A sampling of seven spine-tingling crime thrillers from internationally bestselling author Paul Cleave: Joe Victim, The Laughterhouse, Collecting Cooper, Blood Men, Cemetery Lake, The Killing Hour, and The Cleaner.
Surprising and compelling this powerfully written novel is a terrifyingly vivid rendering inside the mind of a serial killer. Meet Joe. He’s a nice guy out to catch a copycat killer. The one copying himself. Joe is in control of everything in his simple life, including both his day job at the police department and his 'night work'. He remembers to feed his fish twice a day and visit his mother at least once a week, although he occasionally peppers her coffee with rat poison. He is not bothered by the reports of The Christchurch Carver, who - they say - murdered seven women. Joe knows the carver has killed only six. He knows that for a fact. And Joe is going to find that copy-cat killer, punish him for the one murder and then frame him for the rest. It's a perfect plan because he already knows he can outwit the police. All he has to do now is take care of all the women who keep getting in his way – his domineering mother for one. Then there is Sally, the maintenance worker who sees him as a replacement for her dead brother, and the mysterious Melissa, the only woman to have ever understood him, but whose fantasies of blackmail and torture no longer have any place in Joe's investigation... The Carver Series: Book 1: The Cleaner Book 2: Joe Victim
"A blind teenager ... receives a corneal donation and begins to see and feel memories from their previous owner--a homicide detective who was also his father"--Amazon.com.
"Jerry Grey is known to most of the world by his crime writing pseudonym, Henry Cutter--a name that has been keeping readers at the edge of their seats for more than a decade. Recently diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's at the age of forty-nine, Jerry's crime writing days are coming to an end. His twelve books tell stories of brutal murders committed by bad men, of a world out of balance, of victims finding the darkest forms of justice. As his dementia begins to break down the wall between his life and the lives of the characters he has created, Jerry confesses his worst secret: the stories are real. He knows this because he committed the crimes"--
The long-awaited sequel to the acclaimed thriller The Cleaner The internationally best-selling author of Collecting Cooper and The Laughterhouse brings back one of his most infamous characters, the Christchurch Carver, in this gripping new thriller. Joe Middleton, aka the Christchurch Carver, is in jail awaiting trial for a slew of murders he says he didn't commit. His only way out is to convince the psychiatrists assessing him that he wasn't of sound mind and can't be blamed for what he did. But that's the least of his worries. That's because there's no shortage of people who like the idea of seeing Joe dead, some of whom are in prison with him. To get himself out of this mess, Joe has a desperate plan involving the disgraced ex-detective who put him away and a TV psychic who's looking to get rich. It's a long shot, but it had better work – because there's talk of bringing back the death penalty, and the Christchurch Carver is just the poster boy to make it happen. Also available as an eBook
A compulsive, disturbingly relevant, twisty and powerful psychological, social-media thriller ... NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER 'Brilliantly twisty. I loved it' Lisa Jewell 'Another dark banger from the Orenda Books stable... A brilliant, twisty cat-and-mouse book about fandom and obsession' Erin Kelly 'Effortlessly readable, intensely chilling. That ending floored me' Chris Whitaker ***LONGLISTED for the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize*** ___________________ Tom is a successful author, but he's struggling to finish his novel. His main distraction is an online admirer, Evie, who simply won't leave him alone. Evie is smart, well read and unstable; she lives with her father and her social-media friendships are not only her escape, but everything she has. When she's hit with a restraining order, her world is turned upside down, and Tom is free to live his life again, to concentrate on writing. But things aren't really adding up. For Tom is distracted but also addicted to his online relationships, and when they take a darker, more menacing turn, he feels powerless to change things. Because maybe he needs Evie more than he's letting on. A compulsive, disturbingly relevant, twisty and powerful psychological thriller, The Closer I Get is also a searing commentary on the fragility and insincerity of online relationships, and the danger that can lurk just one like' away... ___________________ 'This book will make you rethink your social media obsession. Dangerous from page one, lit by bursts of black humour, ultimately honest about the frailty of ego and the masks we all wear. Terrifically readable' Sarah Hilary So good. Such brilliant characters. Great premise and a thrilling read' Nina Pottell, Prima 'A sucker-punch of a twist that took my breath away! Absurdly gripping, and enough to unnerve anyone who has ever spent any time online' Angela Clarke 'As perfect a thriller as you'll read all year' Caz Frear 'A gripping ride through the heartlands of need and hurt. Even at his most thrilling, Paul Burston never loses his sense of real pain and suffering' Philip Hensher 'Chillingly recognisable. A delicious tour de force' Alex Marwood 'Compelling, creepy and completely believable' Mel McGrath 'Dark, devious and with a growing sense of dread' Neil Broadfoot 'Brilliantly written, tense and compelling' Amanda Jennings 'Dark twisty fiction at its very best' SJI Holliday 'One of the best books you'll read this year' Ed James 'Unsettling. Taut. Menacing. Burston puts the killer into killer twist' Jonathan Harvey 'Witty and insightful' Susie Boyt 'Brilliant, chilling, totally awesome writing' Miranda Dickinson 'An absolute stunner... with a deliciously twisted ending' Lisa Hall 'The book is a masterpiece in sustained suspense and smart literate contemporary horror. Bravo Mr Burston' Derek Farrell 'Very easy to read, certainly keeps you hooked in with plenty of twists. I suspect it will be a big read this summer' Fiona Sharp 'It's about a gay novelist who becomes the target of an online stalker and is dark, thought-provoking, and totally riveting. As comebacks go, it's on a par with Madonna bursting out of a giant disco ball in a pink leotard!’ Matt Cain ‘Gripped and terrified by Paul Burston’s new novel, bloody hell!!!’ Rowan Coleman
Building on the tradition of Little Bee, Chris Cleave again writes with elegance, humor, and passion about friendship, marriage, parenthood, tragedy, and redemption. What would you sacrifice for the people you love? KATE AND ZOE met at nineteen when they both made the cut for the national training program in track cycling—a sport that demands intense focus, blinding exertion, and unwavering commitment. They are built to exploit the barest physical and psychological edge over equally skilled rivals, all of whom are fighting for the last one tenth of a second that separates triumph from despair. Now at thirty-two, the women are facing their last and biggest race: the 2012 Olympics. Each wants desperately to win gold, and each has more than a medal to lose. Kate is the more naturally gifted, but the demands of her life have a tendency to slow her down. Her eight-year-old daughter Sophie dreams of the Death Star and of battling alongside the Rebels as evil white blood cells ravage her personal galaxy—she is fighting a recurrence of the leukemia that nearly killed her three years ago. Sophie doesn’t want to stand in the way of her mum’s Olympic dreams, but each day the dark forces of the universe seem to be massing against her. Devoted and self-sacrificing Kate knows her daughter is fragile, but at the height of her last frenzied months of training, might she be blind to the most terrible prognosis? Intense, aloof Zoe has always hovered on the periphery of real human companionship, and her compulsive need to win at any cost has more than once threatened her friendship with Kate—and her own sanity. Will she allow her obsession, and the advantage she has over a harried, anguished mother, to sever the bond they have shared for more than a decade? Echoing the adrenaline-fueled rush of a race around the Velodrome track, Gold is a triumph of superbly paced, heart-in-throat storytelling. With great humanity and glorious prose, Chris Cleave examines the values that lie at the heart of our most intimate relationships, and the choices we make when lives are at stake and everything is on the line.
"A woman receives an unexpected call from a former classmate asking for help deciphering a puzzling interaction, and from there, Smith spins out a broader story about loneliness, refuge and freedom.” —The New York Times Book Review “Lyrical and timely…Smith’s novel will push readers to consider what it means to let people into your life, even when you don’t want to.” —TIME A story is never an answer. A story is always a question. A day spent locked in a room by border officials without any explanation as to why. A riddle that seemingly has no answer: curlew or curfew, you choose. A phone call from a college friend who hasn't been in touch in years. And all of it is somehow inextricably linked to the life of a young blacksmith hounded from her trade and branded a vagrant nearly 500 years ago. Award-winning author Ali Smith shines a guiding light through the nightmarish now with a provocative novel that intertwines our atomized present and the uncannily parallel era of the Black Plague. In the hope that our medieval past may unlock the answers we seek to understand our hazy future, Companion Piece is a kaleidoscope of human history and experience, and a stunning addition to Smith's gorgeous canon.
When seven-year-old Alyssa is kidnapped, Deputy Noah Harper decides he will do whatever it takes to find her - but that means crossing lines he can never come back from. Finding the girl safe isn't enough to stop Noah from losing his job, his wife, and his home. He's told that, if he ever returns to the town of Acacia Pines, he'll be put in jail and left there to rot. Twelve years later comes a phone call. Alyssa is missing again, and her uncle wants Noah to honour the promise he made to her all that time ago - that he'd find The Bad Man if he ever came back. To save her, Noah must return to The Pines and come face to face with the past.
As gripping as his first powerful novel, this fantastic crime and mystery novel keeps you guessing until the last page. 'They come for me as I sleep. Their pale faces stare at me, their soft voices tell me to wake, to wake. They come to remind me of the night, to remind me of what I have done.' The one problem is that Charlie doesn’t know what he has done. His shorts are covered in blood, there's a bump on his forehead and on the news it says the two young women he was with the night before were brutally murdered. Charlie knows Cyris is the murderer — except the police don’t believe Cyris exists. Nor does Jo, Charlie's ex-wife, to whom he goes for help. He desperately wants her to believe in him, and when she doesn’t, he knows he must force her. As Charlie goes on the run with Jo bound and gagged in the car boot, he tries to figure out whether Cyris is real or imagined, while the killing hour approaches yet again . . .