Suspense Genre

Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.

Beth Baxter, owner of a not-very-successful book shop, is planning her marriage to Karl - or at least she was. Without warning, Beth suddenly finds herself embroiled in a sinister series of events that threaten to destroy everything she holds dear. All seems lost for Beth until she receives an offer of help from an unlikely visitor - a former gangland fixer by the name of Clement. However, there’s one minor issue in that Clement claims he died in 1975 and has been sent to help Beth to atone for his actions in a previous life.

Ex-Special Forces operator Tom Keeler is a rambling man. He’s just passing through the town of Alencourt, France, and in less than an hour, someone tries to kill him. Nice place, nice try. But it’s a case of mistaken identity, and they picked the wrong guy. The French police can’t be trusted, except for the beautiful Cecile Nazari. She finds out fast that keeping up with Keeler is a dangerous occupation. Because someone’s preying on the weak and unprotected. Someone murderous. But they never counted on coming up against a guy like Keeler.

The Chameleon Project - a Black Operations unit led by Bruce McQuillian whose existence is known only to a handful of men. When a corrupt politician with an appetite for preteen girls kidnapped and tortured while under his Unit's surveillance, McQuillian is left with a dilemma - what to do with the rogue commando responsible? As the stakes escalate, a sinister plot involving a triad of the Russian Bratva, an influential French arms dealer and one of the most powerful men within the British security services threatens to engulf the Isles.

On a bitterly cold winter's night, Liverpool is left stunned by a brutal murder in the grounds of the city's Anglican Cathedral. A killer is on the loose, driven by a chilling rage. Put on the case, DS Nathan Cody is quickly stumped. Wherever he digs, the victim seems to be almost angelic - no one has a bad word to say, let alone a motive for such a violent murder. And Cody has other things on his mind, too.

Freelance journalist Lindsay Gordon is strapped for cash. Why else would she agree to cover a fund-raising gala at a girls' public school? But when the star attraction is found garrotted with her own cello string minutes before she is due on stage, Lindsay finds herself investigating a vicious murder. Who would have wanted Lorna Smith Cooper dead? Who had the key to the locked room in which her body was found? And who could have slipped out of the hall at just the right time to commit this calculated and cold-blooded crime?

It’s Christmas Day at Wilder House, and three magical winter weddings are set to begin. But as the tables are arranged, and the food is prepared, a perfect storm hits, cutting every guest from the rest of the world. Most little girls dream of the perfect wedding. But this bride stumbles alone into the snow, her silk train dragging through dirt, her hands bloody from the murder she just committed. Now there is at least one killer roaming the unforgiving landscape surrounding Wilder House. Who else will die on Christmas Day?

Ryan Drake is a man who finds people who don't want to be found. Once a British soldier, he now works for the CIA, leading an elite investigation team that tracks down missing agents. But his latest mission - to free a prisoner, code-named Maras, and bring her back onto US soil within 48 hours - is more dangerous than anything his team has attempted before. Hunted by his former comrades, Drake is left with no choice but to trust a dangerous woman he barely knows.

July 1346. The Hundred Years' War has begun, and King Edward and his lords are on the march through France. But this war belongs to the men on the ground. Swept up in the bloody chaos, a tight-knit company from Essex must stay alive long enough to see their home again. With sword, mace and longbow, the Essex Dogs will fight, from the landing beaches of Normandy to the bloodsoaked field of Crécy.

You can't choose your family. Or can you? Meet the Bensons. A pleasant enough couple. They keep themselves to themselves. They wash their car, mow their lawn and pass the time of day with their neighbours. And they have a beautiful little girl called Daisy. There's just one problem. Daisy doesn't belong to the Bensons. They stole her. And now they've decided that Daisy needs a little brother or sister. DS Nathan Cody is about to face his darkest and most terrifying case yet....

When Freya falls for the manipulative Kane, her life changes beyond her wildest imagination. When the luxurious life she craves gradually becomes intolerable she realises escape is out of reach. Her life has changed, and so has she. She knows that when she least expects it, he will return and make good his promise to exact revenge and ensure she pays the price he felt he is owed. Can Freya ever be free? Whoever knew love could be so dangerous?

Praying her daughter’s still alive. Fearing her past is about to take its revenge. When three-year-old Immy vanishes during a family barbecue, her mother, Cleo, imagines the worst. Has she fallen into the river at the end of the garden and drowned? Or is it something even more unthinkable? After all, there's one person with good reason to want to abduct Immy - the woman Cleo thought she’d seen the last of three years ago. With time running out, Cleo sets out to uncover the truth.

Jeremy Summers, a British banker with a secret that could reveal MI6 intelligence sources involved in the war against drug-funded terrorism, has been seized at gunpoint, in broad daylight, on the streets of west London. An old contact, Raglan - an Englishman who served in the French Foreign Legion - is on his trail. Raglan's pursuit will lead him to the winter-ravaged wasteland of a remote Russian penal colony. A place that holds Russia's most brutal murderers. A place of death and retribution. How will he get in? More importantly, how will he get out...alive?

The murderee is Nicola Six, a 'black hole' of sex and self-loathing who is intend on orchestrating her own extinction. The murderer may be Keith Talent, a violent lowlife whose only passions are pornography and darts; or the rich, honourable, and dimly romantic Guy Clinch. And as Nicola leads her suitors towards the precipice, London - and, indeed, the whole world - seems to shamble after them in a corrosively funny novel of complexity and morality.

Ashton is a typical small town where everyone knows everyone else and the pace of life is predictable. No one would suspect that Ashton has drawn powerful demonic beings to it. Planning to gain control of the town - and eventually the world - these evil forces are looking for allies. When Pastor Young and the town's newspaper reporter begin to discover this dark plan, they turn to God for guidance, but others have already succumbed to temptation.

A city is hit by a sudden and strange epidemic of "white blindness", which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there social conventions quickly crumble and the struggle for survival brings out the worst in people.

Mara Sitwell was only 11 when she went missing. Nineteen years later, she’s been found wandering through remote woodland, alone and confused. She says she’s been kept in an underground cell for all these years - but refuses to reveal anything about the man who snatched her. What does she have to hide? And who’s she protecting? Her brother-in-law, Damian, certainly doubts she’s telling the whole truth and fears she might even be a danger to his young children, especially when his wife insists on moving Mara into their home.

Percival Everett's The Trees is a must-listen that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till.

Ex-Delta Force sniper Breed has spent most of his life at war, and now he’s trying to make some time for peace. But when a veteran from his old unit is murdered in El Paso, Breed feels duty-bound to bring the killer to justice. A feeling that only grows stronger when his friend’s widow and son are also murdered. As he uses all his specialist skills to uncover the truth, Breed finds himself working with some unlikely allies - a devious CIA operative and a determined Latina reporter. Together, they uncover a conspiracy to launch a massive attack on US soil.

It is the week before Christmas, and the cathedral city of St Albans is blanketed by snow. But beneath the festive lights, darkness is stirring. The frozen body of a young girl is discovered by the ice-covered lake. The police scramble for clues. A local woman, Jenny, has had visions of what happened the night of the murder. But Jenny is an exhausted new mother whose midnight wanderings pull her ever closer to the lake. Then another girl goes missing, and the community unravels. Neighbour turns against neighbour, and Jenny has no idea who to believe.