Showing results by author "Val McDermid" in All Categories

Bodyguarding had never made it to Manchester PI Kate Brannigan's wish list. But somebody's got to pay the bills at Brannigan & Co., and if the only earner on offer is playing nursemaid to a paranoid soap star, the fast-talking, computer-loving, white-collar-crime expert has to swallow her pride and slip into something more glam than her Thai-boxing kit. Soon, however, offstage dramas overshadow the fictional storylines, culminating in the unscripted murder of the self-styled "Seer to the Stars", and Kate finds herself with more questions than answers.

Kate Brannigan is having a bad weekend, her boyfriend's death notice is in the newspaper, her plans to capture a team of heartless fraudsters are in disarray, and a Celtic neo-punk band want her to rescue them from saboteurs. As if that isn't enough, Kate's business partner wants her to buy him out so he can emigrate to Australia, and private eyes with principles never have that kind of cash. Kate can't even cry on her best friend's shoulder, for Alexis has worries of her own. Confronting betrayal and greed, Kate fights to save her livelihood and her life.

As a favor to her rock journalist boyfriend, Thai-boxing, rock-and-roll private detective Kate Brannigan agrees to track down a missing song-writer Moira Pollock, a search that takes her into some of the seediest parts of Leeds and Bradford. But little does she realize that finding Moira is only a prelude to murder. Juggling her other cases, including a search to uncover the source of counterfeit luxury goods, Brannigan finds herself for the first time on the trail of a killer.

In Broken Ground, cold-case Detective Karen Pirie faces her hardest challenge yet. Six feet under in a Highland peat bog lies Alice Somerville’s inheritance, buried by her grandfather at the end of World War II. But when Alice finally uncovers it, she finds an unwanted surprise - a body with a bullet hole between the eyes. Meanwhile, DCI Pirie is called in to unravel a case where nothing is quite as it seems. And as she gets closer to the truth, it becomes clear that not everyone shares her desire for justice. Or even the idea of what justice is.

In the second in the series, Kate Brannigan investigates the bizarre case of the missing conservatories, unearthing an unscrupulous lawyer (later found hanging from his balcony in flimsy women's apparel); a supersalesman with an overstuffed bank account; and a brother-sister pair who are double-crossing everyone. And this real estate fiddling ties in with a separate scam involving Kate's best buds - and murder of the most unexpected order.

Cat Morland is ready to grow up. A homeschooled minister's daughter in the quaint, sheltered Piddle Valley in Dorset, she loses herself in novels and is sure there is a glamorous adventure awaiting her beyond the valley's narrow horizon. So imagine her delight when the Allens, neighbors and friends of her parents, invite her to attend the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh as their guest.

English kick-boxer and Rudyard Kipling fan Kate Brannigan appears in her fourth adventure, chasing down art thieves in Italy while unravelling a nasty case of product tampering in her homeland. When a precious Monet painting is nicked from a posh British estate where she arranged the security, the tough-talking PI is right on the job to get it back.

The Moonstone, a yellow diamond looted from an Indian temple and believed to bring bad luck to its owner, is bequeathed to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night the priceless stone is stolen again and when Sergeant Cuff is brought in to investigate the crime, he soon realizes that no one in Rachel's household is above suspicion.

Lindsay Gordon, self-proclaimed cynical socialist lesbian feminist journalist, is less than overjoyed at the prospect of spending a weekend at a posh girls' boarding school. Tensions are running high over the school's financial problems; the fact that school alumna and renowned musician Lorna Smith-Couper will return to the school to perform at a benefit concert only exacerbates anxieties. When Smith-Couper is found strangled with her own cello string right before the concert, Lindsay and Cordelia find their new relationship tested in unique ways as they seek to find the murderer among a long list of suspects.

A protest group hits the headlines when unrest at a women's peace camp explodes into murder. Already on the scene, journalist Lindsay Gordon desperately tries to strike a balance between personal and professional responsibilities. As she peels back the layers of deception surrounding the protest and its opponents, she finds that no one - ratepayer or reporter, policeman or peace woman - seems wholly above suspicion. Then Lindsay uncovers a truth that even she can scarcely believe.

There was only one reason Manchester-based private eye Kate Brannigan was prepared to let her boyfriend help out with an investigation into a car sales fraud - nothing bad could happen. But by now Kate should know that with Richard you have to expect the unexpected. With Richard behind bars, Kate must look after his eight-year-old son - who proves even more troublesome than his father. Kate finds herself dragged into a world of drug traffickers, child pornographers, fraudsters, and violent gangland enforcers in the most terrifying investigation of her career.

Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger Award-winning author Val McDermid pens thrilling mysteries eagerly devoured by fans. In the sixth novel in her Tony Hill series—the inspiration for the hit British television show Wire in the Blood—psychologist Tony Hill and Detective Carol Jordan’s investigation of a teenage girl’s murder leads them to an Internet predator.

A vicar nailed to a tree in Yorkshire. The theft of a priceless artefact during a fire. A detective forced to tell the truth for 24 hours. A body hidden in a basement. From the restless streets of London to the wilds of the Lake District, displaying all his trademark humour, playfulness and clever plotting, this landmark collection brings together the very best of Reginald Hill’s short stories for the first time, complete with a foreword from Val McDermid.

thriller with a nightmare scenario: a parent who loses her child in a bustling international airport. Young Jimmy Higgins is snatched from an airport security checkpoint while his guardian watches helplessly from the glass inspection box. But this is no ordinary abduction, as Jimmy is no ordinary child. His mother was Scarlett, a reality TV star who, dying of cancer and alienated from her unreliable family, entrusted the boy to the person she believed best able to give him a happy, stable life: her ghost writer, Stephanie Harker.

It's the summer solstice weekend, and 150,000 people have descended on a farm in the northeast of England for an open-air music festival. Reporting on the event is journalist Zoe Meadows, who files her copy from a food van run by her friends Sam and Lisa. When some of Sam's customers get sick, it looks like food poisoning, and it's exacerbated by the mud, rain and inadequate sanitary facilities. It's assumed to be a 24-hour thing until people get home and discover strange skin lesions, which ulcerate and turn septic. More people start getting ill - and dying.

A modern re-imagining of the Gothic Classic Northanger Abbey by the bestselling crime author Val McDermid. The second book in The Austen Project. Seventeen-year-old Catherine ‘Cat' Morland has led a sheltered existence in rural Dorset, a life entirely bereft of the romance and excitement for which she yearns. So when Cat's wealthy neighbours, the Allens, invite her to Edinburgh Festival, she is sure adventure beckons.

Auf dem Gelände eines ehemaligen katholischen Waisenhauses für Mädchen wird ein grausiger Fund gemacht: Bauarbeiten fördern insgesamt vierzig Skelette von Mädchen zutage, alle vor mindestens zwanzig Jahren unter dem Rasen und im Nutzgarten vergraben - und an einer abgelegenen Stelle zehn männliche Skelette deutlich jüngeren Datums. Was ist in dem Waisenhaus geschehen, in dem Nonnen über Jahrzehnte hinweg ihr unerbittliches Regime ausgeübt haben?

Gavin is an excellent writer; he can conjure up believable characters, evoke a credible setting and wrap the reader up in his language, but he can never seem to come up with a credible plot. On meeting Natasha at a creative writing group he thinks he has met his soulmate. Not only is she attractive, her plots are amazing. Combining their skills seems like the obvious route, and their stories become internet sensations. But when tragedy strikes, will the stories survive?

Tough, schottisch, Karen Pirie. Eine skelettierte Leiche in einem Wohnmobil gibt Cold-Case-Expertin Karen Pirie ebenso Rätsel auf wie ein Toter in einer Hummerfalle: Bei letzterem handelt es sich um den Bruder eines als vermisst geltenden schottischen Politikers. Akribisch folgt Karen Pirie auch dem kleinsten Hinweis - bis in die mondäne Welt des Kunsthandels, in der die toughe Ermittlerin sich denkbar deplatziert fühlt. Es scheint um Kunstfälschung und Identitätsdiebstahl zu gehen, doch der Fall nimmt immer neue Wendungen. Da erhält Karen eine beunruhigende Nachricht.

Kein Grab ist tief genug für die Wahrheit! Eine "Schatzkarte" ihres verstorbenen Großvaters führt eine junge Amerikanerin in die schottischen Highlands zu einem abgelegenen Ort mitten im Moor: Dort stößt sie auf ein vergrabenes, erstaunlich gut erhaltenes Motorrad, Baujahr 1944 - und auf eine männliche Leiche deutlich jüngeren Datums. DCI Karen Pirie, spezialisiert auf Cold Cases, ist eigentlich wegen eines anderen Falles in der Gegend, doch der Tote im Moor lässt ihr keine Ruhe. Er trägt ein sehr spezielles Paar Nike-Sneakers, eine Sonderanfertigung aus dem Jahr 1995. Und er ist offensichtlich keines natürlichen Todes gestorben.