The Bone Jar


S.W. Kane - 2020
    An abandoned asylum. Will a mysterious former patient help untangle the dark truth?The body of an elderly woman has been found in the bowels of a derelict asylum on the banks of the Thames. As Detective Lew Kirby and his partner begin their investigation, another body is discovered in the river nearby. How are the two murders connected?Before long, the secrets of Blackwater Asylum begin to reveal themselves. There are rumours about underground bunkers and secret rooms, unspeakable psychological experimentation, and a dark force that haunts the ruins, trying to pull back in all those who attempt to escape. Urban explorer Connie Darke, whose sister died in a freak accident at the asylum, is determined to help Lew expose its grisly past. Meanwhile Lew discovers a devastating family secret that threatens to turn his life upside down.As his world crumbles around him, Lew must put the pieces of the puzzle together to keep the killer from striking again. Only an eccentric former patient really knows the truth—but will he reveal it to Lew before it’s too late?

Blue Monday


Nicci French - 2011
    A day of dark impulses. A day to snatch a child from the streets ...The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes a national outcry and a desperate police hunt. And when a picture of his face is splashed over the newspapers, psychotherapist Frieda Klein is left troubled: one of her patients has been relating dreams in which he has a hunger for a child. A child he can describe in perfect detail, a child the spitting image of Matthew.Detective Chief Inspector Karlsson doesn't take Frieda's concerns seriously until a link emerges with an unsolved child abduction twenty years ago and he summons Frieda to interview the victim's sister, hoping she can stir hidden memories. Before long, Frieda is at the center of the race to track the kidnapper.But her race isn't physical. She must chase down the darkest paths of a psychopath's mind to find the answers to Matthew Farraday's whereabouts.And sometimes the mind is the deadliest place to lose yourself.

Death in the Stocks


Georgette Heyer - 1935
    Superintendent Hannasyde's consummate powers of detection and solicitor Giles Carrington's amateur sleuthing are tested to their limits as they grapple with the Vereker family - a group of outrageously eccentric and corrupt suspects

Airs Above the Ground


Mary Stewart - 1965
    What was strange was the silence that followed. She never thought to look for her missing husband in Vienna -- until she saw him in a newsreel shot there at the scene of a deadly fire. Then she caught a glimpse of him in a newsreel shot of a crowd near a mysterious circus fire and knew it was more than strange. It was downright sinister.Vanessa is propelled to Vienna by the shocking discovery. In her charge is young Timothy Lacy, who also has urgent problems to solve. But her hunt for answers only leads to more sinister questions in a mysterious world of white stallions of Vienna. But what promises to be no more than a delicate personal mission turns out to involve the security forces of three countries, two dead men, a circus and its colourful personnel. And what waits for Vanessa in the shadows is more terrifying than anything she has ever encountered.

The Bodies Left Behind


Jeffery Deaver - 2008
    Was it a misdial or an aborted crime report?Brynn stumbles onto a scene of true horror and narrowly escapes from two professional criminals. She and a terrified visitor to the weekend house, Michelle, flee into the woods in a race for their lives. As different as night and day, and stripped of modern-day resources, Brynn, a tough deputy with a difficult past, and Michelle, a pampered city girl, must overcome their natural reluctance to trust each other and learn to use their wits and courage to survive the relentless pursuit. The deputy’s disappearance spurs both her troubled son and her new husband into action, while the incident sets in motion Brynn’s loyal fellow deputies and elements from Milwaukee’s underside. These various forces race along inexorably toward the novel’s gritty and stunning conclusion.Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1501110012

A Great Deliverance


Elizabeth George - 1988
    Three hundred years ago, as legend goes, the frightened Yorkshire villagers smothered a crying babe in Keldale Abbey, where they'd hidden to escape the ravages of Cromwell's raiders.Now into Keldale's pastoral web of old houses and older secrets comes Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley, the eighth earl of Asherton. Along with the redoubtable Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, Lynley has been sent to solve a savage murder that has stunned the peaceful countryside. For fat, unlovely Roberta Teys has been found in her best dress, an axe in her lap, seated in the old stone barn beside her father's headless corpse. Her first and last words were "I did it. And I'm not sorry."Yet as Lynley and Havers wind their way through Keldale's dark labyrinth of secret scandals and appalling crimes, they uncover a shattering series of revelations that will reverberate through this tranquil English valley—and in their own lives as well.

Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume II


Arthur Conan Doyle - 1986
    Watson has faithfully recorded Holmes’s feats of extraordinary detection in such famous cases as the thrilling The Adventure of the Red Circle and the twelve baffling adventures from The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes.Conan Doyle’s incomparable tales bring to life a Victorian England of horse-drawn cabs, fogs, and the famous lodgings at 221B Baker Street, where for more than forty years Sherlock Holmes earned his undisputed reputation as the greatest fictional detective of all time.

Too Close to Breathe


Olivia Kiernan - 2018
    Professional. Perfect. Dead. Respected scientist Dr Eleanor Costello is found hanging in her immaculate home: the scene the very picture of a suicide.TOO LATE TO HIDEDCS Frankie Sheehan is handed the case, and almost immediately spots foul play. Sheehan, a trained profiler, is seeking a murderer with a talent for death.TOO CLOSE TO BREATHEAs Frankie strives to paint a picture of the killer, and their victim, she starts to sense they are part of a larger, darker canvas, on which the lines between the two blur.Olivia Kiernan's debut is a bold, brilliant thriller that will keep you guessing and leave you breathless.

Cambridge Blue


Alison Bruce - 2009
    When Gary discovers the first body in a series of murders involving an eccentric Cambridge family, he gets his chance to work on a homicide investigation. He must use his own initiative to flush out the killer, even though it means risking his job and discovering the truth about the one person he hopes is innocent. Alison Bruce was born in Surrey, United Kingdom, and now lives in Cambridge. She is the author of two previous nonfiction books, Cambridgeshire Murders and The Billingtons, Death in the Family.

Instruments of Darkness


Robert Wilson - 1995
    Bruce Medway's existence as a fixer and troubleshooter had been tough, but never life-threatening until he crossed paths with the mighty Madame Severnou. His life becomes even more complicated by his search for a missing fellow expat, Steven Kershaw. Against a backdrop of political disruption and endemic official corruption, Medway pursues the elusive phantom of Kershaw.Instruments of Darkness powerfully evokes the atmosphere, politics, and people of West Africa. With Medway's ironic voice, flashes of humor that may recall Raymond Chandler, and unforgettable characters, this compulsively readable thriller is the beginning of a remarkable series.

Awakening


Sharon J. Bolton - 2009
    How did it all begin? I suppose it would be the day I rescued a new-born baby from a poisonous snake, heard the news of my mother's death and encountered my first ghost . . .Veterinary surgeon Clara Benning is young and intelligent, but practically a recluse. Disfigured by a childhood accident, she lives alone and shies away from human contact whenever possible. But when a man dies following a supposed snake bite, the victim's post mortem shows a higher concentration of venom than could ever be found in a single snake. Assisted by her softly spoken neighbour, and an eccentric reptile expert, Clara unravels sinister links to a barbaric ancient ritual, an abandoned house and a fifty-year-old tragedy that left the survivors fiercely secretive. Then the village's inventive attacker strikes again, and Clara's own solitary existence is brutally invaded. For someone, the truth must remain buried in the past, even if they have to kill to keep it there.From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Essential Margery Allingham Collection: Sweet Danger, Traitor's Purse, The Tiger in the Smoke (The Albert Campion Mysteries)


Margery Allingham - 2017
    And the rumours are true: Jack Havoc, charismatic outlaw, knife-wielding killer and ingenious jail-breaker, is on the loose once again. As Havoc stalks the smog-cloaked alleyways of the city, it falls to Albert Campion to hunt down the fugitive and put a stop to his rampage – before it’s too late… The Tiger in the Smoke can rank with any of the great thrillers in English literature. It conveys an understanding of goodness and evil more assuredly than any of them. More than an outstanding mystery, Margery Allingham has created a major novel. Traitor's Purse Celebrated amateur detective Albert Campion awakes in hospital accused of attacking a police officer and suffering from acute amnesia. All he can remember is that he was on a mission of vital importance to His Majesty’s government before his accident. On the run from the police and unable to recognise even his faithful servant or his beloved fiancee, Campion struggles desperately to put the pieces together while the very fate of England is at stake. Tightly plotted and perfectly drawn, Traitor’s Purse is an enduring classic of wartime fiction. Sweet Danger Nestled along the Adriatic coastline, the kingdom of Averna has suddenly – and suspiciously – become the hottest property in Europe, and Albert Campion is given the task of recovering the long-missing proofs of ownership. His mission takes him from the French Riviera to the sleepy village of Pontisbright, where he meets the flame-haired Amanda Fitton. Her family claim to be the rightful heirs to the principality, and insist on joining Campion’s quest. Unfortunately for them, a criminal financier and his heavies are also on the trail – the clock is ticking for Campion and his cohorts to outwit the thugs and solve the mystery of Averna.

L.A. Outlaws


T. Jefferson Parker - 2008
    Nobody ever gets hurt - until a job ends with ten gangsters lying dead and a half-million dollars worth of glittering diamonds missing.Rookie Deputy Charlie Hood discovers the bodies, and he prevents an eyewitness - a schoolteacher named Suzanne Jones - from leaving the scene in her Corvette. Drawn to a mysterious charisma that has him off-balance from the beginning, Hood begins an intense affair with Suzanne. As the media frenzy surrounding Allison’s exploits swells to a fever pitch and the Southland’s most notorious killer sets out after her, a glimmer of recognition blooms in Hood, forcing him to choose between a deeply held sense of honor and a passion that threatens to consume him completely. With a stone-cold killer locked in relentless pursuit, Suzanne and Hood continue their desperate dance around the secrets that brought them together, unsure whether each new dawn may signal the day their lies catch up with them.

Last Words


Michael Koryta - 2015
    On the same day his wife died, the body of a teenage girl was pulled from the extensive and perilous cave system beneath Southern Indiana. Now the man who rescued the girl, who was believed to be her killer, begs Novak to uncover what really happened.Garrison is much like any place in America, proud and fortified against outsiders. For Mark to delve beneath the town's surface, he must match wits with the man who knows the caverns better than anyone. A man who seemed to have lost his mind. A man who seems to know Mark Novak all too well.Last Words is a pulse-pounding thriller of one man's undoing; you just may not know which man.

Brat Farrar


Josephine Tey - 1949
    The stranger, Brat Farrar, has been carefully coached on Patrick's mannerism's, appearance, and every significant detail of Patrick's early life, up to his thirteenth year when he disappeared and was thought to have drowned himself. It seems as if Brat is going to pull off this most incredible deception until old secrets emerge that jeopardize the imposter's plan and his life.