Detective Thriller Fiction

Detective Riley Quinn has spent much of her life ridding the world of evil. After being found unconscious by firefighters, she finds herself in a new battle—her home set ablaze. Soon, flashes of her memory return, placing a shadowy figure at the center of that tragic night, revealing a truth more sinister than anyone could imagine.

The blade slices deeply into her neck, and arterial spray sweeps across her vision. She puts her hand over the wound, feeling the fight already leaving her. In a moment of surrender, she must believe something marvelous will come after she takes her last breath. Otherwise, she’ll be left with nothing but the blackness that is edging in. After therapist Sidney Callahan is found dead in her home office, Detective Madison Knight drives out to her remote cabin.

The discovery of a woman's body floating in the Medina River sends Jason and Vanessa out to a disturbing scene. Their investigation reveals a teenage girl connected to the dead woman has gone missing. With every new lead, they find themselves facing one big hurdle. Where is the girl?

Private investigator Sebastian Clifford and his partner Birdie step into the world of celebrity when a star of children's TV turns to them for help. She's being blackmailed by someone who knows about her murky past, and she's desperate to keep it hidden. But silence comes at a price, and it's one she can't afford to pay. Clifford, who knows better than anyone what it's like to be punished for one mistake, agrees to help. As they dig deeper, they discover that everyone has secrets, and some are dark enough to kill for.

To inherit billions, all Avery Kylie Grambs has to do is survive a few more weeks living in Hawthorne House. The paparazzi are dogging her every step. Financial pressures are building. Danger is a fact of life. And the only thing getting Avery through it all is the Hawthorne brothers. Her life is intertwined with theirs. She knows their secrets, and they know her. But as the clock ticks down to the moment when Avery will become the richest teenager on the planet, trouble arrives in the form of a visitor who needs her help—and whose presence in Hawthorne House could change everything.

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects more than 50 of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories - many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant.

Snow dusts the cobbled streets of York as tourists flock to its famous Christmas markets. But for DCI Oldroyd, what starts as a peaceful evening on a ghost tour quickly turns deadly. The tour guide’s grim discovery is no theatrical performance—he finds the body of Henry Marlow, a notorious local landlord, in the doorway of a derelict building. Oldroyd soon has no shortage of suspects: a resentful ex-wife, angry tenants, and even the guide who knows every secret passage of the old city.

Detective Josie Quinn is horrified when she’s called to the house of a mother who had her newborn baby snatched from her arms. A woman caught fleeing the scene is Josie’s only lead, but when questioned it seems this mysterious girl doesn’t know who she is, where she’s from, or why she is so terrified.... Is she a witness, a suspect, or the next victim? As Josie digs deeper, a letter about a mix-up at a fertility clinic links the nameless girl and the missing child to a spate of killings across the county.

A shrill scream pierced the night air. She caught the fluttering bedroom curtain and held it aside. Her little sister stared over her shoulder, trembling. A figure they knew, in a dark coat and ski hat, emerged from the bushes and stared at the window. If they tried to stop him, they’d end up in the ground… When the skeletal remains of a teenage girl are discovered buried in a deserted graveyard it’s a chilling case for Detective Ellie Reeves. Her heart catches with emotion as she examines the grave for clues and uncovers a haunting detail.

Detective Inspector Macleod returns to his island home 20 years after the painful loss of his wife. With a disposition forged in strong religious conservatism, he must bond with his new partner, the free spirited and upcoming female star of the force, to seek the killer of a young woman and shine a light on the evil beneath the surface. To do so, he must once again stand in the place where he lost everything. Only at the water’s edge will everything be made new.

When two young boys discover human bones buried beneath a tree in a trailer park, Detective Josie Quinn races to join her team at the scene. She used to play in those woods as a child, happier outside and away from her abusive mother, Belinda Rose. Josie’s past crashes into her present when a rare dental condition confirms the bones belong to a teenage foster-child who was murdered 30 years ago. A girl named Belinda Rose.

Beth and Cath are leaving their husbands. This is a story about two very different women. One is wealthy and having an affair with a man who gives her the kind of love that her cold, detached husband does not. One is living hand to mouth, suffering at the hands of a violent partner who would rather see her dead than leave him. You may think you know these women already and how their lives will unfold. Beth will live happily ever after with her little girl and her soulmate. Cath will go back to her abusive husband. And these two women will never cross paths. But you will be wrong.

When Matt Ballard was starting out his career, three boys were murdered in the same area, the remote and bleak Gibbet Fen. When the main suspect was killed in a hit-and-run, the killings stopped. But Matt was not satisfied that the real murderer had been caught. Over 25 years later, Matt gets a photo in an unmarked envelope. It's of the Gibbet Fen crime scene. And the picture was taken before the murder took place. More photos arrive, relating to the historic murders, as well as intimate pictures of Matt's very secret private life.

As the mists roll over the fens and enigmatic lights twinkle in the distance, only the locals know their way along the hidden paths through the mysterious watery terrain of one of England's most beautiful and sometimes dangerous places. Detective Matt Ballard may have retired but there's still plenty going on in the fens to keep him busy. Someone trashes an old lady's garden and daubs her isolated cottage with hateful graffiti. Emilia Swain seems to be totally harmless, so why is she being targeted?

The first time somebody tried to kill him was an accident. The second time was deliberate. Now Paul Mulchrone finds himself on the run with nobody to turn to except a nurse who has read one-too-many crime novels and a renegade copper with a penchant for violence. Together they must solve one of the most notorious crimes in Irish history. Or else they’ll be history.

It was Beth Katz’s serial killer father who made her like she is: a successful FBI agent and an unstoppable vigilante dedicated to hunting down murderers who have evaded capture. Beth will push herself to the limits to deliver justice. Even if it means killing those who deserve to die.

The new Kings Lake Central murder squad is about to spend its first morning on team-building exercises and reviewing cold cases when the call comes in that the body of one of the city's rough sleepers has been found in a shop doorway. It happens, someone says, he isn't the first to die on the streets and he won't be the last, but the story the new team begins to uncover is far from routine.

Jack Reacher hunts the hunter in the third novel in Lee Child’s New York Times–bestselling series. Reacher’s anonymity in Florida is shattered by an investigator who’s come looking for him. But hours after his arrival, the stranger is murdered. Retracing the PI’s trail back to New York...

Wild swimming in February? No, thank you. It sounds like torture to Fiona, Daisy, and Partial Sue, the retired ladies behind the counter at Dogs Need Nice Homes charity shop. Still, no one ever died of plunging into the icy waters around the sleepy little English town of Southbourne. Until now. The body of Colin Barclay, retired PE master and wild-swimming fanatic, washes up in a secluded cove. Days later, a shifty new customer comes calling at Dogs Need Nice Homes. "Is this where you solve murders?" she asks, her eyes darting wildly round the shelves of bric-a-brac.

In the peace and tranquility of the woods at Pinehills on a Saturday afternoon, a mobile phone begins to ring. The phone belongs to DC Smith, and it isn't unusual that the call is from Kings Lake Central police station; what is unusual is the fact that he seems to be the subject of an investigation rather than taking part in one. What can the links be between a prisoner's violent death in another county, the disappearance of two teenagers, and the highest profile case in Kings Lake for many years?