Showing results by author "Val Mcdermid" in All Categories

The year started badly and only got worse - blizzards, strikes, power cuts, and political unrest were the norm. For journalist Allie Burns, however, someone else's bad news was the unmistakable sound of opportunity knocking, and the year is ripe with possibilities. But Allie is a woman in a man's world. Desperate to get away from the "women's stories" the Glasgow desk keeps assigning her, she strikes up an alliance with wannabe investigative journalist Danny Sullivan. From the start, their stories create enemies.

Bodyguarding had never made it to Manchester PI Kate Brannigan's wish list. But somebody's got to pay the bills at Brannigan & Co., and if the only earner on offer is playing nursemaid to a paranoid soap star, the fast-talking, computer-loving, white-collar-crime expert has to swallow her pride and slip into something more glam than her Thai-boxing kit. Soon, however, offstage dramas overshadow the fictional storylines, culminating in the unscripted murder of the self-styled "Seer to the Stars", and Kate finds herself with more questions than answers.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER ""Each author captures Christie—and Marple—perfectly, while also displaying just a bit of her own unique touch. . . . This new and entertaining collection by some of our favorite writers will hook a new group of readers to the formidable Miss Marple."" — Rhys Bowen...

The dead talk - to the right listener. They can tell us all about themselves: where they came from, how they lived, how they died, and, of course, who killed them. Forensic scientists can unlock the mysteries of the past and help serve justice using the messages left by a corpse, a crime scene, or the faintest of human traces.

As a favor to her rock journalist boyfriend, Thai-boxing, rock-and-roll private detective Kate Brannigan agrees to track down a missing song-writer Moira Pollock, a search that takes her into some of the seediest parts of Leeds and Bradford. But little does she realize that finding Moira is only a prelude to murder. Juggling her other cases, including a search to uncover the source of counterfeit luxury goods, Brannigan finds herself for the first time on the trail of a killer.

Kate Brannigan is having a bad weekend, her boyfriend's death notice is in the newspaper, her plans to capture a team of heartless fraudsters are in disarray, and a Celtic neo-punk band want her to rescue them from saboteurs. As if that isn't enough, Kate's business partner wants her to buy him out so he can emigrate to Australia, and private eyes with principles never have that kind of cash. Kate can't even cry on her best friend's shoulder, for Alexis has worries of her own. Confronting betrayal and greed, Kate fights to save her livelihood and her life.

English kick-boxer and Rudyard Kipling fan Kate Brannigan appears in her fourth adventure, chasing down art thieves in Italy while unravelling a nasty case of product tampering in her homeland. When a precious Monet painting is nicked from a posh British estate where she arranged the security, the tough-talking PI is right on the job to get it back.

thriller with a nightmare scenario: a parent who loses her child in a bustling international airport. Young Jimmy Higgins is snatched from an airport security checkpoint while his guardian watches helplessly from the glass inspection box. But this is no ordinary abduction, as Jimmy is no ordinary child. His mother was Scarlett, a reality TV star who, dying of cancer and alienated from her unreliable family, entrusted the boy to the person she believed best able to give him a happy, stable life: her ghost writer, Stephanie Harker.

Is it violence if it's virtual? The outspoken women targeted by the increasingly cruel Internet trolls and bullies would probably say so. For some of them, the torrents of bile and vicious threats prove too much. They begin to silence themselves in a series of high-profile suicides. Or do they? Tony Hill isn't convinced. But he's the only one.

It’s 1989 and journalist Allie Burns is growing up. Older and maybe wiser than the hustling young hack we met in 1979, 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 the UK tabloid media. But there’s plenty to keep her occupied. The year begins with the memorial service for the victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, but Allie has barely filed her copy when she stumbles over a story about HIV/AIDS that will shock her into a major change of direction.

This was the summer he discovered what he wanted—at a gruesome museum of criminology far off the beaten track of more timid tourists. Visions of torture inspired his fantasies like a muse. It would prove so terribly fulfilling. The bodies of four men have been discovered in the town of Bradfield. Enlisted to investigate is criminal psychologist Tony Hill. Even for a seasoned professional, the series of mutilation sex murders is unlike anything he's encountered before.

The new installment in the “relentlessly engrossing series” (The Wall Street Journal) finds Karen Pirie and her team investigating the murder of a journalist paved under a motorway—but was it his work or his private life that put him there? Scotland, 2025. When torrential winter rain...

In this incredible follow-up to the New York Times and USA Today best seller FaceOff, 22 of the world's most popular thriller writers come together for an unforgettable anthology. MatchUp takes the never-before-seen best seller pairings of FaceOff and adds a delicious new twist: gender. Eleven of the world's best female thriller writers, from Diana Gabaldon to Charlaine Harris, are paired with 11 of the world's best male thriller writers.

The Moonstone, a yellow diamond looted from an Indian temple and believed to bring bad luck to its owner, is bequeathed to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night the priceless stone is stolen again and when Sergeant Cuff is brought in to investigate the crime, he soon realizes that no one in Rachel's household is above suspicion.

When a lobster fisherman on an early morning run pulls in his traps, he finds something he wasn't expecting to catch - a body. When police discover the dead man was the brother of a senior Scottish government official who vanished without a trace, Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie takes over the investigation. At the same time, a woman in the wealthy enclave of Perth is clearing out her sister's home after a fatal road accident and finds a mysterious camper van in the garage containing a skeletonized body. But who is it?

Internationally best-selling crime writer Val McDermid' s work speaks for itself: her books have sold millions of copies worldwide, won numerous accolades, and attracted a devoted following of readers around the globe.

There was only one reason Manchester-based private eye Kate Brannigan was prepared to let her boyfriend help out with an investigation into a car sales fraud - nothing bad could happen. But by now Kate should know that with Richard you have to expect the unexpected. With Richard behind bars, Kate must look after his eight-year-old son - who proves even more troublesome than his father. Kate finds herself dragged into a world of drug traffickers, child pornographers, fraudsters, and violent gangland enforcers in the most terrifying investigation of her career.

Val McDermid has always had a soft spot for winter: the bitter clarity of a crisp cold day, the crunch of frost on fallen leaves, and the chance to be enveloped in big jumpers and thick socks. In Winter, McDermid takes us on an adventure through the season, from the frosty streets of Edinburgh to the windblown Scottish coast, from Bonfire Night and Christmas to Burns Night and Up Helly Aa.

When a teenage joyrider crashes a stolen car and ends up in a coma, a routine DNA test reveals a connection to an unsolved murder from 22 years before. Finding the answer to the cold case should be straightforward. But it's as twisted as the DNA helix itself. Meanwhile, Karen finds herself irresistibly drawn to another mystery that she has no business investigating - a mystery that has its roots in a terrorist bombing two decades ago. And again, she finds that nothing is as it seems.

World-class crime writer Val McDermid has sold millions of copies of her books worldwide. In The Retribution, clinical psychologist Tony Hill and detective Carol Jordan face a terrifying reality: Serial killer Jacko Vance has escaped imprisonment - and appears hell-bent on revenge against those who put him behind bars.