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The Mercy Seat
Martyn Waites - 2006
. . with his bruised characters, raw-edged dialogue, and extraordinary night vision."-"The New York Times Book Review" "London's dark heart has seldom been exposed with such surgical precision. Brutal, mesmerizing stuff."-Ian Rankin"A huge talent."-"TimeOut London""One of the brightest stars in the British crime writing firmament."-John ConnollyA research scientist has gone missing. An ace newspaper reporter has disappeared; so has a minidisc, along with its incriminating evidence. And a teenage hustler is on the run. In his pursuer, the Hammer, a skin-headed professional killer with a blue sapphire tooth and a taste for death metal, "the principle of evil" has indeed been "made flesh."From its staggering opening to an electrifying finish, its prose pumping adrenaline all the way, Martyn Waites' new novel wrests former investigative journalist Joe Donovan out of his reclusion in Newcastle. His heart broken by the disappearance of his six-year-old son two years earlier-a case that remains unsolved-he now finds his destiny entwined with that of the streetwise but vulnerable and frightened teenager Jamal. For on the minidisc, lifted by an unwitting Jamal, lies a crucial, increasingly perilous link to Donovan's past.Unsettling and unpredictable, this taut, compelling page-turner of a novel delivers point-blank every unexpected narrative hit, twist, and turn as it leads Donovan finally to the terror of the mercy seat.Martyn Waites is emerging as one of the leading writers of British noir fiction. "The Mercy Seat" is his first American release. He lives in Newcastle.
Only Time Will Tell
Jeffrey Archer - 2011
But then an unexpected gift wins him a scholarship to an exclusive boys’ school, and his life will never be the same again.As he enters into adulthood, Harry finally learns how his father really died, but the awful truth only leads him to question, was he even his father? Is he the son of Arthur Clifton, a stevedore who spent his whole life on the docks, or the firstborn son of a scion of West Country society, whose family owns a shipping line?This introductory novel in Archer’s ambitious series The Clifton Chronicles includes a cast of colorful characters and takes us from the ravages of the Great War to the outbreak of the Second World War, when Harry must decide whether to take up a place at Oxford or join the navy and go to war with Hitler’s Germany. From the docks of working-class England to the bustling streets of 1940 New York City, Only Time Will Tell takes readers on a journey through to future volumes, which will bring to life one hundred years of recent history to reveal a family story that neither the reader nor Harry Clifton himself could ever have imagined.
Dear Amy
Helen Callaghan - 2016
Her advice column, Dear Amy, gets all kinds of letters - but none like the one she's just received:Dear Amy,I don't know where I am. I've been kidnapped and am being held prisoner by a strange man. I'm afraid he'll kill me.Please help me soon,Bethan AveryBethan Avery has been missing for years. This is surely some cruel hoax. But, as more letters arrive, they contain information that was never made public. How is this happening? Answering this question will cost Margot everything ...
The Queen of the South
Arturo Pérez-Reverte - 2002
Teresa Mendoza is his girlfriend, a typical narco's morra-- quiet, doting, submissive. But then Guero's caught playing both sides, and in Sinaloa, that means death. Teresa finds herself alone, terrified, friendless and running to save her life, carrying nothing but a gym bag containing a pistol and a notebook that she has been forbidden to read. Forced to leave Mexico, she flees to the Spanish city of Melilla, where she meets Santiago Fisterra, a Galician involved in trafficking hashish across the Strait of Gibraltar. When Santiago's partner is captured, it is Teresa who steps in to take his place. Now Teresa has plunged into the dark and ugly world that once claimed Guero's life-- and she's about to get in deeper...
Point of Impact
Stephen Hunter - 1993
Today, twenty years later, disgruntled hero of an unheroic war, all Bob Lee Swagger wants to be left alone and to leave the killing behind.But with consummate psychological skill, a shadowy military organization seduces Bob into leaving his beloved Arkansas hills for one last mission for his country, unaware until too late that the game is rigged.The assassination plot is executed to perfection—until Bob Lee Swagger, alleged lone gunman, comes out of the operation alive, the target of a nationwide manhunt, his only allies a woman he just met and a discredited FBI agent.Now Bob Lee Swagger is on the run, using his lethal skills once more—but this time to track down the men who set him up and to break a dark conspiracy aimed at the very heart of America.
The Girl Next Door
Ruth Rendell - 2014
Throughout the summer of 1944—until one father forbids it—the subterranean space becomes their "secret garden," where the friends play games and tell stories.Six decades later, beneath a house on the same land, construction workers uncover a tin box containing two skeletal hands, one male and one female. As the discovery makes national news, the friends come together once again, to recall their days in the tunnel for the detective investigating the case. Is the truth buried among these aging friends and their memories? This impromptu reunion causes long-simmering feelings to bubble to the surface. Alan, stuck in a passionless marriage, begins flirting with Daphne, a glamorous widow. Michael considers contacting his estranged father, who sent Michael to live with an aunt after his mother vanished in 1944. Lewis begins remembering details about his Uncle James, an army private who once accompanied the children into the tunnels, and who later disappeared.In The Girl Next Door Rendell brilliantly shatters the assumptions about age, showing that the choices people make—and the emotions behind them—remain as potent in late life as they were in youth.
The Dinner Guest
B.P. Walter - 2021
One would never leave.Matthew: the perfect husband.Titus: the perfect son.Charlie: the perfect illusion.Rachel: the perfect stranger.Charlie didn’t want her at the book club. Matthew wouldn’t listen.And that’s how Charlie finds himself slumped beside his husband’s body, their son sitting silently at the dinner table, while Rachel calls 999, the bloody knife still gripped in her hand.Agatha Christie meets Donna Tartt in this nerve-shredding domestic noir thriller that weaves a sprawling web of secrets around an opulent West London world and the dinner that ends in death.
The Scapegoat
Daphne du Maurier - 1957
Their resemblance to each other is uncanny, and they spend the next few hours talking and drinking - until at last John falls into a drunken stupor. It's to be his last carefree moment, for when he wakes, Jean has stolen his identity and disappeared. So the Englishman steps into the Frenchman's shoes, and faces a variety of perplexing roles - as owner of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a fractious family, and master of nothing.Gripping and complex, The Scapegoat is a masterful exploration of doubling and identity, and of the dark side of the self.
The Mahdi
A.J. Quinnell - 1981
— The greatest "miracle" in fourteen hundred years is about to take place...a miracle orchestrated by British Intelligence and the CIA, joined incredibly by the KGB. — One blinding eruption of flame--and three millions Arabs at Mecca will think they're witnessing the arrival on earth of the Mahdi, the reincarnation of Muhammad, fourteen centuries after the prophet's death. It is a plan of immense audacity and unthinkable consequences.
Macbeth
Jo Nesbø - 2018
He’s also an ex-drug addict with a troubled past.He’s rewarded for his success. Power. Money. Respect. They’re all within reach.But a man like him won’t get to the top.Plagued by hallucinations and paranoia, Macbeth starts to unravel. He’s convinced he won’t get what is rightfully his. Unless he kills for it.
Shibumi
Trevanian - 1979
Born in Shanghai during the chaos of World War I, he is the son of an aristocratic Russian mother and a mysterious German father and is the protégé of a Japanese Go master. Hel survived the destruction of Hiroshima to emerge as the world’s most artful lover and its most accomplished—and well-paid—assassin. Hel is a genius, a mystic, and a master of language and culture, and his secret is his determination to attain a rare kind of personal excellence, a state of effortless perfection known only as shibumi.Now living in an isolated mountain fortress with his exquisite mistress, Hel is unwillingly drawn back into the life he’d tried to leave behind when a beautiful young stranger arrives at his door, seeking help and refuge. It soon becomes clear that Hel is being tracked by his most sinister enemy—a supermonolith of international espionage known only as the Mother Company. The battle lines are drawn: ruthless power and corruption on one side, and on the other . . . shibumi.
Liar
K.L. Slater - 2017
Life isn’t easy, but Judi’s family means everything to her and together, they manage. Then Ben meets Amber. Everyone thinks this is a perfect match for Ben but Judi isn’t sure … there’s just something about Amber that doesn’t add up. Ben can’t see why his mother dislikes his new girlfriend. And Amber doesn’t want Judi anywhere near her new family. Amber just wants Ben and the children. The further Judi delves into Amber’s personal life, the closer she gets to shocking secrets that could change everything. And Judi must make a decision that could lead to the most disastrous consequences.
The Invisible Ones
Stef Penney - 2011
It has been seven years since she disappeared, and nobody said a word. Now, following the death of his wife, her father Leon feels compelled to find her. Rumour had it she ran off when her baby boy was born with the family's genetic disorder. Leon is not so sure. He wants to know the truth and he hires a private investigator to discover it - Ray Lovell. Ray starts to delve deeper, but his investigation is hampered by the very people who ought to be helping him - the Jankos. He cannot understand their reluctance to help. Why don't they want to find Rose Janko?
The Gods of Gotham
Lyndsay Faye - 2012
New York City forms its first police force. The great potato famine hits Ireland. These two seemingly disparate events will change New York City. Forever. Timothy Wilde tends bar near the Exchange, fantasizing about the day he has enough money to win the girl of his dreams. But when his dreams literally incinerate in a fire devastating downtown Manhattan, he finds himself disfigured, unemployed, and homeless. His older brother obtains Timothy a job in the newly minted NYPD, but he is highly skeptical of this new "police force." And he is less than thrilled that his new beat is the notoriously down-and-out Sixth Ward - at the border of Five Points, the world's most notorious slum. One night while making his rounds, Wilde literally runs into a little slip of a girl - a girl not more than ten years old - dashing through the dark in her nightshirt... covered head to toe in blood. Timothy knows he should take the girl to the House of Refuge, yet he can't bring himself to abandon her. Instead, he takes her home, where she spins wild stories, claiming that dozens of bodies are buried in the forest north of 23rd Street. Timothy isn't sure whether to believe her or not, but, as the truth unfolds, the reluctant copper star finds himself engaged in a battle for justice that nearly costs him his brother, his romantic obsession, and his own life.