Mystery Church

It’s a crisp spring day in Dulwich Village when Beth arrives at the intricate iron gates of Wyatt’s School for her new job as the historian’s assistant. But on a lunchtime stroll admiring the pristine grounds of this 500-year-old institution, Beth is shocked to stumble over the body of her new boss, Alan Jenkins, spectacles askew, his mustard-yellow tweed jacket covered in blood. Gossip about outsider Beth spreads like wildfire. The parents in the playground are all whispering: Did she bump him off to get her hands on his job?

A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged.

Perfect for fans of Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and The Light, Matthew Shardlake is back in the sixth book in the Shardlake series, from number one bestselling author C. J. Sansom. 'When it comes to intriguing Tudor-based narratives, Hilary Mantel has a serious rival' - Sunday Times ‘Sansom has...

A beautiful woman stands by the side of the road, barefoot and bleeding, a child in her arms. Someone just tried to kill her, but she wouldn't recognize him if she saw his face. She doesn't even remember her own name. A suburban cop surveys a kitchen in disarray - a woman and child missing, a chilling note. This crime scene is unlike any he has ever seen.

'A terrific read - murder, arson and a cat who is so much more than he seems!' – J. M. Hall, author of A Spoonful of Murder The Cat Who Solved Three Murders by L T Shearer is a charming cosy crime read for fans of Richard Osman and S. J. Bennett. Retired police detective Lulu Lewis’s life...

Emma loves her husband, Leo, and their young daughter, Ruby: she’d do anything for them. But almost everything she's told them about herself is a lie. And she might just have got away with it, if it weren’t for her husband’s job. Leo is an obituary writer, and Emma is a well-known marine biologist, so when she suffers a serious illness, Leo copes by doing what he knows best - reading and writing about her life. But as he starts to unravel her past, he discovers the woman he loves doesn’t really exist. Even her name is fictitious.

Milan, 1497: Leonardo is completing "The Last Supper". Pope Alexander VI is determined to execute him after realizing that the painting contains clues to a baffling and blasphemous message that he is driven to decode. The Holy Grail and the Eucharistic Bread are missing, there is no meat on the table, and the apostles, shockingly, are portraits of well-known heretics and none of them are depicted with halos. And why has the artist painted himself into the scene with his back turned toward Jesus?

Fatima, Portugal, 1917: The Virgin Mary appears to three peasant children, sharing with them three secrets, two of which are soon revealed to the world. The third secret is sealed away in the Vatican, read only by popes, and not disclosed until the year 2000. When revealed, its quizzical tone and anticlimactic nature leave many faithful wondering if the church has truly unveiled all of the Virgin Mary's words or if a message far more important has been left in the shadows.

Fallujah, Iraq, 2004. Four US nationals are ambushed by Al Qaeda and tortured, hanged from a bridge over the Euphrates. In Response, the US government launches a fierce assault to try and take the city once and for all. But, they fail, abandoning it to the very people they came to destroy. In the aftermath, a stockpile of weapons and ordinance is lost, along with a vital CIA asset... And the men hunting her are the worst possible kind, an extremist sect known as Tariq al-Aswad. A brutal group known for their merciless violence.

The summer in question started out with hot, fun-filled days and new friendships. We had just turned thirteen and had our whole lives ahead of us. But that was before her. Before we became known as the Hixton Five and our lives become defined by one night. It’s hard to believe twenty years have passed since she was locked away. But now she’s free and strange things have started to happen. When I close my eyes, the creeping anxiety and fear is overwhelming and all too real. Because the monster is back, and I know she has a score to settle with us.

For six years, Fiona has lived a nightmare. Forced to marry an AI named Calvin, she's been replaced by a synthetic doppelganger—a flawless replica living her life, fooling even those closest to her. No one knows she's missing. No one is coming to save her. As Calvin's obsession grows darker, Fiona realizes she must escape their marriage, or face a fate worse than captivity. But how do you outmaneuver an entity that controls every electronic system, every safeguard, with ruthless efficiency?

Everyone who lives at 23 Beulah Grove has a secret. If they didn't, they wouldn't be renting rooms in a dodgy old building for cash - no credit check, no lease. It's the kind of place you end up when you you've run out of other options.The six residents mostly keep to themselves, but one unbearably hot summer night, a terrible accident pushes them into an uneasy alliance. What they don't know is that one of them is a killer. He's already chosen his next victim, and he'll do anything to protect his secret.

In a tiny, dilapidated trailer in northeastern Oregon, a young woman saw a vision of the Virgin Mary in an ordinary landscape painting hanging on her bedroom wall. After being met with skepticism from the local parish, the matter was officially placed "under investigation" by the Catholic diocese. Investigative journalist Randall Sullivan wanted to know how, exactly, one might conduct the official inquiry into such an incident, so he set off to interview theologians, historians, and postulators.

1943: The world is at war and the outcome is anything but sure. In the heartland, communities like Caroline, Iowa, must bind together to support the cause. As the war drags on, few families escape paying the ultimate price. But the unity of this close-knit community is threatened by a violent death: a murder committed in the basement of the town's beloved Church Street United Brethren. Everyone, including the congregation's handsome new pastor, becomes a suspect.

On a trip into Winchester, former chief inspector Angus Sinclair learns of a tragedy that has taken place in the village he is staying in. Beloved church organist Greta Hartmann has slipped and fallen to her death in a shallow creek, and while investigations conclude it to be an accident, her friend and housemate, Vera, remains unconvinced. After learning that Greta was the widow of a prominent anti-Nazi German preacher, Sinclair meets with the distraught Vera, and he resolves to dig deeper into the story.

St Abra's church is harboring a dark secret. Several elderly parishioners have been found dead in the church's confessions booth, all appearing to have suffered fatal heart attacks. But when another, much younger body is discovered in exactly the same way, Detective Sergeant Blake Harte must investigate how it is possible for the confessions booth to be killing off its occupants. Dark forces are at play, forcing Blake to believe it's more than just tragic coincidence.

They double-crossed him and left him for dead. Now they're going to wish they made sure ... Solomon Church is a ghost. An ex-SAS trooper living in self-imposed exile, his fragile existence relies on one thing: that everyone thinks he's dead. Ten years ago, a mission to take out a tyrannical warlord in the DRC went sideways and his own brothers-in-arms turned on him. Now, the past has come calling, and the events that transpired in the African town of Maroua are echoing all the way to number 10 Downing Street.

Fresh out of prison, Jess Strickland has just six months’ probation to serve until she's free to get on with the life she left behind four years ago. With few options available, Jess takes a job at Bright’s, an industrial laundry company, alongside other ex-cons, all eager to keep their noses clean. Here she finds an ally in Karla, but soon learns her new boss, Terry, is not all he seems. Realising she’s no safer on the outside, Jess refuses to be a victim any longer. How far will she go to avoid going back to prison?

The Great War is still raging when Francesca Hatton’s adored grandfather dies on his estate in England’s isolated Exe Valley. She is his sole heir, for her five cousins are dead now on the battlefields of France. Among his effects, Francesca is stunned to find a letter cursing the Hattons. And at the funeral, a stranger publicly accuses Hatton of murder. Who was her grandfather? The kind man who raised her - or a secretive killer? For in the back garden where she and her cousins once played, there is a white stone they always called the Murder Stone

The critically acclaimed A Corpse in the Koryo brought readers into the enigmatic workings of North Korean intelligence with the introduction of a new kind of detective—the mysterious Inspector O. In the follow-up, Hidden Moon, O threaded his way through the minefield of North Korean ministries into a larger conspiracy he was never supposed to touch.