After the slaughter of his girlfriend by an unknown assassin, Nicholas Newman wants only to start afresh. However, when a link is made between killings across Europe, he reluctantly agrees to help the police again. When attempts are made on his life, he realizes his nightmare has only just begun.
DI Jack Caffery, the hero of Mo Hayder’s bestselling novelsBirdmanandThe Treatment, is back. Seconded from London to Bristol, Caffery is trying to leave his personal life behind, but he cannot escape the memories of his younger brother’s murder and the suspect who went free. When police diver Sergeant Phoebe “Flea” Marley discovers a freshly severed human hand in Bristol’s harbour and its mate buried under a restaurant’s doorstep, Caffery is there to lead the investigation. But rather than find answers, or a body to match those hands, Caffery and Flea discover a terrifying underworld of drug addiction, ritual mutilation and muti, African medicine magic. Tormented by his personal demons, Caffery seeks out the company of the infamous Walking Man, a recently released convict from a high-security prison, who sleeps rough and walks the country roads as he relives the memories of a terrifying crime. Flea Marley has her own ghosts to confrontthe cave-diving death of her parents in a cold, water-filled hole in South Africaand a frightening personal association with the crime she and Caffery are investigating. Britain’s “Queen of Fear” has once again proven herself a master of her craft. Ritual is a gripping psychological thriller, a chilling story seen through the eyes of complex characters and told with masterful voice and style.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Much more than a blood-and-guts thriller...An insightful, moving, and sensitive look at what the war did to a country, its people, and its enemies." - Orlando Sentinel Former army homicide investigator Paul Brenner has just gotten used to the early retirement forced on him after the disastrous end of his last case when his old commanding officer asks him to return for one final mission: investigate a murder that took place in wartime Vietnam thirty years before. Brenner reluctantly accepts out of curiosity and loyalty...and maybe a touch of boredom. He won't be bored for long. Back in Vietnam, Brenner meets expatriate Susan Weber, a woman as exotic, sensual, and dangerous as the nation of her voluntary exile. Brenner is plunged into a world of corruption, lethal double cross, and haunted memories-as he's suddenly thrust back into a war that neither he nor his country ever really stopped fighting.
Former LAPD hostage negotiator Jeff Talley takes a job as chief of police in a small town far from the city, but his peaceful life is overturned when three young men, fleeing a robbery, invade a local home and take a family hostage
Robert Crais ( Free Fall , Monkey's Raincoat ) returns with his eighth Elvis Cole mystery, L.A. Requiem , a breakneck caper that leaves the wise-cracking detective second-guessing himself. Cole's partner, the tight-lipped, charm-free Joe Pike, gets a call from his friend Frank "Tortilla" Garcia. Not only is Garcia a wealthy businessman, he's a political heavyweight and father of Karen, Joe's ex. Frank sends the gumshoe duo out to find his girl, but the boys are beaten to the punch by the men in blue: Karen is found in a park with a bullet in her brain. The two stay on the case, but when another murder points to Pike as a suspect, things take a turn for the worse. The boys on the force are all too willing to put Pike away -- he has a checkered past. When Cole attempts to save Pike, he finds a lot more than he bargained for.