He just wanted a quiet life. Something his mother was not going to allow. There again he never for one moment imagined he would have to look into the death of a 90-year-old lady who was gambling away her family fortune. The Hayden Detective Agency has no need of clients. The very existence of the Agency allows Martin Hayden to claim his large monthly allowance from the family fortune - without lifting a finger. Martin’s biggest problem is his interfering mother, who understands her idle son too well. She takes steps to find him not just clients but also a personal assistant to keep an eye on him. Under pressure from the women in his life, Martin agrees to take on his first client. How hard can it be to follow a 90-year-old woman who spends her time losing money at roulette tables? As it turns out harder than Martin ever thought possible, especially with the old lady dying in strange circumstances. Soon the Reluctant Detective is grappling with shady estate agents, an intellectual artist, missing charity money and an irritating Indian waiter. Luckily for Martin there is help in the form of Colin, a transvestite who, apart from having very good fashion sense, is an expert at breaking into houses.

    

    Women were being abducted and murdered, then their corpses were displayed in open shallow graves. Marshall's FBI partner, Jessie Kent, was taken. During the hunt for her, Marshall tracked the killer down, but he was shot five times and left for dead. Less than an hour later, the killer took his own life. None of the remaining victims were ever found. Until now. A female detective comes down to Marshall's home town to ask for his help. Somebody has found the decomposed victims and is displaying them. Despite no longer being with the FBI, Marshall sees this as a chance to find Jessie, and take her home for a proper burial. And to lay to rest the feelings of guilt he's been carrying for the past four years. He agrees to go back with Dani Fox, but it's soon clear somebody doesn't want him back in town. He's warned off, but he ignores it. Then the killings start. Somebody has just accelerated the game from displaying corpses to adding new victims. And this time, he's making it personal...

    

    

    But the women are also hiding a shameful secret…Present Day: When journalist Ally Niven escapes to the remote Scottish island of Battersay after a failed love affair, all she is looking for is a quiet life and a catering job for the summer. But from the outset someone is trying to scare her off and Ally soon discovers that the beautiful surroundings mask tensions among the people who are harbouring 'Birdwoman' - a feral young woman found on rocky Kulah. Ally is increasingly attracted to reclusive artist, John Balmain, who has also taken refuge on Battersay, but is elusive about his past. From John, Ally learns of a sinister prophecy which predicted the shipwreck and how Flora, the Flame-haired leader of the Kulah women, would wreak her revenge. Increasingly isolated and intimidated by bizarre attacks on her house and sightings of a lone woman in a blue headscarf that she cannot explain, Ally sets out to discover the truth behind the Kulah story and the secrets the broodingly handsome John is determined to keep from her; as the two stories converge in a shocking climax. This is MacLeod Trotter's second enthralling mystery.

    The young military widow leaves dozens of messages for her father but receives no response. Looking for a copy of her mother’s obituary, Roxie reads an article in the newspaper and discovers her entire life is a web of lies, secrets, and deceit. The story sends her off in search of the truth about the man she idolized. She drives to her father’s birthplace—Manhattan, Kansas—and moves into her grandmother’s huge, three-story, hundred-and-fifty-year-old house. It’s been vacant for decades, but Roxie begins to believe she’s not the only occupant. She doesn’t know if there’s an intruder or if the spirit of her grandmother is watching over her. In only a matter of days, someone has made several attempts on her life. She calls in her best friend, Janice Tallchief—retired on a disability from the Kansas City Police Department—to act as her bodyguard. Can Jan and Roxie unravel the mystery before the killer succeeds?

     A Jack Cubera Novel Retired PI Jack Cubera just wants to drink beer, fish the flats, and live the simple life of a full-time boat bum. One problem: he’s just discovered his old nemesis—the Key’s most notorious real estate developer—floating tits-up in a weenie bikini in the Islamorada backwaters, landing him high on the suspect list. To clear his name, Jack investigates the curious demise and soon discovers the developer’s most outrageous development to date, Coconut Key—a manmade island shaped like a giant daiquiri glass—is “breaking ground” atop a lobster-breeding habitat in the middle of a pristine bay. As Jack sets out to derail the invasive project and save his salty slice of paradise, a host of unscrupulous characters flush from the shadows soon delivering Jack to the most perplexing question of all: Why would anyone build an island in the middle of an archipelago? The answer, which hinges on a baitfish cage filled with breast implants, proves far bigger than mere shady real-estate dealings. Please reach out via my website to join my mailing list, receive discounts and info on new releases, or just stir the pot.

    In order to inherit the farm and all that goes with it, Parker must live in the house for a year: a house with no electricity, running water or bathroom. While living there she can modernize it, but she can’t move out. Her great-aunt, Rosie, has already selected a handsome contractor, and has drawn up the plans, all Parker has to do is approve them. There is no explanation why Rosie left all this to her instead of her own brothers. Curious about the family she never knew, Parker decides to stay, at least temporarily, and is confronted with her hostile grandfather who would do anything to chase her away, and gain control over the land he considers his birthright. Just walking through the small town proves to be an obstacle course as people step off the sidewalk to avoid her, or run off the road as they stare at her. Rumor has it Rosie has come back to haunt them. While work continues on the house, Parker discovers the journals Rosie kept from the time she was a little girl, telling of her life with an overbearing father and four brothers. Rosie also left letters to Parker instructing her to trust Shep Baker, the contractor, and to find out what happened more than sixty years ago, deepening the mystery for Parker. Shep is a slow talking cowboy with a mystery of his own. His grandfather was adopted as an infant, and Shep is looking for his extended family. But why did Rosie take such a liking to him when she was so nasty to others? Just more questions for Parker to find the answers to. The answers to her questions are in the journals, but finding the answers could prove fatal.

    It’s a lie, of course. What I mean is, I remember so very little.’ Tom Haworth is struggling against the fragility of his own mind as it surrenders to what seems an increasingly hostile world. He begins to be haunted by vivid dreams that transport him into a different life and to a treeless forest, high in the stark moorland of industrial England around the time of the First World War. There he meets family he never knew existed and a girl called Clara, whom he recognises as the blueprint for every woman he has ever loved. Back in the present, he discovers he is losing days: vaguely remembered yesterdays in which he has acted out of character, as if someone were taking his place. Tom traces back through his family tree and discovers the characters in his dreams to be real and not just products of his unstable subconscious. Where are the ‘memories’ coming from? Has madness finally taken hold? And is Clara lost to him forever, or will she be his salvation? A story of redemption and rebirth that weaves compellingly between different times and different lives. Inspired by a gravestone in a remote Pennine cemetery, this story had been nagging at the author for over a decade. Eventually he gave in.

    The scheduled train from Granger was overdue by three hours. He’d suspected a mechanical breakdown or maybe even a derailment. But the engineer of the next train to use that track had just reported that he hadn’t found any signs of the train.He had no idea how an entire train could simply vanish, but as he pondered the mystery, the head telegrapher came to his office and showed him a telegram that had been sent to Union Pacific headquarters. It was a ransom demand for a hundred thousand dollars. If it wasn’t paid within a week, the train and its thirty-four passengers would be blown up.He hurried out of his office and rushed through the early morning streets to tell the resident Union Pacific special agent of the kidnapped train. It was Nelson Cook’s problem now.

    

    She never comes home... The Vanishing of The Georgia Rose A girl goes missing. Only one woman can find her. After a scholarly fourteen-year-old girl vanishes on Halloween night, uncompromising yet isolated private investigator Arden Briar dives deep into the Georgia underground to find the victim. Faced with overwhelming odds, Arden enlists the help of the victim’s damaged father, a veteran with a short fuse. Will Arden’s temporary alliance be the solution to her problem or her downfall? Kidnapped Renowned Miami detective Anna Dedrick returns to her rural birthplace with hopes of leaving behind the vices of the big city. That dream shatters when the town’s pride--an African-American child prodigy--goes missing. As the only woman equipped for the job, Anna takes the case but soon discovers the town suspecting her estranged brother… and herself.

    When his mysterious employer, Eli Glinn, gives him an eyebrow-raising mission, he has no reason to refuse. Gideon's task: steal a page from the priceless Book of Kells, now on display in New York City and protected by unbreakable security. Accomplishing the impossible, Gideon steals the parchment--only to learn that hidden beneath the gorgeously illuminated image is a treasure map dating back to the time of the ancient Greeks. As they ponder the strange map, they realize that the treasure it leads to is no ordinary fortune. It is something far more precious: an amazing discovery that could perhaps even save Gideon's life.Together with his new partner, Amy, Gideon follows a trail of cryptic clues to an unknown island in a remote corner of the Caribbean Sea. There, off the hostile and desolate Mosquito Coast, the pair realize the extraordinary treasure they are hunting conceals an even greater shock-a revelation so profound that it may benefit the entire human race . . . if Gideon and Amy can survive.

    A new voice whose sharp, descriptive prose is reminiscent of Megan Abbott." - Charles Salzberg, author of the Swann detective series, New York. “A thriller that accentuates the cadence of a finely crafted literary oeuvre.” - ITV America. "A dark, well-crafted tale that takes readers on a disturbing ride through society’s underbelly.’ - Adam Hamdy, author, screenwriter and film producer, London, UK."Nish Amarnath's new book gives you the chills, showing how crime can unfold in both lethal and cosy setups." - The Hindu.For fans of Stieg Larsson's 'The Girl Who Played with Fire' and Sophie Hannah's 'A Room Swept White', this debut psychological thriller and crime suspense novel, set in London, is a strident expose on an under-reported form of social injustice where the line of distinction between the betrayer and the betrayed increasingly fades into oblivion. BLURB:BBC stringer Sandy lives as a paying guest with the Sawants, a regular, quiet family. Or so she thought. Until she woke up to a woman with a knife … and a dark secret.It is only after she runs a sting operation on a home for the differently abled that Sandy makes a connection between an institute acting as a front for something sinister and the strange family she lives with. Chasing the truth up a trail of brutal murders, Sandy must evade the clutches of a thriving sex racket and expose the predators before her time runs out.