Tony Hill, criminal profiler and hero of TV's Wire in the Blood, is back in a terrifying psychological thriller from bestselling author Val McDermid. A city is mourning. Bradfield Victoria's star midfielder has been murdered, bizarrely poisoned in an apparently motiveless killing. Then a bomb blast rips through the football stadium. Dozens lie dead, many more injured. Is it a terrorist attack or a vendetta against the Vics? Or something even more sinister? As he lies in a hospital bed, psychologist and profiler Dr Tony Hill struggles to make sense of the fragments of information he manages to gather. But his customary ally, DCI Carol Jordan, is being pushed to the margins of the investigation by intelligence services determined to prove themselves indispensable. It wouldn't be so bad if Tony and Carol could agree about who they're looking for. But even their relationship has its dislocations and dark places. Beneath the Bleeding sets Tony and Carol at odds as they have never been before, forcing them to ask questions of themselves they would never have imagined possible. Views: 68
Cato Kwong is back. Back in Boom Town and back on a real case - the unsolved mystery of a missing fifteen-year-old girl. But it's midsummer in the city of millionaires and it's not just the heat that stinks. A pig corpse, peppered with nails, is uncovered in a shallow grave and a body, with its throat cut, turns up in the local nightclub. As a series of blunders by Cato's colleague brings the squad under intense scrutiny, Cato's own sympathy for a suspect threatens to derail his case and his career. Views: 68
In this sensational collection of supernatural short stories, Sophie Hannah takes the comforting scenes of everyday life and imbues them with a frisson of fear, then a gust of terror. Why is a young woman so unnerved by the presence of a visitors book in her boyfriend's inner-city home? And whose spidery handwriting is it that fills the pages? Who is the strangely courteous boy still lingering at a child's tenth birthday party when all the parents have gathered their children and left? And why does the presence of a perfectly ordinary woman in a post office line leave another customer sweating with fear? Read on to find out—but beware . . . Views: 68
A forensics pathologist discovers evidence of murder—and worse—inside an abandoned hospital in this crime thriller: "A superbly strong read" (The Times, London). Once a busy hospital, St. Jude's now stands derelict, awaiting demolition. When a partially mummified corpse is found in the building's cavernous loft, forensics expert Dr. David Hunter is called in to take a look. David can't say how long the body's been there, but he is certain it's that of a young woman. And that she was pregnant. Then part of the attic floor collapses, revealing another of the hospital's secrets: a bricked-up chamber with beds inside. And some of them are still occupied. For David, what began as a straightforward case is about to become a twisted nightmare—and it soon becomes clear that St. Jude's hasn't claimed its last victim. "Simon Beckett's sixth novel featuring the forensic anthropologist David Hunter is arguably his best."... Views: 68
Shortlisted for the Davitt Award for Best Adult Crime Fiction for 2013 It's 1933. No less than Europe, Britain, or America, Australia contends with the Left, mostly Communists but also Socialists, and a rising Right, Fascists. Rowland Sinclair, bohemian younger son of the wealthy, influential, conservative clan headed by his powerful brother, Wilfred, has tangled with New South Wales' Right before. It did not go well. New Guard leader Eric Campbell, the man who would be Australia's Führer, is currently in Britain "consorting with Sir Oswald Mosley," the leading British Fascist, making connections over cocktails in aid of bringing European Fascism to Australia. Campbell will soon be moving on to Germany to meet members of the Reichstag and, he hopes, Hitler. The Australian way of life is not undefended. Old enemies have united to undermine Campbell's ambitions. Senator Charles Hardy, now a leading member of this unofficial Old Guard, brings Rowly a... Views: 68
St Pauls, Bristol. 1980. Joseph Tremaine Ellington, now 57 years old, has long abandoned his former career as an enquiry agent for the safety of teaching. But his old life draws him back.One of the very few lights from Ellington's dark and violent past has flickered out. His fiance Ruth Castle is dead – leaving him again heartbroken and alone to bring up his fifteen year old niece, Chloe. Ellington's days are long and lonely, his nights tormented by old ghosts.When the wife of a locally respected Baptist minister vanishes into a seamy, dead-end world of users and abusers, leaving behind both her own family and a critically fragile premature infant daughter, Ellington is asked if he can help find the woman.Joseph is determined to keep his distance from the dangers of the Bristol night. But his inescapable obligation to an old friend, a man he deeply respects, keeps bringing him back like a moth to a flame. Views: 68
