darke has returned to work after a nine-month absence. A shadow of her former self, she is tasked with reopening a cold case: the terrifyingly brutal murders of Miranda and Stefan Harkness. The only witness was their 11-year-old son, Jonathan, who was too deeply traumatised to speak a word. Then a dead body is discovered, and the investigation leads back to Matilda's case. Suddenly the past and present converge, and it seems a killer may have come back for more....

The Cornish village of St. Petroc is the sort of place where people come to hide. Tom Killgannon is one such person. But when a seventeen-year-old runaway named Lila breaks into Tom’s house, she takes more than just his money. His wallet holds everything about his new identity. He also knows that Lila is in danger from the travelers’ commune she has been living at. Something sinister has been going on there, and Lila knows more than she realizes. But to find her, he risks not only giving away his location to the gangs he’s in hiding from but also becoming a target for whoever is hunting Lila.

As the pearling ships return to Bannin Bay after a long diving season, 20-year-old Eliza Brightwell awaits the arrival of her father’s boat. But when his lugger finally limps in, it brings a tale of tragedy: Charles Brightwell, master pearler, has gone missing at sea. Whispers from the townsfolk point to mutiny or murder. Headstrong Eliza knows it is up to her to find out who—or what—is responsible for her father’s disappearance. Searching for the truth, she delves beneath the glamorous veneer of the south sea pearling trade.

Read by Daniel Weyman (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power) 'What a fool I've been not to have read Peter James until The Hawk Is Dead! A great story' – James Patterson, bestselling author of the Alex Cross series Roy Grace never dreamed a murder investigation would take him deep into...

Harry Richards, a local solicitor, is found in his car, throat slit. DI Clare Mackay is on the case. She soon learns that Harry was not the upstanding man he seemed to be. Finding the killer should be easy. Then the wife of one of Harry's colleagues is discovered dead in her car, and Clare realises there is something more sinister at play… Can she find out who's behind the murders before they turn their attention to her?

Thomas Mundy checks in to London's Wrexley Hotel, but he never checks out. The maid finds him on the floor of his room, bludgeoned to death by his own walking stick. Inspector Witherspoon is soon on the case and learns Mundy was an unlikely victim for such a violent crime. But Mrs. Jeffries and the household staff uncover that Mundy was less an amiable businessman and more a duplicitous con man with enemies on both sides of the Atlantic. Now Witherspoon and his staff must determine who on their lengthy list of suspects had the motive to put Mundy in the red.

When a film shoot on Wharfedale’s vintage railway turns into a grisly crime scene, DCI Oldroyd’s idyllic visit to the countryside with his partner Deborah is well and truly stopped in its tracks. One of the film’s stars has been shot dead in a train carriage while the cameras rolled outside. But nobody else went in—or came out. Has the killer really pulled off the perfect, impossible crime?