Gripping Thriller

Read by Daniel Weyman (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power) and featuring an author's note read by Peter James '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...

Newlyweds Lady Swift and Detective Hugh Seldon are honeymooning in the most romantic city on earth. Clifford, her butler, has come along for the trip to make sure everything goes to plan for the happy couple. And Gladstone, the mischievous bulldog, to make sure it doesn’t!

Behind a wall of amnesia, he can’t remember anything. Maybe he can’t bear to. Nameless knows only the mission: Directed by the mysterious Ace of Diamonds, he travels the country, turning predators into prey. But the pain in his past can’t hold him back when dark visions of the future lead him toward his greatest test yet. Nameless is closing in on a revelatory endgame in this collection of short thrillers from #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz.

Fact: During the night of February 1, 1959, in the remote reaches of Siberia, nine Russian hikers slash open their tent from the inside and flee into a blizzard in subpolar temperatures. Fact: By morning all are dead, several having suffered gruesome, violent deaths. What happened to them has baffled investigators and researchers to this day.

Then: Morning light shines into the nursery, casting shadows across the pale pink walls and wooden cot in the middle of the room. She opens the door expecting to hear the soft coo of her daughter, Sofia, stretching herself awake. But the room is silent. The cot is empty. Her little girl has vanished. Now: Twelve years have passed, but Emily will never forget the night her life changed forever, and she’s happy to have her daughter back beside her. A teenager now, Sofia started asking questions about when she was a baby.

DC Scott Cullen of Lothian and Borders CID has only been in the job three months. Young, eager to please and desperate to do good. So a missing persons should be an easy case to solve. Right? Fresh from a messy divorce, Caroline Adamson’s future is finally looking up. Her son seems happy and she’s dating again. Trouble is, Cullen can’t find Caroline or the man she met on Schoolbook, the latest social network taking Edinburgh by storm.

When construction workers unearth a girl’s skeleton in Stillwater, Minnesota, Special Agent Nikki Hunt is called to the scene by her boyfriend Rory. Nikki knows instantly that the girl was murdered, but she is shocked when Rory immediately recognizes her. The victim was his childhood sweetheart, Becky, and he was the last person to see her before she went missing 24 years ago.

Five strangers. One impossible abduction. A choice that could unmake the universe. Aiden, a corporate titan with everything to lose. Dr. Lena Petrova, a scientist who believes in logic over miracles. Elias Vance, a cynical engineer haunted by ghosts in the machine. Ben Carter, a soldier who trusts only his fists. Maya Singh, an artist who feels what others cannot. Each lives an ordinary life—until reality fractures. A flash of light, a scream hidden in paint, a silence that devours sound.

Ten years ago, Marshall profiled a serial killer the press had dubbed the Shadow Man, who killed six young athletes at remote sites in cold blood, and he worked with Northumbria Police to catch the perpetrator. But the Shadow Man kept the burial locations of the final three bodies to himself. Tired of the passivity, Marshall quit profiling and joined the police. Now a detective inspector in Police Scotland’s Borders Major Investigation Team, Marshall is summoned to HMP Frankland in County Durham, a.k.a. the Monster Mansion.

The young man with the shock of white-blond hair lay spread-eagled on the floor, surrounded by fallen books. His hand reached out to the scattered pages, as though he was trying to tell her something. But who is he? How did he come to be killed in Flora’s ordinary little bookshop? Flora finds out he was staying at the Priory Hotel, and when the gardener suddenly dies in its beautiful grounds only a few days later, she is certain that something untoward is happening in her quiet village by the sea.

Cassie stares at the woman on her doorstep in disbelief. Just months after losing her only son, Josh, here stands a stranger claiming to be Josh’s girlfriend. But it’s not only the woman Cassie is shocked by, it’s the baby nestled in Kim’s arms. Cassie’s grandchild. I know what you did. As Cassie tries to do what’s best for baby Samuel, she starts to receive threatening messages from someone from her past - someone Cassie has been hiding from for a long time.

‘I’ll always protect you.’ These are the words my mother whispered to me every time she kissed me goodnight. And whenever we ventured outside our windswept seaside village, she’d clutch my hand tightly and her face would be pinched and pale. I never understood why. But now I do. Growing up, I’d heard the whispers and the rumours. My mother tried to keep the truth from me, but she failed. I understand exactly what happened eighteen years ago. I know I am the murdered doctor’s child.

'Kept me furiously turning the pages. What a ride!...A dark, devious and devastatingly twisted tale.' Alice Hunter, author of The Serial Killer's Wife Her missing daughter was just the start of the nightmare Twenty years ago, Christine Donovan took a call she should have ignored while shopping...

When Detective Morgan Brookes is called to the scene of a suicide, she’s devastated to recognize the young teacher sprawled out on the grass like a broken doll. She hasn’t seen Brittany for years. Not since the tragic death of Morgan’s high school boyfriend ripped their friendship group apart. But when witnesses describe Brittany’s erratic behavior and jumbled speech that morning, Morgan is convinced the fearless, life-loving girl she once knew didn’t jump of her own accord.

On a winding mountain road into the town of Denton, Pennsylvania, Detective Josie Quinn finds the body of a local teenage girl, Dina Hale. The sight of plum-colored bruises gathering around the girl’s neck pierces Josie’s heart, but the discovery of a second girl’s empty purse in the dirt nearby gives her a flicker of hope that one person, at least, made a lucky escape. Dina’s parents are grief-stricken as the town rallies together in a desperate search for the second girl, who waitressed with Dina. The two best friends were on their way to a shift when they were attacked.

Rookie Det. Kenda investigates a 1975 case that begins with the murder of a beloved Colorado philanthropist and society figure whose husband, a gambler and womanizer, appears to have an air-tight alibi. Mentored by his veteran partner Det. Lee Wilson, a former Nashville singer turned skilled investigator, Kenda’s case quickly attracts attention from the FBI, CIA, and Interpol, for its similarity to a string of killings involving wealthy married women. All the murders appear to have been committed by a hired professional.

After crossing from England on the SS Celestiana, Lady Eleanor Swift sets up her home-away-from-home in a lavish apartment in New York City. She is soon the toast of the town, with no high-class soirée complete without her presence. Of course, she drags her butler Clifford and Gladstone the bulldog along to every party, too. But when she witnesses the charming doorman of her building, Marty, knocked down and killed in a hit-and-run, she finds fashionable society suddenly closes rank. The only local detective interested in helping her find the culprit is street-smart beat cop, Officer Balowski.

When the body of a woman is found hanging from a tree in her front garden, rookie Detective Morgan Brookes is first on the scene. But Olivia Potter is past saving. And when her husband and daughters cannot be traced, Morgan knows there is more to this tragedy. And then she finds them. Lying huddled together in the dark basement, each of their faces covered with a small cotton cloth, their bodies cold to the touch. But as Morgan kneels beside the family, she realizes that one of the girls is still breathing.

Winter 1924. When Lady Eleanor Swift unexpectedly finds herself a guest of the reclusive Duke of Auldwyke, she’s determined to enjoy Christmas with all the trimmings at his sprawling manor house. And that includes kisses under the mistletoe and cozying up by the fire with her fiancé, dashing detective Hugh Seldon. Instead, the season of goodwill turns frosty as she finds the Duke’s studious secretary, Mr Porritt, dead in the storeroom. Clasped in his chilly hand is a golden pendant in the shape of a rose.

Rebecca only wanted to help out - to be kind. Richard seemed so alone after his wife, Nicole, died, and Rebecca wanted to make sure he knew he had someone on whom to rely. But now, she’s in Nicole’s immaculate house. Drinking from her favourite crystal wine glass. Keeping shoes in her orderly closet. Comforting her sweet and grieving stepdaughter. It feels like Rebecca is living another woman’s life.