THE BOOKS
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Human Assets
After her son’s tragic death, a former cop discovers his dangerous secret life—and picks up where he left off . . .
Former police officer Emma Raven has a heartbreaking task ahead of her: gathering her late son’s possessions from his Cambridge college.
His death was deemed a suicide. But once she enters Paul’s room accompanied by his director of studies, Colin Gormley, and finds it’s been ransacked, she’s troubled. When this is followed by attacks against both Emma and Colin, the two flee.
But the danger doesn’t stop there.
Before long, the grieving mother is entangled in a deadly mystery that puts her right in the line of fire . .
A Parting Gift
A massacre in the Scottish Highlands is far more than the family tragedy it first appears to be, in this riveting police procedural.
The slaughter of the Dawson family seems to be a heartbreaking case of murder-suicide—another deeply troubled man who violently snapped and killed his wife and children before ending his own life. But DI Alec McKay doesn’t think it’s as open-and-shut as it looks. Why was a BMW parked at the Dawsons’ holiday home on that last day of tourist season—and why are its owners also now dead? Why is the new senior investigating officer acting so erratically? And most chillingly of all, who is sending out packages containing toys taken from the crime scene?
Before McKay can close the case, he will have to face down a threat from the past—and a crime that could shatter his heart..
Bad Terms
When a skeleton is unearthed at a building site in the village of Meresham, the police immediately link the case to a notorious missing persons investigation. Jayne Arnold was sixteen when she disappeared in the long, hot summer of 1976, and has not been seen since.
Soon after the bones are found, a tragic accident occurs at an elite boarding school nearby. The young victim fell to her death from the roof of a building. Digging into the girl’s background links her to an attempted expose of donations from unsavoury individuals. When further deaths follow, does it suggest a cover up is underway? Who stood to lose most from the truth coming out? And how do recent crimes link to events from more than 45 years ago? DI Annie Delamere and her team are tasked to answer these questions, but her own mother may stand between Annie and the truth.
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Lost Hours
ISBN-13: 978-1800320437
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On a hot summer's afternoon, Michelle Wentworth enjoys a rare few hours of relaxation. Sunning herself by her pool, she sends her lazy teenage son to fetch her a drink. But instead of a refreshment, Michelle is given a nasty shock when shortly after her child's bludgeoned body is discovered on the doorstep.
DI Annie Delamere attends the scene, joined by DS Zoe Everett. There is nothing to suggest a motive or perpetrator. They dig into Michelle's life and come to suspect she may have been the target. Her ruthless pursuit of profit has won her few friends, and relying on her lawyer's questionable advice could mean she's in over her head.
When another battered body is found, Annie finds that every clue leads back to a dispute at Michelle's business. But with so many people with reason to seek revenge, will Annie and her team look in the right places - or will it be too late?
Small Mercies
A killer is sending a message – but for whom?
DI Annie Delamere and her colleague DS Zoe Everett are off duty and enjoying a walk on the Peak District’s vast moorlands when they stumble across a mutilated corpse. The victim is unclothed and his tattoos indicate an affinity with the occult.
While Annie is put in charge of the case her long-term partner, MP Sheena Pearson, is confronted by a group of far right extremists. Rather than back down Sheena chooses to stand her ground – and almost pays for it with her life.
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As more bodies are found, Annie is under pressure to prove her worth. But with one eye on her personal affairs can she catch a murderer and still keep her loved ones safe? And are the killings the work of a deranged mind – or a cover for something even more chilling?
Life Remains
ISBN-13: 978-1913942311
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An elderly woman is found dead, her death peaceful but unexpected. Days later, a middle aged former television journalist dies in a similar manner. Both deaths prove to be murder, but with no obvious links between the two victims. When a former neurologist is also found murdered, it appears that DCI Kenny Murrain is dealing with a random multiple killer.
Murrain, meanwhile, is still dealing with the tragic fallout from his previous case, struggling to hold together a team which is fragmenting by the day. His problems deepen when a key member of the team is accused of leaking information to the media.
When further murders occur among patients in a local hospital, Murrain begins to suspect that the killings are less random than they appear, and that he and his team may be in the killer's sights. With the death count rising, Murrain realises he has no choice but to seek out the murderer face to face…
For Their Sins
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In the depths of a cold Scottish winter, an unidentified body is found in the heart of a solstice bonfire, apparently burned alive. Over a tense Christmas, a retired businessman goes missing, his body eventually found hanging from a tree in the coastal town. Another associate is found brutally murdered in his remote Highland home.
DCI Helena Grant wants to spend a romantic Christmas with her new partner, the crime writer Bill Emsworth. In her absence, DI Alec McKay and his team struggle to investigate the killings, their work hampered by staff shortages and hostile weather. As he tries to connect the murders, McKay discovers that the victims have links to a notorious investigation led by the late DI Jackie Galloway, the subject of a 'true crime' exposé written by Emsworth.
When another local businessman disappears, McKay fears that Emsworth, and even Helena herself, maybe in danger.
It seems the real answers lie deep in Grant's own past, and, with the killer closing in, her future becomes increasingly perilous…
Expiry Date
ISBN-13: 978-1912986743
A family day out turns sour for DI McKay when he stumbles across an unidentified corpse. The day becomes darker still when his brother-in-law goes missing and is eventually found dead, the result of a seemingly accidental fall.
Meanwhile, DCI Helena Grant has a disastrous on-line date with a pompous senior manager of a local hotel chain. Her initial amusement turns to unease at his disturbing behaviour. And, as she arrives home, she receives a threatening text from someone who has clearly been watching her.
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When a further body is found at the edge of the Cromarty Firth, McKay and Grant finally begin to piece together a story that involves violence, people trafficking and the darkest family secrets. And the more McKay learns, the more he realises that some of those secrets lie very close to home…
Winterman
ISBN-13: 978-1912986156
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The War is Behind Him. But his battle has only just begun...
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DI Ivan Winterman is a man with a troubled past. The Blitz has left his young son dead and his wife seriously injured. He has made enemies in high places and, with his career going nowhere, he returns to his home town in East Anglia, seeking to rebuild his life in a country gripped by post-war austerity and the coldest winter on record.
As the first snow begins to fall, a drunken ex-clergyman stumbles on the semi-mummified body of a small child concealed in a ruined cottage. Days later, a second similar child's body is found in a Fenland dyke. Both bodies have been dead for several years, preserved in the Fens, the cause of death unknown.
Winterman, supported by a small team of assorted misfits, finds himself leading the investigation, uncovering a web of connections and secrets in the small rural community. When a further murder victim is discovered, Winterman discovers that the secrets are darker and the threat far more immediate than he'd ever envisaged.
And, as the snow finally begins to thaw over the Fens, Winterman realises that his worst nightmares are about to come true…
Snow Fallen
ISBN-13: 978-1790696475
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One winter's night, a lone figure arrives on foot in a remote Pennine village. The next morning, as the first heavy snow begins to fall, a man's body is discovered in the village churchyard. Anne Tilston, one of three sisters living in a brooding run-down house in the shadow of the church, realises that the dead man is her father, a disgraced former senior police officer long estranged from his family. As DCI Kenny Murrain's team arrive in the village to investigate the unexplained death, a further body is discovered in a nearby field – a young man from the village with no apparent connection to Tilston or his daughters. Meanwhile Murrain and DI Joe Milton are investigating the disappearance of a young woman. The case appears to be part of a string of similar missing persons cases, although with no evidence to date of foul play.With the snow continuing to fall, another body is discovered, and Murrain finds himself stranded with his team in the sisters' house with a seemingly motiveless killer waiting outside in the night. Desperately liaising with Milton, Murrain realises he has only hours to discover the truth and to prevent the murderer from killing again. And it seems the answer lies within Murrain's own team...
Their Final Act
ISBN-13: 978-1912604838
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DI Alec McKay is back.
Jimmy McGuire, a washed-up comic, is found dead on the streets of Inverness, his body garroted. Back in the 1990s, McGuire had been half of a promising double-act until his partner, Jack Dingwall, was convicted of rape.
Soon after, a second corpse is found in an abandoned industrial site on the edge of the Moray Firth. The body has been there for some days and has also been garroted. The victim turns out to be a former musician turned record producer, who had also been the subject of rape allegations.
Meanwhile, DI Alec McKay and DCI Helena Grant are still wrestling with the fallout from one of their recent cases following an acquittal.
As the body count rises, the police think they have the killer in their sights. But McKay is concerned that the evidence is too neat so when he realises there will be a final victim, he fears that time is running out …
Death Parts Us
ISBN-13: 978-1912175611
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Twenty years ago, Jackie Galloway was a senior cop with a bad reputation. Then he ended up on the wrong side of the wrong people, and his career was ruined. Sacked and with no pension, he ends up eking out his last days on Scotland's Black Isle, his mind lost to dementia, supported only by his long-suffering wife, Bridie.
Then Galloway is found dead. The police assume the death to be accidental until Bridie Galloway reveals that her husband has been receiving threatening letters containing only the phrase: 'NOT FORGOTTEN. NOT FORGIVEN.'
DI Alec McKay is struggling to come to terms with life without his estranged wife Chrissie, and is living in isolation on the Black Isle. As a junior officer, McKay had been allocated to Galloway's team and has bad memories of the man and his methods. Now he finds himself investigating Galloway's death.
But when suspicion falls on him and more police officers are murdered, the pressure is on for McKay to solve the case.
Why would the killer seek revenge twenty years after Galloway left the force?
As McKay fights to link the events of past and present, he realizes that time is rapidly running out…
Candles and Roses
ISBN-13: 978-0995511194
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Who will live and who will die?
DI Alec McKay is a man haunted by the loss of his daughter. As he obsesses over a missing person case that is going nowhere, McKay’s investigation is interrupted when bodies start appearing on the Scottish Black Isle. Soon McKay and his team start to identify a disturbing pattern behind the killings.
Why are candles and roses placed around the bodies?
What is this twisted murderer trying to achieve?
While the police follow their own leads, a young woman who discovered the first victim begins an investigation of her own.
As the case unfolds McKay will be forced to face his own demons.
To catch the killer McKay must discover the true motive and untangle the web of truth and lies.
Candles and Roses is the first book in the explosive new DI McKay Series.
Late Checkout
ISBN-13: 978-1533029270
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DCI Kenny Murrain sees, hears and feels things that others do not. It’s a gift but also a curse. When he wakes to the phantom sound of screaming he knows a murder has been committed but not where or why. Then a woman’s body is found in a Stockport hotel room. It’s a murder that seems both frenzied and carefully planned, the scene expertly cleansed of any evidence. Over the following days, more bodies are discovered, first in an upmarket spa on the Pennine moors, then in a run-down budget hotel on the outskirts of Manchester. The same frenzied attacks, the same meticulous planning. The same killer. The victims all have links to one man, a police colleague with a dark past. But Murrain discovers a more unexpected connection—with Marie Donovan, a former undercover officer now part of Murrain’s own team. As the killer closes in on a fourth victim, Murrain knows that time is running out. But the outcome will be more unexpected and more terrifying than even he can imagine…
Dark Corners
ISBN-13: 978-1519061300
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The past is never dead… A missing child's body is found on the edge of the Peak District. As DCI Kenny Murrain and his team investigate, more attempted child abductions are reported. Murrain's instincts tell him this is a community with secrets, and those secrets have their roots deep in the past. Unexpected connections surface as he uncovers mysteries long buried. A motorcycle accident in the nearby hills. The unexplained death of a local prison governor. And a high-profile child killing two decades before. Then another child goes missing, and Murrain and his team must race to identify the killer before the past catches up with them and it's too late…
Murrain's Truth
ASIN: B01FI4EWJ2
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MURRAIN'S TRUTH offers a trio of short stories which introduce DCI Kenny Murrain, the remarkable hero of the novel LATE CHECKOUT, and his diverse team of colleagues.
Murrain is a man who sees, hears and feels things that others do not. For a detective, it’s a gift but also a curse. It allows him a unique insight into crimes and their perpetrators, but all too often tortures him with uncertainty and half-knowledge.
In 'Murrain's Truth' we learn of a key moment in Murrain's back-story and its consequences for Murrain's future. In 'Murrain's Trouble' Murrain is faced with making sense of a teenager's unexpected discovery. And in 'Murrain's Task' Murrain has to deal with the painful fall-out from the death of a young fellow officer.
Trust No One
ISBN-13: 978-1847562852
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As a covert officer specialising in ‘deep cover’ operations, Marie Donovan works amongst the most dangerous criminals in Manchester. It’s a precarious life that puts Marie on the edge of the law.
When she begins an affair with Jake Morton, an informer due to give evidence against crime lord Jeff Kerridge, Marie knows she’s breaking a cardinal rule.
Yet just as she comes to her senses and puts an end to their relationship, Morton is murdered. Suddenly Marie’s undercover role is exposed and only one thing is certain – she can TRUST NO ONE.
Nowhere to Hide
ISBN-13: 978-1847562876
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The lines between good and bad are indistinguishable…
On the North Wales coast two people traffickers are brutally murdered; a drug dealer is mown down in inner-city Stockport and in a remote Pennine cottage a police informant is shot dead. Seemingly random, these murders are the work of one professional hitman.
Reluctantly, Marie Donovan takes on another undercover role and finds herself working with DI Jack Brennan, a high-flying detective with a tarnished career. Soon, mistrustful of each other and their superiors, both begin to suspect that they are mere pawns in a complex game of criminal rivalry and police corruption.
As Marie struggles to uncover the truth, she realises that nothing is as it seems. With every move, she draws the threat ever closer until ultimately the killer is watching Marie herself. Out on her own, she finds herself with no friends, no-one to trust and nowhere to hide.
The Shadow Walker
ISBN-13: 978-1521249086
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Set in a country struggling to come to terms with the legacy of its past and the promise of its future, The Shadow Walker is a gripping thriller that introduces Inspector Nergui of the Mongolian Serious Crime squad. As winter's first snow falls on Ulan Baatar, the mutilated body of a British geologist is found in the city's most expensive hotel, apparently the fourth victim of a serial killer. With political pressure to solve the crimes mounting, Nergui, ex-head of the Serious Crime Squad, is ordered back to his former role, building an uneasy working relationship with his successor and protege, Doripalam, and with Drew McLeish, a senior British CID officer sent out to support the investigation. But the murders continue - leading the officers through the disused factories of the decaying city, out on to the steppes among nomadic herdsmen and illegal gold prospectors, and down into the barren landscapes of the Gobi. And then McLeish himself is kidnapped. With political tensions mounting and time draining away, Nergui and Doripalam piece together a case that encompasses both personal tragedy and shadowy commercial interests in Mongolia's vast mineral and energy reserves. And, finally, in a long-abandoned warehouse amongst the decaying Soviet-era factories of Ulan Baatar, Nergui comes face to face with the only figure who can bring the story to its shattering conclusion.