Ajay Chowdhury
A priceless diamond. A deadly siege. A detective caught between a rock and a hard place
The new mystery novel from Ajay Chowdhury, for fans of Robert Galbraith and M. W. Craven
Detective Sergeant Kamil Rahman is riding high on newfound fame and a thrilling new case: the mysterious death of the Deputy Governor of the Tower of London.
Meanwhile ex-partner Anjoli’s luck is about to change too. Her struggling detective agency has been asked to investigate a series of death threats targeting a high-profile, and controversial, climate activist.
Unbeknownst to them both, rogue historian Rohan Gill is planning the ultimate heist—to reclaim the Kohinoor diamond from the Tower – and Kamil and Anjoli, are an integral part of his plan.
With the Tower locked down and tensions soaring, will Kamil and Anjoli find the strength to do what’s right, or will they be swept away by the tides of history?
Alice Bell
A coven of witches is the last thing you’d expect to find in a genteel, rural hamlet.
But these modern-day witches are more into horoscopes and spells-for-sale than toil and trouble – except for their ongoing feud with a prominent historian who claims the witch trials were a hoax.
When the historian turns up dead and the witches become the prime suspects, medium-cum-detective Claire wants to help solve the mystery and clear their names.
But in this small village, secrets and spirits abound. Can Claire separate the black magic from white lies?
Alys Cummings
Nina is a promising young journalist. She’s also an alcoholic.
Once a week, she attends a recovery group in the church hall. When a stranger walks in, the group think they might have a new member…until he promptly drops dead.
The recovery regulars discover a crossword clue in the dead man’s pocket – the answer to which is Murder.
As more mysterious and threatening clues start appearing in the newspaper’s crosswords, Nina and team must work to crack this cryptic case. Can they solve the clues, and catch a killer?
Or will the next crossword spell death for one of them…
A.C. Glass
Maya Landry is in desperate need of a fresh start.
Alone and heartbroken, she finds work as a caretaker at an exclusive ski resort for the elite in the mountains of Montana. Quiet and empty in the summer months, it’s the perfect escape.
All Maya wants is to be alone. But she’s not alone on the mountain. Someone else is there. A killer with his next victim in his sights.
After Maya finds a body, she must run for her life. One man tells her that he can save her. But can she trust him? Is he everything he claims to be?
Brooke Robinson
When Leo wakes up one Friday, he’s not in his London flat. He’s naked and alone in an unfamiliar bed, in an anonymous hotel, on the other side of the world. There, in Melbourne Australia, there’s a flicker in the corner of his vision, and he wakes up in yet another bed, in another hotel room, in another country.
Soon Leo discovers he’s not alone. Someone with access to groundbreaking technology, and an axe to grind, is beaming a group of people around the globe – hunting them one by one, committing perfect, untraceable murders.
Caroline Corcoran
Three sisters. Two murders. One devastating secret.
Junie and her family arrive in the Caribbean for what should be a week in paradise. Within days, her father and his girlfriend are dead.
Her sister Poppy vanishes into the night. All the evidence points to her. But Junie refuses to believe it.
Seven years later, Junie is still searching. Her other sister Ruby has tried to move on, haunted by what she witnessed that night. And Poppy? She’s been living under a new name, carrying a secret that could destroy them all.
When their story becomes a TV sensation, the world wants answers. They face an impossible choice: protect each other, or finally tell the truth.
But in a family built on lies and sacrifice, the truth might be the most dangerous thing of all.
JD Brinkworth
A murder mystery weekend spirals into chaos when the actor playing the Butler disappears.
His predecessor died in a freak accident less than two weeks ago, adding to a disturbing pattern: every actor who’s taken on the role has disappeared, quit, or died. Nervous cast members are starting to call it The Butler’s Curse.
Luckily, The Pie & Mash Detective Agency are on the scene.
Will they crack the case of the ‘curse’? Finish the murder mystery they paid several hundred pounds to play? And possibly even solve their first murder?
Claire Back
A derelict hotel. A hidden body. A girl who has not been missed.
When disillusioned detective Nia Tremeyrick stumbles upon a 30-year-old cold case in her Pembrokeshire seaside town, she relishes the chance to prove herself to her arrogant male colleagues.
But with the identity of the victim remaining a mystery, and her own family drama dragging her down, she is struggling to piece together the truth.
Meanwhile, back in 1984, bookish teenager Cerys Pritchard is expecting an uneventful summer, until she is persuaded to attend an illicit party in an abandoned hotel by her rebellious new friend Kay Abbot.
By the end of summer, one of them will be dead.
As Nia digs deeper, she fears the case that was supposed to make her career will turn out to be her worst nightmare.
But who was killed that deadly summer? And why?
David Parry
The countdown is on. Someone will be next. No one is safe. The Numbers is the smart, hugely propulsive thriller you’ve been waiting for, perfect for fans of Hunted and Steve Cavanagh.
FIRST YOU SEE THEM. THEN YOU DISAPPEAR.
It started with the numbers. Spray-painted in red on street signs, outside homes and train stations.
Then came the messages. At random, thousands upon thousands of complete strangers received a text on their phones: 10 15 is coming. It wasn’t a clue – it was a warning.
Last night, the first twelve were taken from their homes. No ransom, no note, just the numbers scrawled on their bedroom walls.
Discovering who – or what – is behind the kidnappings, and what the numbers could mean, quickly becomes paramount, as the entire country waits on high alert for news of their fate. Anyone could be responsible, and anyone could be next.
One thing is clear – this is only the beginning
Douglas Skelton
A murder cries out for vengeance. A rogue answers the call.
For six long years, fired by cold rage, Jonas Flynt has hunted the man who paved the way for the murder of his son the Caribbean and American Colonies. Many a pirate was delivered to justice during the chase, but Dan Hawke proved elusive.
Learning that his quarry has now returned to London, Flynt races across the Atlantic in pursuit.
There, he reunites with old allies and older enemies. But, in streets where lies and betrayal are the norm, alliances have shifted, and it’s hard to tell friend from foe.
Will Flynt be able track Hawke down at last in this web of intrigue? Or will his years-long quest for revenge have been in vain?
F R Maher
Fully emerged from his temporary retirement, an elderly Sherlock Holmes finds his next case in Madame Tussauds Chamber of Horrors.
When a small girl is traumatised by the waxen image of her own father presented as a murderer, Holmes investigates and finds he is not convinced of the man’s guilt. One person who can assist him is an expert on poisons and has written a short story based on the case. Seeking a distraction from her troubled life, she joins forces with Holmes and becomes a world-famous fugitive as they deduce who poisoned the lady from Hay on Wye.
Helen Jones
Cardiff, 1972:
Six bodies are discovered around the city. Each corpse is a decapitated body with a different head sewn on. Five victims are identified, the other becomes known as The Domino Man.
Cardiff, 2022:
Anna Edwards starts work at the Kendall Institute – an independent cold case investigation unit – just as the Domino Man case is re-opened. Anna is starting her life afresh, having escaped from a coercively controlling husband.
As the Domino Man case unfurls, Anna is at the heart of the investigation, helping the team piece together the clues to solve the most challenging and satisfying brainteaser of a crime. But her past is catching up with her too…
Jack Jewers
January 1670. London is enduring its worst winter in decades. But for Samuel Pepys, the darkest days are yet to come. Investigating the brutal murder of a libertine aristocrat takes him from the backstreets of London to the glamorous world of the theatre, where nothing is quite as it seems. But does the deadliest threat lie closer to home?
James Alistair Henry
TWO COPS. ONE KILLER. HUNDREDS OF GODS.
21st Century London – except the Norman conquest never happened. An uneasy alliance of ancient tribes has formed, but peace is threatened by a series of brutal murders. Detectives Aedith and Drustan must put aside their differences to track down a serial killer with a decades-old grudge.
Jane Corry
Two sisters, bound by a secret that could tear them apart . . .
Rosy is the responsible one, well-behaved and organised. Amy is the free spirit, always breaking the rules. But despite their differences, they can never be apart. Only they know what happened that day and one wrong move could destroy them both.
When Amy confides in her new psychiatrist, he begins to suspect one sister is covering for the other. His gut tells him to run, but his own dark past draws him ever closer to the two women, and they to him. As cracks form in the sisters’ carefully constructed facade, one thing becomes clear: three’s a crowd, and one of them has to go.
Jasper Fforde
Eddie and Jane live in Chromatacia, a place four social orders from now where Society is based entirely around visual colour. Everything you are and who you will be are based on the colours you can see. In this second in the sequel Eddie and Jane have to face the fallout from the issues of the first book and find out some terrfying new revelations about the world they thorught they understood.
Jen L Crow
Eilish Culpepper is a forensic psychologist and studies the minds of murderers every day. But she’s hiding a secret. Ten years ago, when she was a student at St Andrews, her best friend drowned — the death ruled a tragic accident. But Eilish has no memory of that night. So when Eilish is invited to a university reunion and her old friend’s house she knows she shouldn’t accept. Yet part of her needs to know what really happened — and when a Sivan snowstorm strands everyone, she’s forced to confront the past.
Jenny Morris
If you had the power over life and death, what would you do?
Thea has a godlike power. She can tell how long someone has to live just by touching them. Not only that, but she can transfer life from one person to another, killing the former in the process.
She resolves to use this ability for good, stealing life from the wicked and giving the deserving more time. But she soon finds out that doing the right thing isn’t as simple as she first thought, and she might not be able to overcome her own worst impulses.
Jess Blatchley
To the outside observer, Sasha Marsh is a dedicated single mum who goes above and beyond to ensure seven-year-old Gabriel lives a happy, healthy life in their sleepy Cotswold village. Yet beneath the façade of normalcy lies a darker reality, one where the doors and windows are always locked; where her son is never allowed to play outside, and where Sasha lives in constant fear. With their violent past always at the forefront of her mind, and a family secret threatening to come to light, Sasha is forced to ask herself the question: are murderers born or created?
K J Whittle
Five old friends gather for their high school reunion. As they catch up, painful memories surface, all centred around the disastrous prom night that broke them all apart and the school bully at the heart of it all. As they drink, a murderous plan takes shape but it’s all a fanciful daydream, right?
The next morning, the school bully is found dead, exactly the way the old friends planned it.
When a cryptic, anonymous message containing a recording of their conversation from the night before starts to circulate, the group knows they need to act, and fast. Who was listening to them? Who arranged the reunion? And, most importantly, who carried out their murderous plans?
Kelly Mancaruso
2020. During a friend’s birthday trip, Kaleigh Creedy’s life was torn apart when she and her two friends, Emma and Leila, were violently attacked in the middle of the night. Only Kaleigh managed to escape.
2025. Now married to a famous footballer and a rising star in her own right, the former beauty queen has tried to put the terror of that night behind her. But just when Kaleigh thinks she’s safe, the unthinkable happens…
Emma is found alive, and her version of events doesn’t match Kaleigh’s.
Her perfect life is unravelling, the tabloids are circling, but who will you believe?
LD Smithson
DEAR READER…
The parcel you hold looks completely normal. Opening it, you’re surprised to find a diary inside. You assume it’s been misplaced, until you see your name on the first page. This book is addressed to you.
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION?
The more you read, the more you start to panic. The book is full of riddles, but the puzzles are personal – only you could know the answers. Someone wrote this for you. And they’ve left you a terrifying confession…
YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME.
Because this author is a serial killer. They’ve been watching you, and this diary will tell you alone where their next victim is being kept. Can you save them before the killer catches up with you?
Louise Swanson
When darkness is everywhere, nowhere is safe…
A state of emergency has been declared in the UK. From now on, at 8pm every night, all electricity cuts out.
The Government promises it’s a temporary measure. They promise they are always thinking of your safety.
But for Grace, the darkness is anything but safe.
Someone is coming into her house under its cover every night while she lies in bed upstairs, too terrified to sleep. Someone who knows her past, who knows why she has more reason to fear the dark than most…
And every morning she wakes to a new message from the intruder:
I have you in my sights. Love, The Night
But how can Grace escape, when there’s nowhere safe left to hide?
Louise Minchin
Ice diver Alyssa hasn’t set foot in Lapilla since her best friend Tilda drowned under ice at night.
Officially, her death was an accident, like the one that killed Alyssa’s father years earlier. But Alyssa has never believed in accidents.
Forced her back to the frozen town she’d fled and seduced by the dangerous pull of ice-diving, Alyssa begins digging into Tilda’s disappearance. But her questions are met with alarming threats, it’s clear she’s not welcome home.
As the anniversary of Tilda’s disappearance looms, Alyssa must brave the unforgiving ice to uncover the truth. Before it claims her too.
LM CHILTON
An AI algorithm promised to find her soulmate, but trapped in a snowbound airport with her ex-fiancé and a serial killer, Hazel discovers some matches are made in hell…
Hazel and Marc were paired together on new reality TV show Love Synced. But when it came time to say I Do on camera, Hazel leaves her perfect match at the altar.
Now all she wants to do is fly home. Instead, she’s trapped in a tiny isolated airport with her ex and his obnoxiously rich family. And when they start turning up dead, a jilted lover is the least of Hazel’s worries – there’s a serial killer to catch first.
Mary-Jane Riley
1949. The Cold War is tightening its grip, spies lurk in every shadow, and the race for the atomic bomb is reaching a deadly pitch.
When GCHQ operative Beattie Cavendish is sent to a pivotal listening station in a remote corner of the Scottish Highlands, she finds a base in chaos. Its commander is missing, its mission compromised, and there are whispers of a German spy ring closing in. But Beattie’s task takes a darker and more personal turn when her uncle vanishes from nearby. He leaves behind a chilling note: I know who you really are.
With private detective Patrick Corrigan at her side, Beattie must uncover the truth before snow and secrecy seal them in. For here, betrayal runs deep, and no one is who they seem.
M. R. G. Davies
Not all secrets stay buried with the dead…
The four members of Norcester’s crime fiction reading group have been invited as guests of honour to a weekend celebrating the life of the late author of their favourite murder mystery detective novels.
But when the author’s secret archive is opened to the public after fifty years, there’s a deadly surprise inside.
The quartet find themselves embroiled in a mystery that stretches back to the Cold War. With an accomplished Russian spy close on their tail, a runaway train filled with treasures, and time running out, they will once again have to use everything they’ve learned from their fictional hero to catch the killer…
Mj Hollows
The brand-new World War 2 historical novel from the bestselling author of The German Messenger
Charlotte Weber is against the Nazi regime and what it stands for, but as she attends Hamburg University, she struggles to make sense of the war she finds herself a part of. Practising her violin for the university orchestra with her friend, Greta, gets her through the days, until Greta fails to meet her one day, and Charlotte goes to her friend’s apartment to find her body inside. The police declare it a suicide, but Charlotte knows it is murder.
Desperate to discover who killed her friend, but not knowing where to turn, Charlotte is approached by Nazi spies, who recruit her, believing she is Greta. Caught right in the middle of the regime’s web, Charlotte determines to use her position to subvert the regime from the inside, and find out the truth about Greta once and for all. As the war atrocities heighten, and she witnesses the brutality of the Gestapo, Charlotte begins to discover hidden truths of her closest circle of friends, all of whom have something to hide that would make them targets for the Nazis…
R L Graham
November 1918.
At a railway siding in a forest near Compiègne, north of Paris, a momentous meeting is taking place. Delegations from the German government and the Allies have arrived to negotiate the end to the Great War.
But extremists on both sides have other plans, and when the driver of the Allied train is attacked and killed, secret service agent Patrick Gallagher finds himself in a race against time to discover the killer.
Tthe Allies have given the Germans three days to agree to the armistice terms. If Gallagher cannot expose the traitors on both sides, the war will continue and thousands more lives will be lost . . .
NJ Hatton
One dark night, lawyer Jack is rushing his pregnant wife to hospital when he is involved in a fatal hit and run. Faced with losing his baby, he makes a split-second decision that will change his life forever. He drives on. He promises himself he will own up once his wife is cared for, but when he’s told that stress is fatal for the pregnancy it puts him in an impossible situation. When he goes to the police station to confess to his friend, the DCI in charge of the accident, he finds another man is accused of the crime. Jack sees an opportunity to buy himself some time until the baby is safe. He will represent the other man, playing both sides of the investigation. But as the lines of guilt and innocence become blurred, Jack finds himself at risk of losing everything.
Nicola Whyte
It’s all in the timing…
Every Thursday, Audrey Brooks cleans the Petrov house. Mr Petrov is never home but that doesn’t affect the care with which Audrey mops, polishes, and carefully winds each of the beautiful clocks that decorate the elegant, empty London mansion.
Until the morning she finds a corpse in the back bedroom, the pristine walls and floor covered in blood, and flees the house in panic. But when the police arrive, they find nothing. No body. No blood. No crime scene. The only thing out of place is the clock which is now running four minutes slow.
Paul Finch
THE LODGE – The Murder Tour ends with an evening at Black Tarn Lodge which offers everything for the discerning ‘dark tourist’. Not only is it a magnificent Gothic mansion nestling deep in the remote Forest of Bowland, it once belonged to deceased horror legend, Edgar Karnwood, and is now filled with costumes and mementoes from his movies. Offering an elegant dinner and the screening of a legendary lost film, it’s the ideal way to complete the Tour. Until night falls and a thick fog isolates the house. Until all the guests’ phones go missing. And then, one by one, they start vanishing…
Paul Waters
When the tyrannical head of one of Delhi’s richest families is found dead inside a locked room within the historic Elephant House, the world’s most unlikely detectives, Irish nun Sister Agnes and hotelier Avtar must solve an impossible murder.
As the city builds bonfires to celebrate the festival of Lohri, Sister Agatha and Avtar face backstabbing siblings, a gangster with untold influence, a police siege and a cigarette-stealing elephant. Avtar and Sister Agatha are hunting a murderer, but is someone pulling their strings? When a killer is prepared to do the unthinkable, nobody is safe and nobody can be trusted.
Ruth Dugdall
How do you stop a killer hiding in plain sight?
On the morning of her wedding, probation officer Cate Austin receives a call that stops everything: her sister has been found, barely alive, on a Suffolk riverbank.
Police move fast, certain they’ve found the culprit. But Cate can’t shake the feeling they’ve missed something. Because this isn’t the first woman to vanish. And it may not even be the second.
What if a serial killer has been hiding in plain sight for years?
To expose the truth, Cate must confront the darkest corners of the past. Before he kills again.
Ruth Goldstraw
The town of Wem, Shropshire 1643.Civil war is ripping England apart. Families are divided, emotions run high. A body is found, it’s mouth pierced with thorns. The Justice of the Peace, a godly man, is certain that witchcraft is involved. Only his assistant, former cavalryman John Carne, looks for reason where others see demons and witches. But John has secrets of his own – secrets that concern his wife. Then the darkness that has engulfed Wem grows darker still…
S. W. Perry
London, 1800.
Born in the gutter, raised on the banks of the greatest waterway in the world, Sergeant Jack Raven is an officer in the newly formed Thames River Police. And like any good policeman he doesn’t believe in ghosts.
But when labourers building the city’s great new docks unearth a child’s bones and an ancient curse, men start dying.
Raven must solve the case before more lives – and fortunes – are lost. His only allies are the unlikely kind: bare-knuckle fighters and a network of scientifically-minded young women, led by the aristocratic, spirited but married Lady Callista Granville – whose interest in Raven is a secret that could ruin them both.
Sabine Durrant
Matt Grimshaw has been let go by the paper where he’s worked for years, and his relationship with his long-term girlfriend has come unstuck. So when an invitation arrives from his two closest friends to join them at their house in Greece, he jumps at it.
It may be harsh and unwelcoming on the Mani Peninsula but Matt determines to stay there for the whole summer and to write his much put-off screen-play. But then a wealthy newcomer to the area starts throwing loud and lavish parties in his big house across the bay.
As the nights become hotter and the parties wilder, motivations darken. Envy rises, resentments grow – until a terrible accident stops the summer in its tracks. At least, it looks like an accident…
Sam Frances
Infamous rock band The Dolls are appearing on stage for the first time since lead singer Ris was pushed to her death. It was an open and shut case: Ris’ best friend was seen committing the crime, but when The Dolls start receiving death threats in the run up to a music festival where they will be the headline act, DS Alice Washington is forced to re-examine the original case. Because while Ris’ killer has been behind bars for ten years, it’s clear someone is still out for blood.
Sarah Dunnakey
Renowned puzzler Audrey Peppertree is hosting a Christmas party in her remote Cumbrian home. Her invitation was a playful riddle, but one RSVP was returned anonymously, with an ominous threat.
Audrey asks her friend, and retired bodyguard, Eloise Dodd to join the dinner and help work out which of her guests has a deadly motive.
Trapped by storms and scared for their lives, the diners are taunted with more cryptic games. It seems the arrogant killer likes to play with their food. Can Eloise, and the reader, solve the puzzles and unmask the villain before it is too late?
Sam Steele
When a suspected overdose victim is found to have received a postcard marked You’re first, DI Hope Fenton uncovers links to a circle of privileged Cambridge alumni: an eco-entrepreneur, a surgeon, a lecturer, and a government minister. They have been bound together since a fateful night twenty years ago, but are they potential victims – or suspects?
As the body count rises – seemingly the clique is being picked off one by one – Hope fails to cope with the terrible shadow cast by the disappearance of her son Noah eight years ago. The unanswered questions of what happened to him also haunt her ex-husband, colleague, and forensic scientist Dr Adam Fenton. But could it be that this case holds the key to Noah’s disappearance?
Sarah Ward
When the body of a young woman is found at the festival of Mari Lwyd, Mallory Dawson is called to the scene. But something is different about the murder of Gwennie Jones, something that will dredge up a part of Mallory’s history that still haunts her to this day.
Fourteen years earlier, Gwennie’s aunt Jaci went missing in London. The investigation — Mallory’s first as CID — was a disaster. With accusations of police incompetence still following, the pressure is on for her to get it right this time. Not just for Gwennie, but for Jaci too.
Sean Watkin
DCI Winifred de Silva and DS Ben Barclay are back, and fresh bodies are dropping before the last ones are even cold, as a systematic killer is on the loose.
Their investigation into The Woulds – a depraved app engineered for the world’s most dangerous predators – is reaching a violent climax. The digital platform may have vanished into the recesses of the dark web, but the monsters who built it are very much alive. And they aren’t finished yet.
As the two investigations collide, de Silva and Barclay must navigate a sprawling conspiracy that threatens to consume them both.
In a city where every truth may be a lie, they’ll learn that sometimes the end is just the beginning.
Tom Hindle
Tom Hindle, originally hailing from Leeds, now lives in Oxfordshire with his wife and daughter, an overly opinionated cat and two surprisingly cunning tortoises. He is the author of A Fatal Crossing, Tom’s hugely successful debut novel which was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month. He is also the author of The Murder Game, a Waterstones Paperback of the Year in 2023. Murder on Lake Garda and Death in the Arctic are Tom’s most recent, and Sunday Times bestselling, novels. His writing is inspired by masters of the crime genre such as Agatha Christie and Anthony Horowitz.
Tom Mead
A former First World War field hospital, the spooky old mansion at Devil’s Neck attracts spirit-seekers from far and wide. Illusionist-turned-sleuth Joseph Spector knows the house of old. With stories spreading of a phantom soldier making mischief, he joins a party of visitors in search of the truth.
But the house, located on a lonely causeway, is quickly cut off by floods. The stranded visitors are soon being killed off one by one. With old ally Inspector Flint working on a complex case that has links to Spector’s investigation, the two men must connect the dots before Devil’s Neck claims Spector himself as its next victim.
