Showing results by author "Val McDermid" in All Categories

The brand new thriller from the award-winning crimewriter. 'Death is a hollow drum whose beat has measured out my adult life.' So writes Jay Macallan Stewart in her latest volume of memoirs. But nobody has ever asked whether that has been by accident or design. Nobody, that is, until Jay turns her sights on newly-wed and freshly-widowed Magda Newsam. For Magda's mother Corinna is an Oxford don who knows enough of Jay's history to be very afraid indeed...

Five-year-old Jimmy Higgins is brazenly snatched from the middle of a busy airport; but this is no ordinary kidnapping. Jimmy’s mother is Scarlett, a reality TV star who, dying of cancer, entrusted the boy to her friend Stephanie Harker. Now Stephanie, reaching into the past to discover the motive behind the abduction, soon encounters a shocking tale of murder and conspiracy, and is faced by the most difficult choice of her life.

The fourth in the series featuring investigative journalist Lindsay Gordon. Leaving her new home in California for a trade union conference in Sheffield, Lindsay Gordon finds herself in the company of old friends - and enemies, including Tom Jack. When this unethical union leader is found dead, having catapulted out of Lindsay’s tenth-floor hotel room, she is taken in for questioning by the police.

The second thrilling novel in Val McDermid's new Sunday Times best-selling series It's 1989, and Allie Burns is back. Older and maybe wiser, she's running the northern news operation of the Sunday Globe, chafing at losing her role in investigative journalism and at the descent into the gutter of...

A twisted killer targeting psychologists has left a grisly trail across Europe. Dr Tony Hill, expert at mapping the minds of murderers, is reluctant to get involved. But then the next victim is much closer to home....Meanwhile, his former partner DCI Carol Jordan is working undercover in Berlin, on a dangerous operation to trap a millionaire trafficker. When the game turns nasty, Tony is the only person she can call on for help.

Meet Tony Hill's most twisted adversary - a killer with a shopping list of victims, driven by the most perverted of desires. The murder and mutilation of teenager Jennifer Maidment is horrific enough on its own. But it's not long before Tony realises it's just the start of a brutal and ruthless campaign that's targeting an apparently unconnected group of young people. Tony battles to find the answers that will give him personal and professional satisfaction in his most testing investigation yet.

When a Monet is stolen from a stately home, Manchester-based private eye Kate Brannigan goes head to head with organised crime as she hunts the thieves through Europe. Meanwhile, someone is leaving a trail of bodies across the Northwest. As Kate confronts some harsh truths in her own life, the case stretches her love and loyalty to its limits.

Kate Brannigan’s having a bad week. Her boyfriend’s death notice is in the paper and her plan to catch a team of fraudsters is in disarray. Kate can’t even cry on her best friend’s shoulder, for Alexis has worries of her own. Her girlfriend’s pregnant, and when the doctor responsible for the fertility treatment is murdered, Alexis needs Kate like she’s never done before. Delving into the alien world of medical experimentation, Kate confronts betrayal and cold-blooded greed as she fights to save not only her livelihood, but her life as well.

“An immersive tale of betrayal and injustice that reverberates with a howl of anguish three centuries old.”—Chris Brookmyre, author of The Cracked Mirror From internationally bestselling author Val McDermid and Geographer Royal of Scotland Jo Sharp, a heart-wrenching novella about an...

The dead talk. To the right listener, they tell us all about themselves: how they lived, how they died--and who killed them. Val McDermid uncovers the secrets of forensic medicine with groundbreaking research and her own experience. Along the way you’ll wonder at how maggots collected from a corpse can help determine time of death and how a DNA trace a millionth the size of a grain of salt can be used to convict a killer.

When a teenage joyrider crashes a stolen car and ends up in a coma, a routine DNA test could be the key to unlocking the mystery of a 20-year-old murder inquiry. Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie is an expert at solving the unsolvable. With each cold case closed, justice is served. So, finding the answer should be straightforward, but it's as twisted as the DNA helix itself. 

PI Kate Brannigan is hired to investigate a series of strange financial scams across Manchester. At first it looks like a discrepancy with the paperwork, but the deeper Kate digs, the murkier the case becomes. Before long she’s up to her neck in crooked land deals – and murder – and her own life is on the line.

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.

After an explosive case that forced Tony Hill and Carol Jordan to reassess everything they thought they knew about right and wrong, both are dealing with the fallout in their own separate ways. While Tony must pay the price for his actions, Carol is conducting investigations into suspected miscarriages of justice. But when a shocking discovery is made on a construction site, and skeletal remains are found to belong to a killer who is supposedly alive and in prison, suddenly Tony and Carol are brought into each other's orbit once again.... 

Manchester-based private eye Kate Brannigan thought it would be safe to let her boyfriend help out with her investigation. But now he’s behind bars and she’s been left caring for his eight-year-old son. Soon Kate finds herself drawn into the world of drug traffickers, child pornographers and violent gangland enforcers – bringing her face to face with death in the most terrifying investigation of her career.

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.

Jane Austen in the hands of queen of crime, Val McDermid. Get ready for a very different Northanger Abbey. Seventeen-year-old Catherine ‘Cat’ Morland has led a sheltered existence in rural Dorset, a life entirely bereft of the romance and excitement for which she yearns. So when Cat’s...

Manchester PI Kate Brannigan finds herself with no choice but to take the only case on offer: bodyguarding a paranoid soap star. But the glitzy world of showbusiness has a darker side. And as Kate scratches the surface, she uncovers dramas, threats and bitter rivalries. And when a self-styled ‘Seer to the Stars’ is murdered, Kate is left with more questions than answers.

In the Peak District village of Scarsdale, 13-year-old girls didn’t just run away. So when Alison Carter vanished in the winter of '63, everyone knew it was a murder. Catherine Heathcote remembers the case well - a child herself when Alison vanished. Now a journalist, she persuades DI George Bennett to speak of the hunt for Alison. But when a fresh lead emerges, Bennett tries to stop the story - plunging Catherine into a world of buried secrets and revelations.

When Alison Maxwell, a well-known Glaswegian journalist with an irresistible sexual attraction to both sexes, is found murdered the police look no further than the owner of the scarf used to strangle her. Lindsay Gordon, however, has other ideas. Maxwell was a serial seductress who kept a secret record of her encounters – including one with Lindsay herself. Recalling the threats that followed the end of the relationship, Lindsay knows all too well the feelings of rage, fear and passion that Alison Maxwell could invoke.