Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Crime Fiction

She is the perfect assassin. A Russian orphan, saved from the death penalty for the brutal revenge she took on her gangster father's killers. Ruthlessly trained. Given a new life. New names, new faces - whichever fits. Her paymasters call themselves The Twelve. But she knows nothing of them. Konstantin is the man who saved her and the one she answers to. She is Villanelle. Without conscience. Without guilt. Without weakness. Eve Polastri is the woman who hunts her. MI5, until one error of judgment costs her everything.

Bristol detective DS George Cross, champion of the outsider, the voiceless and the dispossessed. DS George Cross can be rude, difficult and awkward with people. But his unfailing logic and dogged pursuit of the truth means his conviction rate is the best on the force. An outsider himself, having been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, DS Cross is especially drawn to cases concerning the voiceless and the dispossessed. Now, Cross is untangling the truth about a young woman who died three days ago.

1920. Poppy Denby, an aspiring journalist, arrives in London to look after her ailing Aunt. She encourages Poppy to apply for a job at The Daily Globe, but on her first day, a senior reporter is killed and Poppy is tasked with finishing his story. It involves the mysterious death of a suffragette seven years earlier - an event some powerful people would prefer forgotten....

In every detective's life there are cases that can't be discussed. Now Arthur Bryant has decided to open the files on 11 of these previously unseen investigations. The first-ever collection of Bryant & May stories not only sheds light on 11 classic cases but also contains everything you need to know about the two octogenarian detectives and the Peculiar Crimes Unit.

Poppy Denby is furious with Rollo, who has gambled away his position at the Daily Globe and is being banished to New York. That is, until she discovers he plans to take her with him to work at the New York Times! Poppy can’t wait, but her hopes are crushed when she is allocated The Death Beat - writing obituaries. But Poppy has a nose for a story, and when a body is found in a luxury penthouse apartment she starts to investigate. She unravels a trail of illegal immigrants, forced labour, sex scandals and an unexpected ghost from her past.

It's 1924 and investigative reporter Poppy Denby is heading up to Northumberland to celebrate her father's 60th birthday. She stops off in Newcastle en route to visit her Aunt Dot, who has temporarily relocated from London to renovate a house she's inherited. One of Aunt Dot's guests is the world renowned artist Agnes Robson, who is staging an exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery. Reluctantly, Poppy is roped in to help when the artist's press liaison man falls ill....

Poppy Denby, Arts and Entertainment Editor at The Daily Globe, covers an exhibition of Russian art, hosted by White Russian refugees, including members of the surviving exiled Romanov royal family. There is an armed robbery, a guard is shot and the largest Faberge egg in the collection is stolen. The egg itself is valuable, but more so are the secrets it contains within - secrets that could threaten major political powers. Suspects are aplenty, including the former keeper of the Faberge egg, a Russian Princess called Selena Romanova Yusopova.

DS George Cross can be rude, difficult, and awkward with people. But his unfailing logic and relentless pursuit of justice means his conviction rate is the best on the force. When a ravaged body is found in a local demolition site, it is up to Cross to piece together the truth from whatever fragments he can find. DS Cross has little to go on, but from the faint tan lines on the body and strange scars on his forearms, an identity gradually emerges. Cross mounts an investigation that will uncover jealousy, ambition and a family tearing itself apart.

No one thinks very much at all about carwash employee Davey Burnet, until one day he takes the wrong customer's motor for a ride. One kidnapping later, he and the carwash are officially part of Glasgow's criminal underworld, working for a psychopath who enjoys playing games like "Keep Yer Kneecaps" with any poor bastard who crosses him. Can Davey escape from the gang's clutches with his kneecaps and life intact? Perhaps this polis Ally McCoist who keeps nosing around the carwash could help. That's if she doesn't get herself killed first.

Legendary editor, Maxim Jakubowski, delivers another chilling anthology collecting stories of cold-blooded murder, revenge and crimes-gone-wrong from the best of the best in crime fiction. Spine-chilling and gripping, these tales will grip you with their devious narrators and crafty twists.

DCI Alison McCoist is back: newly promoted and even less popular. Chuck Gardner is the proud owner of both a confidential paper-shredding business and a serious betting habit. When Chuck finds some scandalous paperwork and McCoist investigates a rat-nibbled corpse under a flyover, they are both sucked into a deadly stramash of gangland wars and police corruption.

An eighty-year-old man is found murdered in his home. His age and standing in the community makes finding his killer difficult–why would anyone harm an elderly man? What threat could he possibly be to anyone? With no apparent motive, DS George Cross canvases the community for potential suspects but the man was known as generous, charitable, community-minded. Each interview about who the man is muddies the picture further. So Cross decides to look for who he was–revealing a past that is far less honourable than his present . . .

DI Shona Oliver’s past and present collide when James McGowan, her ex-classmate–now a famous actor–comes to the area to make a Robert Burns biopic. Shona is tasked with keeping him safe during filming on an isolated island in the Solway Firth, and her job is made much harder when a dead man wearing James’s coat is found on the beach in suspicious circumstances. It seems someone wanted James out of the picture.

Tucked away in the English countryside, the run-down marina at Vixens Mere hosts a ragtag community of houseboats whose lives are as tangled as their mooring ropes. Harry Jones’s death dredges up more than grief: a second body in the water, hidden love affairs, and old grudges. As the marina begins to reveal the truths of the past, its dwellers unify against investigators, vindictive exes, and anyone else who tries to break them.

When the body of hotel owner Piet Jansen is discovered amid the ruins of an archaeological site by the Nile, it looks like a routine investigation for Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor Police. But the more he learns about Jansen, the more he is reminded of the brutal murder, some years earlier, of an Israeli woman at Karnak for which he always suspected the wrong man was convicted.

In post-war Britain, Avonby estate is a crumbling relic hiding deadly secrets. Lady Melinda 'Mel' Greenway, a former army mechanic and the family’s poor relation, seeks solace in its overgrown gardens—until she unearths a body beneath the roses. The discovery drags Mel into a tangled web of lies, resentments, and buried truths, forcing her to clash with Inspector Derrin Bradley, her wartime lover turned investigator.

Sir Robert Rannaldini, the most successful but detested conductor in the world, had two ambitions: to seduce his ravishing 19-year-old stepdaughter, Tabitha Campbell-Black, and to put his mark on musical history by making the definitive film of Verdi's darkest opera, Don Carlos. As Rannaldini, Tristan, his charismatic French director, a volatile cast and bolshy French crew gather at Rannaldini's haunted abbey for filming, it is inevitable that violent feuds, abandoned bonking, temperamental screaming, and devious plotting will ensue.

He’s the Man With No Name and the owner of No Alibis, a mystery bookshop in Belfast. But when a detective agency next door goes bust, the agency’s clients start calling into his shop asking him to solve their cases. It’s not as if there’s any danger involved. It’s an easy way to sell books to his gullible customers and Alison, the beautiful girl in the jewellery shop across the road, will surely be impressed. Except she’s not – because she can see the bigger picture.

Fall, 1947. New York City. Private Investigator Ida Davis has been called to New York by her old partner, Michael Talbot, to investigate a brutal killing spree in a Harlem flophouse that has left four people dead. But as they delve deeper into the case, Ida and Michael realize the murders are part of a larger conspiracy that stretches further than they ever could have imagined. Meanwhile, Ida’s childhood friend, Louis Armstrong, is at his lowest ebb.

Venice, 1954. Rosy Gilchrist thinks luck may be on her side. Her boss at the British Museum has chosen her to travel to Venice to track down a rare edition of Horace's Odes for their collection. Things soon take a drastic downward spiral. A wealthy recluse offers a million-pound reward for anyone who can find the treasure. Soon Rosy finds herself in a race against time as her rivals will do anything for money. Even murder.