Showing results by narrator "Angela Ness" in All Categories

From an irresponsible baron whose body is discovered beneath a silver birch tree, to a classic detective duo solving a historic case as the lights go out across Europe, and an exclusive Tony Hill and Carol Jordan story, the characters McDermid conjures are enigmatic and dangerous. These evocative, atmospheric tales will shock and delight.

Tensions are rising in the run up to the island event of the year—the Vik Show. Not only has the secret recipe for Mrs Hay's peppermint slices been stolen, but someone has had the bad manners to leave a dead body in the distillery. And what does any of this have to do with the disappearance of Elsie the librarian? A perfect storm of past secrets and political conspiracy is brewing, and it's up to the local weight-loss group, Losers Club, to save the day.

Helen Carter has just landed her first case as a detective: a murder in an abandoned cinema. A mysterious clock-like symbol is drawn on the wall...in blood. Stranger still is what the killer left behind: the business card of an ex-cop. Since being promoted from WPC, Helen is having trouble making her mark in the male-dominated Edinburgh CID, working under Inspector Jack Craven. He’s not happy about having a woman on his team. Witnesses won’t talk to her; her colleagues don’t take her seriously.

The Queen of Scottish Gangland Thrillers is back! Donnie Black. Charming, successful... and utterly terrifying, he rules the Glasgow underworld with an iron fist. Nothing - or no one - will stop him and he's not afraid to get his hands dirty to grow his fortune. Layla Black. She's been married to Donnie for twenty years, enjoying the lavish world he has worked hard to create. But behind the perfect image, Layla is crumbling, numbing her pain with alcohol. But Layla doesn't know the secrets Donnie keeps - and the truth will send her spiralling.

Uni friends Stacey, Paula, Bev and Valentina used to be inseparable until one weekend before graduation when nothing was ever the same again. Thirty years later, reunited at Valentina's funeral, Stacey receives a letter written by her late friend asking for one last wish...that the three friends go back to where things fell apart and finally bury the hatchet. As they revisit their old haunts of their uni days and follow a series of clues left by Valentina, their friend's death begins to look suspicious and it is up to them to find out what happened—but they all have secrets to hide.

Two years on from the start of a devastating pandemic, food shortages are becoming critical, and rationing looms. So it's more than embarrassing when a truck full of luxury food for Scottish Virus Minister's banquet goes missing. When Bernard and Maitland from the HET team find it, the food is missing—but there is a dead body.

Nothing stays buried forever. Lifeboat volunteer DI Shona Oliver receives a Mayday call coming from Kilcatrin Island. Upon the beach is the badly burned body of a man, and a boy lies gravely injured nearby. Strewn around them are scores of Second World War incendiary bombs, presumably washed up by the tide from Beaufort's Dyke, an offshore arms dump deep in the Irish Sea. The dead man is a local fisherman – his son the other victim – and it rocks the tight-knit community on the shores of the Solway Firth. As lead detective, Shona has to maintain a professional distance.

Detective Helen Carter needs a break. Instead, she's going head-to-head with notorious cop killer Jimmy Osbourne. Eight years ago he pulled off the perfect heist and fled to Spain, leaving behind a trail of carnage. But not a shred of evidence to implicate him. Now he's back in Edinburgh. But why? Helen has her suspicions. Within days, a mysterious jewel thief surfaces on CCTV. A gunman shoots up a seedy back-alley. The suspects are piling up, but Helen knows Jimmy is behind them. All her instincts tell her he's guilty. She's watching him. But he has eyes on her too.

When a chance for freedom arrives will she dare to take it? Odilie Rutherford is known in the small Scottish town of Lauriston for two things - her beauty, and her father, Canny. As a self-made man, Canny has the wealth he dreamed of but not the status and hatches a plan to marry his daughter to local bachelor of note, the Duke of Maudesley. Yet Odilie cannot bear the thought of a life with the ill-mannered Duke, and when the annual summer fair arrives in town for three days she seizes a chance to enjoy the freedom she craves.

Can Lark take the path of the woman who went before her and learn to follow her heart? Lark is a much-loved forces sweetheart spreading comfort as she sings in the music halls while Scotland’s sons fight in the Great War. But despite her fortune, Lark yearns for a life away from the crowds. She sets out to make a fresh start in the Border country seeking the contentment that has eluded her. Decades earlier, Lark’s great-grandmother, Jane, found herself in the same hills, in unhappy circumstances.

Detective Helen Carter is called to a crime scene: a barmaid, Tina French, has been strangled. Murdered on her way home from work to look after her sick son. Meanwhile, Moira McKenzie leaves her lover's townhouse and gets home to find her abusive husband, Reggie, washing blood from his hands. Later, in their garden shed, she finds incriminating photos, keepsakes and newspaper cuttings about old murder cases. When the police are called to their home, they find a pool of blood and a shattered glass table, but no sign of Moira.

There's a murderer on the loose on a storm swept island cut off from the Scottish mainland. It's down to Losers Club, a quirky weight loss group led by the intrepid Penny Moon, to catch the culprit.

Oh dearie me, the remote Scottish island of Vik is overrun with treasure hunters, Hollywood has arrived to film the next big blockbuster and Mrs Hubbard has accidentally poisoned Police Scotland. What a stramash! When Colin the curator is found bludgeoned to death in the museum, it's down to the island weight-loss group, Losers Club, to investigate.

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.