The short life of A.J.A. Symons (1900-41) was described by his biographer as an intricate and largely harmless confidence trick. His many interests included the collection of musical boxes and rare books as well as the study and practice of forgery; they left him time to edit an anthology of Edwardian verse and compose studies of H.M. Stanley and other notable figures. He is remembered for The Quest for Corvo, one of the most remarkable biographies ever written, and for co-founding the Wine and Food Society.

A. J. A. Symons

A. J. Liebling, born in Manhattan in 1904, joined the staff of the New Yorker in 1935 and contributed innumerable articles to the magazine throughout his lifetime, on subjects ranging from food to boxing and France to horse racing. As a war correspondent during the Second World War, he reported from France, England and Algeria, and participated in the Normandy landings. In later life he married the writer Jean Stafford, his third wife. He died in 1963.

A. J. Liebling

A. J. Rosen is an author of YA fantasy novels and is an ambassador for Wattpad, known as @agatharoza. Entwined is her first novel.

A. J. Rosen

A. K. Davidson

A. O. Scott has been a film critic at the New York Times since 2000. His writing has appeared in many other publications, including the New York Review of Books, Slate, the New Yorker and the Nation. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2010, Scott is currently Distinguished Professor of Film Criticism at Wesleyan University. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York. 
 
@aoscott

A. O. Scott

A.S. Byatt (1936-2023) was a novelist, short-story writer and critic of international renown. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize 1990), the Frederica Quartet and The Children’s Book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999, and was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2016 for her ‘inspiring contribution to life writing’ and the Pak Kyongni Prize 2017. In 2018 she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.

A. S. Byatt

A. T. Williams won the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2013 for his book A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha Mousa. He lives in Warwickshire.

A. T. Williams

A. W. Chase

Dubbed ‘The new queen of spy fiction’ by the Guardian newspaper, and ‘the real thing’ by the Washington Post, A.C. 'Ava' Glass is the CWA Dagger-shortlisted author of Alias Emma (The Chase), The Traitor and The Trap. The Traitor was a 2023 Richard and Judy Bookclub pick. Alias Emma was a Barnes and Noble book of the month. A former crime reporter and communications consultant, for five years Ava worked closely with spies. Her time in that world fascinated her, and the people she met back then inspire every book she writes.

A.C. Glass

A.E. Housman

Arthur Edward Waite was the designer and co-creator of the now famous Rider Waite Tarot deck. 
 
An American-born British poet and scholarly mystic, his strong interest in all esoteric matters - divination, magic, Kabbalism, alchemy and Freemasony - led to him penning a number of books. These include the Key to the Tarot, The Book of Ceremonial Magic and A New Encyclopedia of Freemasony.

A.E. Waite

A.E. Warren is the author of the Tomorrow's Ancestors series, which consists of Subject Twenty-One, The Hidden Base, The Fourth Species and The Final Rising. 
 
After spending eight years working as a lawyer, she began to write in the evenings and early mornings as a form of escapism from life in a very small cubicle with lots of files. She self-published her first novels in her spare time, which were picked up by Del Rey UK which is the science fiction/fantasy imprint of Penguin Random House. 
 
 She is an avid reader, occasional gamer and fair-weather runner. She lives in the UK with her husband, daughter and hopefully, one day, a wise border terrier named Austen.

A.E. Warren

A.G.D. Maran

A.J. Ayer

A.J. Cronin

A K Benedict writes crime and speculative fiction in a room filled with clowns, mannequins and Doctor Who figures. Her first novel, The Beauty of Murder, was nominated for an eDunnit award and is in development for a major 8-part TV series by Company Pictures. Her second, Jonathan Dark or The Evidence of Ghosts, came out in February 2016. She's written Torchwood audio dramas for Big Finish and her short stories have featured in anthologies including Great British Horror and Best British Short Stories. She lives in St Leonards-on-Sea with her dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford.

A.K.Benedict

A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards – including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in Essex.

A.L. Kennedy

A.M. Ellis is a speculative fiction author and lover of everything steeped in myth and mystery. Her stories often lean into diverse voices, not only in her identity as a Black woman, but in exploring neurodivergence and mental health. A proud introvert and nostalgic gamer, she lives in Maryland, USA, with her husband and three children.

A.M. Ellis

A.N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is an award-winning biographer and a celebrated novelist, winning prizes for much of his work. He lives in North London.

A.N. Wilson

A. T. Emerald lives with her husband and baby daughter in Nottinghamshire. She discovered her love of writing in 2020 and has not shut up about enemies to lovers ever since. She loves iced matcha, torrid love confessions with knives pressed to throats (fictional, of course) and does not accept bills for any therapy her books might incur.

A.T. Emerald

A.W. Priest

A.B.C. Merriman-Labor was a barrister, writer and munitions worker born in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1877. His published works include A Series of Lectures on the Negro Race and The Story of the African Slave in a Nutshell. He also edited two editions of the Handbook of Sierra Leone. He arrived in the UK in 1904 to study law. In 1907, he organised a centenary commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade in Westminster Abbey. He later embarked on an 'entertainment-lecture' tour called Life and Scenes in Britain, travelling across thousands of miles of West, South West and Central Africa, which he expanded on to create Britons Through Negro Spectacles.

ABC Merriman-Labor

AJ Cronin

AJ Molloy

Aabria Iyengar is an American actress and author.

Aabria Iyengar

Aaliya Jaleel is a freelance illustrator, designer, and visual development artist, currently majoring in Animation at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is also the illustrator of Under My Hijab and Muslim Girls Rise. You can visit her online at www.aaliyamj.com.

Aaliya Jaleel

Aaron Allston

After more than fifteen years of experience as a clinical psychotherapist, Dr Aaron Balick has taken the amazing insights from psychology and psychotherapy out of the consultation room and made them accessible to the wider world. 
 
He has been an ‘agony uncle’ for many years for both CBBC and BBC Radio 1, as well as on television, including BBC Worldwide, BBC 3 and BBC Learning.

Aaron Balick

Aaron Carroll

Aaron Dignan is the founder of The Ready--a global organizational transformation and coaching practice--that helps companies large and small adopt new forms of self-organization and dynamic teaming. Clients include Johnson &amp; Johnson, Microsoft, Lloyds Bank, Citibank, Boeing, Mailchimp, Airbnb, Dropbox, and charity: water. 
 
He is also the founder of Murmur--a SaaS startup that helps teams scale culture through the magic of working agreements. The Murmur platform will allow every team on the planet to define and share their ways of working. 
 
Dignan is the author of Brave New Work (2019) and Game Frame (2011), co-host of the Brave New Work podcast, and a friend to misfit toys.

Aaron Dignan

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Christopher Fowler

Arthur Bryant and John May are Golden Age detectives living in the modern world. Together they head up the Peculiar Crimes Unit, ready to solve any of the weird and wonderful crimes that fall across their desks.

The river Thames is London’s most important yet neglected artery. When a young woman is found chained to a post in the tide, no-one can understand how she came to be drowned there. At the Peculiar Crimes Unit, Arthur Bryant and John May find themselves dealing with an impossible crime committed in a very public place. 
Soon they discover that the river is giving up other victims, but as the investigation extends from the coast of Libya to the nightclubs of North London, it proves as murkily sinister as the Thames itself. That’s only part of the problem; Bryant’s rapidly deteriorating condition prevents him from handling the case, and he is confined to home. To make matters worse, May makes a fatal error of judgement that knocks him out of action and places everyone at risk. 
With the PCU staff baffled as much by their own detectives as the case, the only people who can help now are the battery of eccentrics Bryant keeps listed in his diary, but will their arcane knowledge save the day or make matters even worse? Soon there’s a clear suspect in everyone’s sights – the only thing that’s missing is any scrap of evidence. 
As the detectives’ disastrous investigation comes unstuck, the whole team gets involved in some serious messing about on the river. In an adventure that’s as twisting as the river upon which it’s set, will there be anything left of the Peculiar Crimes Unit when it’s over?

Bryant & May - Strange Tide

(Bryant & May Book 14)

Lee Child

Jack Reacher is a former major in the US Military Police who, since leaving the army, has drifted round the wide open spaces of America, hitchhiking or on buses, wherever the whim takes him. He has no permanent address, no job, no family ties, no car, no luggage, no mobile phone, no credit card - all he carries with him is a folding toothbrush. 
Reacher is never looking for trouble, but somehow trouble always find him. He is the ultimate hero for our troubled times, with a keen moral compass and sense of justice, even if he is often prepared to take the law into his own hands: he says he doesn't want to put the world to rights, he just doesn't like people who put it to wrongs.

"I know I say this every year. . .But. Best. Reacher. Ever." (Karin Slaughter) 
 
It's just a voice plucked from the air: 'The American wants a hundred million dollars'. 
 
For what? Who from? It's 1996, and the Soviets are long gone. But now there's a new enemy. In an apartment in Hamburg, a group of smartly-dressed young Saudis are planning something big. 
 
In the morning they gave Reacher a medal, and in the afternoon they sent him back to school. 
 
Jack Reacher is fresh off a secret mission. The Army pats him on the back and sends him to a school with only three students: Reacher, an FBI agent, and a CIA analyst. Their assignment? 
 
To find that American. And what he's selling. And to whom. 
 
_________ 
 
Although the Jack Reacher novels can be read in any order, Night School is 21st in the series. 
 
And don’t miss Reacher's newest adventure, No.30, Exit Strategy! ***OUT NOW***

Night School

(Jack Reacher 21)

Abbie Taylor

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
That was how she saw him, mostly, in the weeks that followed. Standing there in the doorway with his toothy little grin, his crooked fringe, his blue fleece with the smiley elephant on the front. 
 
Life as a single mother is hard. Emma loves her thirteen-month-old son Ritchie, she really does – but sometimes, she dreams about what life would be like without him. But when Ritchie is abducted from the London Underground, Emma’s dream becomes a nightmarish reality. 
 
So why don’t the police seem to believe her? Why do they think that she would want to harm her son? 
 
If Emma wants Ritchie back, it looks like she’ll have to find him herself. She hasn’t been the best mother in the past – but she’s willing to go to desperate lengths to bring her little boy home . . .

Emma's Baby

The Sunday Times bestseller

In every detective’s life there are cases that can’t be discussed, and throughout the Bryant &amp; May novels there have been mentions of some of these such as the Deptford Demon or the Little Italy Whelk Smuggling Scandal. 
Now Arthur Bryant has decided to open the files on eleven of these previously unseen investigations that required the collective genius and unique modus operandi of Arthur Bryant and John May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit - investigations that range from different times (London during the Great Smog) and a variety of places: a circus freak show, on board a London Tour Bus and even a yacht off the coast of Turkey. 
And in addition to these eleven classic cases, readers are also given a privileged look inside the Peculiar Crimes Unit (literally, with a cut away drawing of their offices), a guide to the characters of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, and access to the contents of Arthur Bryant’s highly individual library.

Bryant & May - London's Glory

(Bryant & May Book 13, Short Stories)

Tess Gerritsen

What if your child wanted you dead? 
 
'I defy you to read the first chapter and not singe your fingers reading all the rest. It’s that compelling. It’s that good.' David Baldacci 
 
Julia is terrified by her daughter's aggressive behaviour. Lily has changed from an angelic little girl into someone she is afraid to be alone with. 
 
What scares Julia most, though, is that she knows why Lily is acting this way, but no-one will believe her. If she is going to help Lily, she will have to find the answers alone, embarking on a search that will take her to the shadowy back streets of Venice. 
 
There Julia finds far more than just answers, and uncovers a heartbreaking, long-buried tale of tragedy and devastation. And this discovery has put her in serious danger . . .

Playing with Fire

"Child's best for some time...with detective-story and romcom elements (even sly humour) on top of the psychological duels and set-piece violence." (Sunday Times) 
 
Jack Reacher has no place to go, and all the time in the world to get there. 
 
A remote railroad stop on the prairie with the curious name of Mother's Rest seems perfect for an aimless one-day stopover. He expects to find a lonely pioneer tombstone in a sea of nearly-ripe wheat. 
 
Instead there is a woman waiting for a missing colleague, a cryptic note about two hundred deaths, and a small town full of silent, watchful people. 
 
Reacher's one-day stopover turns into an open-ended quest leading to the most hidden reaches of the internet, and right into the nightmare heart of darkness. 
 
_________ 
 
Although the Jack Reacher novels can be read in any order, Make Me is 20th in the series. 
 
And don’t miss Reacher's newest adventure, No.30, Exit Strategy! ***OUT NOW***

Make Me

(Jack Reacher 20)

London is under siege. A banking scandal has filled the city with violent protests, and as the anger in the streets detonates, a young homeless man burns to death after being caught in the crossfire between rioters and the police. 
But all is not as it seems; an opportunistic killer is using the chaos to exact revenge, but his intended victims are so mysteriously chosen that the Peculiar Crimes Unit is called in to find a way of stopping him. 
Using their network of eccentric contacts, elderly detectives Arthur Bryant and John May hunt down a murderer who adopts incendiary methods of execution. But they soon find their investigation taking an apocalyptic turn as the case comes to involve the history of mob rule, corruption, rebellion, punishment and the legend of Guy Fawkes. 
At the same time, several members of the PCU team reach dramatic turning points in their lives - but the most personal tragedy is yet to come, for as the race to bring down a cunning killer reaches its climax, Arthur Bryant faces his own devastating day of reckoning. 
‘I always said we’d go out with a hell of a bang,’ warns Bryant.

Bryant & May - The Burning Man

(Bryant & May 12)

"Consistently pulse-raising. . .an exhilarating ride. . .Personal wrests back the sheer gusto of the earlier novels; it's the best Reacher adventure in some considerable time." (Independent) 
 
Jack Reacher walks alone. 
 
Once a go-to hard man in the US military police, now he's a drifter of no fixed abode. But the army tracks him down. Because someone has taken a long-range shot at the French president. 
 
Only one man could have done it. And Reacher is the one man who can find him. 
 
This new heartstopping, nailbiting book in Lee Child's number-one bestselling series takes Reacher across the Atlantic to Paris - and then to London. 
 
The stakes have never been higher - because this time, it's personal. 
 
_________ 
 
Although the Jack Reacher novels can be read in any order, Personal is 19th in the series. 
 
And don’t miss Reacher's newest adventure, No.30, Exit Strategy! ***OUT NOW***

Personal

(Jack Reacher 19)

It’s a fresh start for the Met's oddest investigation team, the Peculiar Crimes Unit. 
Their first case involves two teenagers who see a dead man rising from his grave in a London park. And if that's not alarming enough, one of them is killed in a hit and run accident. Stranger still, in the moments between when he was last seen alive and found dead on the pavement, someone has changed his shirt... 
Much to his frustration, Arthur Bryant is not allowed to investigate. Instead, he has been tasked with finding out how someone could have stolen the ravens from the Tower of London. All seven birds have vanished from one of the most secure fortresses in the city. And, as the legend has it, when the ravens leave, the nation falls… 
Soon it seems death is all around and Bryant and May must confront a group of latter-day bodysnatchers, explore an eerie funeral parlour and unearth the gruesome legend of Bleeding Heart Yard. More graves are desecrated, further deaths occur, and the symbol of the Bleeding Heart seems to turn up everywhere - it’s even discovered hidden in the PCU’s offices. And when Bryant is blindfolded and taken to the headquarters of a secret society, he realises that this case is more complex than even he had imagined, and that everyone is hiding something. The Grim Reaper walks abroad and seems to be stalking him, playing on his fears of premature burial. 
Rich in strange characters and steeped in London’s true history, this is Bryant &amp; May’s most peculiar and disturbing case of all.

Bryant & May - The Bleeding Heart

(Bryant & May Book 11)

Ariana Franklin

'An absorbing re-creation of the 12th Century . . . this is a fast-moving story of humbler folk caught up in cruel battles' The Independent 
 
‘Original, atmospheric and genuinely moving . . . captures the imagination and does not let go’ Giles Kristian 
 
It’s 1141 and freezing cold. 
 
Gwil, a battle-hardened mercenary, is horrified to stumble across a little girl close to death. She has been attacked, just one more victim in a winter of atrocities. Clutching a sliver of parchment, she is terrified – but Gwil knows what he must do. He will bring her back to life. He will train her to fight. And together, they will hunt down the man who did this to her. 
 
But danger looms wherever they turn. As castle after castle falls victim to siege, the icy Fens ring with rumours of a madman, of murder – and of a small piece of parchment with a terrible secret to tell, the cost of which none of them could have imagined . . .

Winter Siege

Simon Beckett

'Somebody!' I half-sob and then, more quietly, 'Please.' The words seem absorbed by the afternoon heat, lost amongst the trees. In their aftermath, the silence descends again. I know then that I’m not going anywhere... 
Sean is on the run. We don't know why and we don't know from whom, but we do know he's abandoned his battered, blood-stained car in the middle of an isolated part of rural France at the height of a sweltering summer. Desperate to avoid the police, he takes to the parched fields and country lanes but his leg is caught in a vicious animal trap. Near unconscious from pain and loss of blood, he is freed and taken in by two women - daughters of the owner of a rundown local farm with its ramshackle barn, blighted vineyard and the brooding lake. And it's then that Sean's problems really start... 
This nail-shredder of a thriller - like the fiction of Nicci French or Gillian Flynn - holds you from the beginning, tightening its grip as the story unfurls and shocks you with its final twist.

Stone Bruises

'FAST-PACED, TAUT AND PUNCHY' Sunday Times 
 
After an epic and interrupted journey all the way from the snows of South Dakota, Jack Reacher has finally made it to Virginia. His destination, the closest thing to a home he ever had: the headquarters of his old unit, the 110th Military Police. 
 
Why? He wants to meet the new commanding officer, Major Susan Turner. He liked her voice on the phone. But now he's arrived, she's disappeared, and things are getting weird. 
 
Accused of a sixteen-year-old homicide and co-opted back into the army, Reacher says nothing. 
 
But he's sure as hell thinking of a way out. 
 
'One of Reacher's best...a must' Daily Express 
 
_________ 
 
Although the Jack Reacher novels can be read in any order, Never Go Back follows on directly from the end of A Wanted Man. 
 
And don’t miss Reacher's newest adventure, No.30, Exit Strategy! ***OUT NOW***

Never Go Back

(Jack Reacher 18)

Mo Hayder

Mo Hayder's Jack Caffery series is not for the faint-hearted. 
DI Jack Caffery specialises in the most gruesome, twisted and terrifying crimes. Against the clock to find the killer before the next murder is committed, Caffery is young, unshockable and driven.

Bestselling and prize-winning author Mo Hayder has penned another spine-tingling and stomach-churning thriller that is guaranteed to keep you turning the pages. Creepy, enthralling, twisty and very moving, Poppet is perfect for fans of Stephen King, Stuart MacBride and Karin Slaughter. 
 
'Hayder has a profound ability to shock and surprise her readers' -- Karin Slaughter 
'With Mo Hayder you never know where you are going until you get there' -- The Times 
'Oozes sinisterness from the first page' -- Entertainment weekly 
'Full of twists, turns and lots of tension . . . deliciously dark and creepy.' -- ***** Reader review 
'Completely compulsive reading . . . gritty and often shocking.' -- ***** Reader review 
'Poppet had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up from the very beginning.' -- ***** Reader review 
'Full of twist and turns with a totally unexpected twist at the end!' -- ***** Reader review 
************************************************************************* 
THE MAUDE IS OUTSIDE. 
 
IT WANTS TO COME IN. 
 
IT WANTS TO SIT ON YOUR CHEST. 
 
The patients at Beechway High Secure Unit are terrified. Unexplained power cuts have lead to a series of horrifying incidents. And now fear has spread from the inmates to the staff. 
 
DI Jack Caffery is called to investigate, whilst working the most impossible case of his life. 
 
Will he be able to stare pure evil in the eye, and survive?

Poppet

Featuring Jack Caffrey, star of BBC’s Wolf series. A tense and terrifying thriller from the bestselling author

(Jack Caffery Book 6): the heart-stopping thriller that will keep you up all night from bestselling author Mo Hayder

Winner of CrimeFest 2013's 'eDunnit Award' for 'the best crime fiction ebook published in 2012 in both hardcopy and in electronic format'. 
 
Two small children are playing a game called 'Witch-Hunter'. They place a curse on a young woman taking lunch in a church courtyard and wait for her to die. An hour later the woman is indeed found dead inside St Bride's Church - a building that no-one else has entered. 
 
Unfortunately Bryant &amp; May are refused the case. Instead, there are hired by their greatest enemy to find out why his wife has suddenly started behaving strangely. She's become an embarrassment to him at government dinners, and he is convinced that someone is trying to drive her insane. She has even taken to covering the mirrors in her apartment, and believes herself to be the victim of witchcraft. 
 
Then a society photographer is stabbed to death in a nearby park and suddenly a link emerges between the two cases. And so begins an investigation that will test the members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit to their limits, setting Arthur Bryant off on a trail that leads to Bedlam and Bletchley Park, and into the world of madness, codes and the secret of London's strangest relic. 
 
As the members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit dig behind the city's facades to expose a world of private clubs, hidden passages and covert loyalties, they realise that the case might not just end in disaster - it might also get everyone killed.

Bryant & May and the Invisible Code

(Bryant & May Book 10)

'A fascinating, swaggeringly confident performance' Sunday Times 
 
When you're as big and rough as Jack Reacher - and you have a badly set, freshly busted nose - it isn't easy to hitch a ride in Nebraska. At last, he's picked up by three strangers - two men and a woman. 
 
Within minutes it becomes clear they're all lying about everything - and there's a police roadblock ahead. There has been an incident, and the cops are looking for the bad guys . . . 
 
Will they get through because the three are innocent? Or because the three are now four? Is Reacher just a decoy? 
 
_________ 
 
Although the Jack Reacher novels can be read in any order, A Wanted Man follows on directly from the end of Worth Dying For. 
 
And don’t miss Reacher's newest adventure, No.30, Exit Strategy! ***OUT NOW***

A Wanted Man

(Jack Reacher 17)

Paul Sussman

AN ANCIENT MYSTERY HAS ALREADY TAKEN TWO LIVES... HOW MANY MORE WILL IT CLAIM? 
 
The bestselling, pulse-poundingarchaeological thriller by bestselling author Paul Sussman is a must-read for fans of Dan Brown, Clive Cussler and Wilbur Smith. 
 
'A genuinely exciting read from a world-class storyteller...a beautifully-observed thriller.' - FINANCIAL TIMES 
 
'Captivating, intelligent and notably well-written... Sussman's thrillers have been translated into 33 languages and have sold over 2 million copies worldwide. This, his final book, deserves to be even more successful.' - DAILY MAIL 
 
'Stylish writing and deep research.' - GUARDIAN 
 
'Sussman knew how to keep a complex plot bowling along while constantly ratcheting up the tension...this is top-drawer popular fiction and is sure to become an even bigger bestseller than his three other novels.' - MAIL ON SUNDAY 
 
*********************************************************************************** 
 
A journalist is murdered in Jerusalem's Armenian Cathedral and Detective Arieh Ben-Roi is spoilt for leads. But one seems out of place - an apparent link to a decades-old missing persons case in Egypt. Baffled, Ben-Roi turns for help to his old friend and sparring partner, Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor Police. 
 
Although struggling with personal tragedy and immersed in a case of his own - mysterious well poisonings in the Eastern Desert - Khalifa agrees to do some digging. What he discovers will change both men's lives for ever. 
 
As their investigations intertwine, the detectives are drawn ever deeper into a sinister web of violence, abuse, corporate malpractice and international terrorism. And at its heart lies a three thousand year-old mystery that has already taken two lives, and will soon be claiming more...

The Labyrinth of Osiris

as exhilarating as it is clever, this is an unmissable globetrotting thriller

'There's only one Jack Reacher. Accept no substitutes.' Mick Herron 
 
March 1997. A woman has her throat cut behind a bar in Mississippi. 
 
Just down the road is a big army base. Is the murderer a local guy - or is he a soldier? 
 
Jack Reacher, still a major in the military police, is sent in undercover. 
 
The county sheriff is a former U.S. Marine - and a stunningly beautiful woman. Her investigation is going nowhere. Is the Pentagon stonewalling her? Or is she trying not to find the killer? 
 
Set just six months before the opening of Killing Floor, The Affair marks a turning point in Reacher's career. 
 
If he does what the army wants, will he be able to live with himself? And if he doesn't, will the army be able to live with him? 
 
_________ 
 
Although the Jack Reacher novels can be read in any order, The Affair is 16th in the series. 
 
And don’t miss Reacher's newest adventure, No.30, Exit Strategy! ***OUT NOW***

The Affair

(Jack Reacher 16)

The defenestration of a ruthless theatre impresario's young son was definitely not the best way to end the play's first night party. And the crime scene itself was most unusual: a locked bedroom, with no sign of forced entry, no prints or traces of blood, just a sinister, life-size puppet of Mr Punch lying on the floor... 
 
Everyone at the party - from the dodgy producer and rakish male lead to the dour set designer and the assistant stage manager (the wild daughter of a prominent civil servant) - is a suspect. 
 
It's a perfect case for Bryant and May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit but the Home Office, wary of the PCU's eccentric methods and intensely aware of the potential political embarrassment, wants them off the investigation. 
 
The elderly detectives are not so easily deterred, however. Delving into the history of London theatre and the gruesome origins of 'Punch and Judy', they uncover a maniacal killer is at work - one who must be caught before it's curtains for everyone!

Bryant & May and the Memory of Blood

(Bryant & May Book 9)

Tense, thrilling and brilliantly original, Hanging Hill reveals the evil side of human nature and the terrible things normal people can do... Perfect for fans of Stephen King, Stuart MacBride and Karin Slaughter. 
 
'An authentically disturbing, gripping winner' -- Financial Times 
'With Mo Hayder you never know where you are going until you get there. A chiller to the very end' -- The Times 
'Fantastically tense thriller with a sickening twist at the end' -- ***** Reader review 
'Great characters, great story and great twists and turns!' -- ***** Reader review 
'Mo Hayder has done it again. Frightened the life out of me and left me shouting at my book - No!!!!!!!!' -- ***** Reader review 
'One of my best ever reads' -- ***** Reader review 
************************************************************************** 
EVEN GOOD PEOPLE DO BAD THINGS... 
 
The Victim: 
A teenage girl has been brutally murdered on her way home from school. The cryptic message 'all like her' is crudely written on her body. 
 
The Silence: 
The dead girl's friends are deeply shocked and upset, but they all refuse to reveal anything about her last movements. Who are they protecting? And what more do they know? 
 
The Fear: 
Headstrong Detective Inspector Zoë Benedict knows exactly how she wants to work this case. But Zoë's own dark past, if exposed, may jeopardize the search for justice . . . and destroy her too.

Hanging Hill

a terrifying, taut and spine-tingling thriller from bestselling author Mo Hayder

* Don't miss 'THE CHEMISTRY OF DEATH' TV SERIES - now streaming on Paramount+ * 
 
Adapted from The Chemistry of Death and Written in Bone - starring Harry Treadaway as Dr David Hunter 
 
'As bone-chillingly bleak as its subject . . . this doesn't disappoint' Financial Times 
 
A serial killer is on the loose and David Hunter suddenly finds that the past is far from dead and buried. 
 
The escape of a psychotic rapist and multiple murderer brings DI Terry Connor to David Hunter's doorstep, years after their bitter rift. 
 
This unwelcome reminder of the past forces Hunter to confront the situation at hand: eight years earlier Hunter and an ill-fated Body Recovery team, has tried to find the graves of Monk's teenage victims on the bleak expanse of Dartmoor. 
 
Only one of the missing girls' bodies was ever found. 
 
Suddenly Hunter receives an appeal from Sophie Keller, a young woman who also worked on the operation, and nothing is quite as it seems. Hunter is forced to question who he can really trust. 
 
Especially when his own life depends on it.

The Calling of the Grave

(David Hunter 4): Harry Treadaway is Dr David Hunter: the darkly compelling new TV series ‘The Chemistry of Death’ – streaming now on Paramount+

Manda Scott

The ancient Mayans predicted the End of Days with uncanny precision: 21 December 2012. 
 
But they also provided the key to staving off apocalypse: a flawless sapphire of incomparable beauty carved into the perfect likeness of a human skull. 
 
For more than four centuries, the skull and its legacy of dark intrigue and murder have been hidden, protected by a code few can break. 
 
Now it's about to be found.

2012: The Crystal Skull

The King of England has called upon his Mistress of the Art of Death - anatomist and doctor Adelia Aguilar - to accompany 10-year-old Princess Joanna on her thousand-mile journey to marry the King of Sicily. They must take with them the legendary sword Excalibur. 
 
And so Adelia sets sail with the golden princess and her lavish party of nobles, musicians, servants, laundresses, grooms, luggage and treasure. But when members of the procession begin to die and it looks as though Adelia is to blame, there are dangerous accusations of witchcraft. 
 
Meanwhile one traveller, armed with a brilliant disguise and a personal vendetta, has been watching Adelia all too closely. This secret assassin wants her dead . . . but he wants her to suffer first.

The Assassin's Prayer

Mistress of the Art of Death, Adelia Aguilar series 4

'If anyone can put down Worth Dying For after the first few pages, then they shouldn't really be reading thrillers at all' Independent 
 
There's trouble in the deadly wilds of Nebraska . . . and Reacher walks right into it. He falls foul of the Duncans, a local clan that has terrified an entire country into submission. 
 
But it's the unsolved case of a missing eight-year-old girl that Reacher can't let go. 
 
Reacher - bruised and battered - should have just kept going. But for Reacher, that was impossible. 
 
What, in this fearful county, would be worth dying for? 
 
_________ 
 
Although the Jack Reacher novels can be read in any order, Worth Dying For follows on directly from the end of 61 Hours. 
 
And don’t miss Reacher's newest adventure, No.30, Exit Strategy! ***OUT NOW***

Worth Dying For

(Jack Reacher 15)

They've been given just one week to find a killer they'd caught once before . . . 
Arthur Bryant, John May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit are on the trail of an enigma: a young man called Mr Fox. But his identity is false, his links to society are invisible and his home yields no clues. All they know is that somehow he escaped from a locked room and murdered one of their best and brightest. 
Now the detectives are being lured down into the darkest recesses of the London Underground where their quarry, expertly disguised, has struck again. Their search takes them into the vast labyrinth of tunnels, a subterranean world full of legends and ghost stations, which tie the city together. Edging closer to what lies hidden beneath the city - and to the madness that is driving a man to murder - Bryant and May are about to uncover a mystery as bizarre as anything they have ever encountered . . .

Bryant and May Off the Rails (Bryant and May 8)

(Bryant & May Book 8)

Janet Gleeson

Agnes Meadowes is cook to the Blanchards of Foster Lane, the renowned silversmiths. Her quiet world of culinary activity, preparing jugged hare, oyster loaves, almond soup and other delicacies for the family, is a happy refuge from the hustle and bustle of 1750s London. But in a single night everything is to change: the Blanchards' most prestigious and expensive commission, a giant silver wine cooler destined for the house of Sir Bartholomew Grey, is stolen and a sinister chain of events is set in motion. A young apprentice is murdered and a young maid, Rose, disappears. Are these portentous happenings connected? 
Called upon by her master to investigate 'below stairs', Agnes enters a dark world of hidden secrets, jealousy and murderous intent. Before the game is played out she will be forced to act as mouse to the infamous Thief Taker's cat as she is drawn into a seamy underworld of London crime. And the truth comes at a high price: she must decide how big a sacrifice she is prepared to make to bring the villains to justice. 
Boasting a heroine who's going to win a multitude of admirers, THE THIEF TAKER is a spellbinding novel of crime, chicanery and cooking.

The Thief Taker

James Becker

An Englishwoman is found dead in a house near Rome. 
 
Her distraught husband enlists the help of his closest friend, Chris Bronson, who discovers an ancient inscription on a slab of stone above their fireplace. It translates as 'Here Lie the Liars.' 
 
But who are the liars? And what is it they are lying to protect? 
 
Pursued across Europe, Bronson uncovers a trail of clues that leads him back to the shadowy beginnings of Christianity; to a chalice decorated with mysterious symbols; to a secret code hidden within a scroll. 
 
And to a deadly conspiracy which - if revealed - will rock the foundations of our modern world.

The First Apostle

Adelia Aguilar is a rare thing in medieval Europe - a woman who has trained as a doctor. Her speciality is the study of corpses, a skill that must be concealed if she is to avoid accusations of witchcraft. 
 
But in Cambridge a child has been murdered, others are disappearing, and King Henry has called upon a renowned Italian investigator to find the killer - fast. 
 
What the king gets is Adelia, his very own Mistress of the Art of Death. 
 
The investigation takes Adelia deep into Cambridge; its castle and convents, and streets teeming with life. And it is here that she attracts the attention of a murderer who is prepared to kill again...

Mistress Of The Art Of Death

Mistress of the Art of Death, Adelia Aguilar series 1

Dennis Lehane

Boston private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are hired to find four-year-old Amanda Cready. 
 
Despite extensive news coverage and dogged investigation into her abduction, the police have uncovered nothing. And as the Indian summer fades, Amanda McCready stays gone - vanished so completely that she seems never to have existed. 
 
Then a second child disappears. 
 
Confronted with a police force seething with lethal secrets, Kenzie and Gennaro soon discover that those who go looking for the missing may not come back alive.

Gone, Baby, Gone

"Complete with crackling fast dialogue, an edgy ambivalent plot, and the capacity to make his readers turn the page, this feels like Child's breakthrough book into the mega-sellers. He is that good." (Daily Mail) 
 
Jack Reacher, adrift in the hellish heat of a Texas summer. 
 
Looking for a lift through the vast empty landscape. A woman stops, and offers a ride. She is young, rich and beautiful. 
 
But her husband's in jail. When he comes out, he's going to kill her. 
 
Her family's hostile, she can't trust the cops, and the lawyers won't help. She is entangled in a web of lies and prejudice, hatred and murder. 
 
Jack Reacher never could resist a lady in distress. 
 
_________ 
 
Although the Jack Reacher novels can be read in any order, Echo Burning is 5th in the series. 
 
And don’t miss Reacher's newest adventure, No.30, Exit Strategy! ***OUT NOW***

Echo Burning

(Jack Reacher 5)

Six shots. Five dead. 
 
A heartland city thrown into terror. But within hours the cops have it solved. A slam-dunk case. Apart from one thing. The accused gunman refuses to talk except for a single phrase: 
 
Get Jack Reacher for me. 
 
Reacher lives off the grid. He's not looking for trouble. But sometimes trouble looks for him. What could connect the noble Reacher to this psychopathic killer? 
 
_________ 
 
Although the Jack Reacher can be read in any order, One Shot is the 9th in the series. 
 
And don’t miss Reacher's newest adventure, No.30, Exit Strategy! ***OUT NOW***

One Shot

(Jack Reacher 9)

A Private Thriller

A series of children's modern classic novels by renowned 20th century children's writers. All the titles in this series have the A Puffin Book logo, contemporary-style covers, and child-friendly endnotes.

A Puffin Book

A Ripley Novel

A Slice of the Moon

A Victorian Mystery

A Walk in...

A Women’s Murder Club Thriller

A chef Paul Delamare Mystery

Aberrations

Across the Universe

Actiphons

Adelia Aguilar

Adrian Mole

Adventures in Time

Aftermath

Against War

Age of X

Agent 21

Agent Z

Detective Aidan Waits is a troubled junior detective haunted by his past. Facing an uncertain future, and disconnected from his history, DC Waits and his partner, Detective Inspector Peter 'Sutty' Sutcliffe work on Manchester's streets to uncover the city's worst criminals among the grime of the underworld.

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