Showing results by narrator "James Lailey" in All Categories

Everything changes in a heartbeat the night Conor and his girlfriend Paris Levinson come to us begging for help, their clothes spattered with blood. They say it was an accident, that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time… A mother’s intuition is never wrong, and I know there is more they aren’t telling us. But Paris’ mother Helen and I have to make a choice that will change all of our lives. Do we tell the truth, and risk losing our children forever? Or do we lie to keep them safe? We will do anything to protect our children, but one wrong move could cost us everything.

Samantha Valentine didn’t drift into my life, she collided with it. Soon it was like we had been friends forever. She told me everything about her perfect life, but I always felt there was something she was leaving out. Then one night, I get a frantic call from Samantha, hysterical and begging me to protect her from her boyfriend. Rushing to her house, instinct takes over and soon my heart is hammering out of my chest as I stand over the body of a man I had never met before this evening.

Ever since I met my handsome husband Dr Gabe Bonneville, I started playing the role of the perfect housewife. He works hard as a surgeon, so I look after our home, and throw elaborate dinner parties with champagne cocktails for his best friends Hugh and Anita. He’s my safe place and my chance to have the family I’ve always wanted. I’ve managed to hide the mornings when I wake up and see a face in the shadows. I haven’t told Gabe the truth about the woman who raised me, or told him about the therapy I’ve been getting so my secrets stay hidden in the dark.

On a warm spring evening, guests gather in a perfectly manicured garden to celebrate Maggie and Len’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Maggie leans against the apple tree, watching her fun-loving husband and darling children as her heart swells with pride. As the joyful party atmosphere disappears into the night, close by, the lifeless body of a young woman is pulled from a river. Slipping upstairs to find the special gift for her adoring husband, Maggie stumbles across something else hidden amongst the dusty boxes of family keepsakes.

When Nigel Baxter, a middle-aged married banker with an unremarkable past, is found dead in the bath of a plush hotel suite, his wrists slit, it looks as if he's taken his own life. At first. But when Detective Inspector Daniel Riley is assigned to the case, he soon realises all isn't as it first appears to be. When a postmortem shows Baxter was poisoned, Riley suspects foul play. And then there's the odd addition of a teddy bear left at the crime scene....

One sunny August afternoon, the residents of Cedar Close throw their annual summer barbecue. Children play in the cherry-tree lined street, tables are laden with food, and the wine is flowing. For Laurie Mills, it’s her first time meeting the neighbours. And it’s the first time she discovers her husband, Robert, is having an affair. Cedar Close has always been a nice place to live - a quiet suburban street where everyone looks out for one another and bad things don’t happen. Until late one evening, when Robert Mills is found dead in his bedroom.

In a beautiful house surrounded by woodland, the Drayton family and their dearest friends are enjoying dinner together. The wine is flowing, the meal has been lovingly prepared, and it’s going to be an evening none of them will ever forget.

Beth and Cath are leaving their husbands. This is a story about two very different women. One is wealthy and having an affair with a man who gives her the kind of love that her cold, detached husband does not. One is living hand to mouth, suffering at the hands of a violent partner who would rather see her dead than leave him. You may think you know these women already and how their lives will unfold. Beth will live happily ever after with her little girl and her soulmate. Cath will go back to her abusive husband. And these two women will never cross paths. But you will be wrong.

Daisey Garrett wakes up in a hospital bed. She remembers her boyfriend has left her for another woman, but she doesn’t remember what happened to her the night she was attacked in her own home. Daisey shouldn’t be alive but against all odds, she’s survived an ordeal most would never recover from. But Daisey’s mind is broken. She’s on edge, drinking too much and, despite the painful breakup, finds herself in bed with her ex, Luke. And while she desperately tries to keep herself together, she can’t shake the feeling that she is being watched.

This is the story of Jim Dixon, a hapless lecturer in medieval history at a provincial university who knows better than most that “there was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones.” Kingsley Amis’s scabrous debut leads the audience through a gallery of emphatically English bores, cranks, frauds, and neurotics with whom Dixon must contend in one way or another in order to hold on to his cushy academic perch and win the girl of his fancy.

Two years ago, Alexander Blix was the lead investigator in a missing person's case where a young mother, Elisabeth Eie, had been kidnapped. The case came to a standstill when Blix's own daughter was killed and he was arrested for avenging her. Blix is a now free man again, but Elisabeth's kidnapper has found him, leaving evidence of her murder in Blix's mailbox.

Berlin Game begins with a plea from “Brahms Four,” one of Britain’s most valuable agents stationed in East Germany: He wants to cross the Iron Curtain and come to the West. Bernard Samson, the former field agent now stationed in London, is tasked with the rescue. But before he even sets out on the mission, suspicions arise that there is a traitor in the MI6, likely one of his closest colleagues.

Brought to you by Penguin. Of all the mysteries Bernard Samson has encountered, the greatest is his wife Fiona. Dedicated agent of the Service and a woman of secrets, she will risk everything to play the long game. As the truth about the decision that shattered their marriage is gradually...

Brought to you by Penguin. Peter and Paul, the two sons of German businessman Harald Winter, are bonded together by a childhood trauma. But as they grow up the brothers also grow apart. When the shadow of the Third Reich falls they become divided by war and their differing ideals - only to meet...

Bernard Samson is a spy on the run, forced to abandon his life and job and plunge into hiding. But in the murky, dangerous streets of Berlin, he knows where to hide. Wanted for an act of treachery he has not committed, he must not only escape the grasp of London Central, but get to the bottom of a tangled conspiracy that is about to change everything. In the thrilling penultimate installment of the Hook, Line, Sinker trilogy, Bernard's personal and professional life collide with devastating consequences.

What kind of woman would leave her husband, her children, and her home to live behind the Iron Curtain and work for the KGB? From the brilliant Oxford graduate who understands the espionage game better than her male colleagues, to the beguiling woman who uses her charm and brains to deceive everyone around her, Fiona Samson presents a complex puzzle. She is by no means alone.

A high-ranking scientist has been kidnapped, and a secret British intelligence agency has just recruited Deighton’s iconic unnamed protagonist—later christened Harry Palmer—to find out why. His search begins in a grimy Soho club and brings him to the other side of the world. When he ends up amongst the Soviets in Beirut, what seemed a straightforward mission turns into something far more sinister.

'Kate Webb is your next must-read' LUCY FOLEY 'A wonderful addition to contemporary crime' ANN CLEEVES A breathtaking cold case mystery, starring DI Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad. Perfect for fans of Ann Cleeves and Val McDermid. 1999. A group of archaeologists are excavating a Bronze Age burial...

A TERRIBLE CRIME WAITS TO BE UNEARTHED. The second twisty and atmospheric Wiltshire-set crime novel in the DI Lockyer Series. Perfect for fans of Ann Cleeves and Val McDermid. A long, hot summer in Wiltshire is broken by a sudden downpour. Flash floods bring something sinister to the surface - a...

In 1963, Berlin is dark and dangerous. Len Deighton's skilled, jaded, anony­mous hero of The IPCRESS File is now set to arrange the defection—and fake the death—of a leading Soviet scien­tist. "A ferociously cool fable" (New York Times) and one of the first novels written after the construction of the Berlin Wall, Funeral in Berlin revels in the fraught, chilling atmosphere of a divided city.