Showing results by publisher "Oakhill Publishing" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

At Police Scotland HQ, Grace Macallan has pitched up in Counter Corruption. But the demons of her past are never far behind. Meanwhile, Edinburgh's gangland is in turmoil, with territory battles causing serious havoc. Into the war steps DI Janet Hadden. An ambitious risk-taker, she knows how to throw opponents off balance. When she's thwarted, Hadden seeks help from a notorious underworld fixer - only for Grace to start an investigation that threatens to uncover all Hadden's secrets.

The UK referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU was a political showdown the British PM, Jeremy Hartley, thought he couldn’t lose. But the next morning both he and the rest of the country woke in a state of shock. America meanwhile has its own unlikely presidential candidate, the brash showman Ronald Craig, a man that nobody thought could gain office. Throw into the mix the cunning Russian President Igor Popov, with his plans to destabilise the West, and you have a brilliant alternative account of the events of 2016 that led to Brexit and America welcoming its own new leader.

Marion Zetland lives with her domineering older brother, John, in a decaying Georgian townhouse on the edge of a northern seaside resort. A timid spinster in her 50s who still sleeps with teddy bears, Marion does her best to shut out the shocking secret that John keeps in the cellar. Until, suddenly, John has a heart attack, and Marion is forced to go down to the cellar herself and face the gruesome truth that her brother has kept hidden. As questions are asked and secrets unravel, maybe John isn't the only one with a dark side.

1925. London's fashionable Bright Young Things have descended on Wychbourne Court, the Kentish stately home of Lord and Lady Ansley, for an extravagant fancy dress ball and midnight Ghost Hunt. Chef Nell Drury knows she's in for a busy weekend - but she doesn't expect to encounter sudden, violent death. When a body is discovered in the minstrels' gallery during the Ghost Hunt, Nell is determined to unmask the killer among them. Could the Wychbourne Ghosts hold the key to the mystery?

On 17 August 1860, wealthy widow Mary Emsley was found dead at home, killed by a blow to the head. What followed was a murder case that gripped the nation.There was an abundance of suspects, from disgruntled stepchildren and a spurned admirer to a trusted employee, former police officer and spy. A sensational trial culminated with a public execution, but years later the case caught Arthur Conan Doyle’s attention. Convinced that an innocent man had been convicted and executed, he could never find the real murderer, but now, best-selling author Sinclair McKay has solved the case.

Mark Chadwick is cycling home from work, eager to get back to his pregnant wife, Katy, and two children, when he sees the police calling at his house. He knows exactly why they are there, and he knows that the world he has carefully constructed over 20 deliberately uneventful years is about to fall apart. He could lose everything.... A story of a toxic love gone wrong, with a setting that moves between present-day London and 1990s Cambridge, Stronger Than Skin is utterly compelling, combining a gripping narrative with a keen eye for the absurdities of the way we live now.

As a secret agent for the British government, Anthony Brooke wants to expose a gang responsible for blackmailing innocent people and gruesome murders. But when they plot a kidnap, Anthony must race to reach the little girl before they do. Milly will not be easy to retrieve, for she is in a Belgian convent, in German-occupied territory. To rescue her, Anthony must go behind enemy lines, crawl under the wire, face ruthless guards and break into the convent.

Joseph Staines left town with a stolen tallybook, but two suspicious deaths and a surprise inheritance have lured him back home to Edinburgh. No one is pleased to see him. The debtors want him gone. The police have some questions for him. And a mysterious stranger has been asking about him in the pub. To survive, Staines has to sober up, solve the murders and stay one step ahead of the man who wants him dead.

Detective Sergeant Ash Rashid has a steady job and a healthy family. Three hundred days sober, he can see his happy ending forming on the horizon. Then patrol officers find the body. The victim has chemical burns on her arms, two broken legs and a deep gash on her throat. Then three more bodies are found. Each victim testified in a murder trial 10 years ago, one that launched Ash's career. Each of them helped put a dangerous man in prison, and now each has paid the price.

When Mina, a Kurdish student activist, plunges in flames from the top floor of Wood Green Shopping City, it’s widely assumed to be a political protest. But local reporter Rex Tracey, who knew the dead girl, doesn’t buy it. His suspicions mount when a council whistleblower meets a similarly ugly end. As he investigates, the sleuthing journalist with the chequered past and the penchant for Polish lager is sucked into a world of honour killings, corrupt officials, and clashing traditions.

A kindly voice from the 'lost or stolen' option at the other end of the phone confirmed that no one had taken money from her cards in the short time they'd gone missing. Thank heavens. She decided there was no need to cancel them. When Georgie Hamilton's car goes missing and then reappears outside her house hours later, her family is convinced she must have left it there - after all, her handbag is still on the backseat.

May 1915. Kingdom Lock and his faithful sidekick, Siddhartha Singh are gunned down on the streets of Basra and suspicion falls on German spy, Wilhelm Wassmuss. Major Ross believes Wassmuss is behind the assassination of a Turkish officer, the death of whom has been blamed on Lock. Meanwhile, Lock has discovered that Amy Townshend is pregnant and that the child is his. But the general's daughter stubbornly refuses to break off her engagement.

Meet Arshile Grekov. A reclusive Russian oligarch, he lives in Holland Park in exceptional opulence after successfully extricating his gigantic fortune from Russia. He is deeply worried. His doctors are confounded by his slowly failing health, and his beloved son, a loud, druggy, dissolute Etonian, is secretly involved with a white-Russian princess. As a former spy, he knows he will always remain of intense interest to the paranoid Russian government.

A family of Hasidic Jews dies suddenly while picnicking in Finsbury Park, and the finger is quickly pointed at a gang of Islamist youths. Too quickly, thinks local reporter Rex Tracey. Rex starts to investigate. But when his longtime colleague and friend is also accused of murder, the sleuthing journalist with a fondness for Polish lager and dry one-liners is catapulted out of his depth into a disturbing world of religious fanaticism, false prophets and century-old secrets.

The uncanny abilities of London crime-scene specialist Kelly Jacks to coax evidence from the most unpromising of crime scenes once earned her the nickname of The Blood Whisperer. Then, six years ago, Kelly woke next to the butchered body of a man, the knife in her hands and no memory of what happened. Now released after serving her sentence for involuntary manslaughter, she gets a job at a crime-scene cleaning firm.

Reporter Rex Tracey has just recovered from his affair with Lithuanian artist Milda Majauskas when she disappears. He’s got other concerns, not least an anti-immigration group spreading hate across his beloved Tottenham and a string of attacks on young women at the local beauty spot, Alexandra Palace. But when Rex himself becomes a suspect, he is forced to seek answers amongst the teahouses and tower blocks of this little-glimpsed, ever-changing quarter of London.

Commissario Alec Blume, on health leave, has retreated from Rome to central Italy. At the Villa Romanelli, he enrols in a natural remedies course conducted by a young woman named Silvana. But far from recuperating, a feverish Blume becomes isolated and sluggish with sickness. Increasingly ill at ease in the stifling environment, the dark history of the crumbling villa and its once-magnificent gardens draw him in.

In July 1945, MI6 agent Paul Dark took part in a top-secret mission to hunt down and execute Nazi war criminals. Now it’s 1969, and a KGB colonel called Slavin has walked into the High Commission with information indicating there is a double agent within the service. Dark has been largely above suspicion during MI6’s years of self-recrimination, but this time he’s in the frame. His options are fight or flight - whatever the consequences.

A reformed Sicilian criminal, Carmelo Trapani, has been kidnapped, and his search for the aged Carmelo leads Staffe all the way back to a terrible act at the Battle of Cable Street. Meanwhile Staffe’s own loyal servant, DS Pulford, is in Pentonville awaiting trial for the murder of Jadus Golding, the very man who attempted to murder Staffe, leaving wounds from which Staffe is still recovering, and it suits some in the hierarchy to see Pulford go down.

Private Investigator Makana has a new client: the powerful art dealer Aram Kasabian. Kasabian wants him to track down a priceless painting that went missing from Baghdad during the US invasion. The art world is a far cry from the Cairo that Makana knows, but he discovers that this side of the city has its own dark underbelly. Before long he finds himself caught between dangerous enemies on a trail that leads him into the darkness of war and which threatens to send the new life he has built for himself up in flames.