Stark is a secret consortium with more money than God, and the social conscience of a dog on a croquet lawn. What's more, it knows the Earth is dying. Deep in Western Australia where the Aboriginals used to milk the trees, a planet-sized plot is taking shape. Some green freaks pick up the scent: a pommie poseur; a brain-fried Vietnam...

Art restorer and spy Gabriel Allon is sent to Vienna to discover the truth behind a bombing which killed an old friend - a Nazi hunter. While there he encounters something that turns his whole life upside down. Each fact he uncovers only leads to more questions until finally a picture emerges which is more terrible than he could have...

When wisecracking detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro agree to protect the son of a prominent psychiatrist who believes she may have angered the Boston Irish Mafia, they soon find bodies are piling up around them - seemingly unconnected with their case. And what's more all the clues point to an unlikely suspect - a serial killer who has been...

Childers's lone masterpiece, THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS, considered the first modern spy thriller, is recognisable as the brilliant forerunner of the realism of Graham Greene and John le Carre. Its unique flavour comes from its fine characterization,richly authentic background of inshore sailing and vivid evocation of the late 1890s - an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and intrigue that was...

Meet the Accident Man, Samuel Carver Carver is a good guy who makes bad things happen to bad people. Drug-baron's helicopter develops mechanical failure mid-flight: Samuel Carver. Terrorist blown-up in his own bomb factory: Samuel Carver. Ex-SAS, now freelance mercenary he is the frontline weapon of the 'Consortium', a black-ops British government outfit, or is it? Carver is called to...

A highly original and chillingly suspenseful journey through the darkest alleys of international espionage. Micah Dalton isn't paid to ask questions. He's a cleaner, a CIA fixer sent in to mop up the mess when an agent or situation goes bad. But when his close friend and colleague Porter Naumann turns up dead in an idyllic hill town in Tuscany,...

Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics is an unforgettable debut novel that combines the storytelling gifts of Donna Tartt and the suspense of Alfred Hitchcock: a darkly hilarious coming-of-age tale and a richly plotted suspense story, told with dazzling intelligence and wit. 'I wrote this account one year after I'd found Hannah Dead. I thought I'd managed to erase...

From the bestselling author of Star of the Sea and Shadowplay, a thrilling novel about a father who takes the law into his own hands. 'Gripping and moving...a taut, expertly crafted plot' Guardian Dublin, June 1995: the hottest summer since records began. But Billy Sweeney, a middle-aged salesman with a failed marriage, a faltering career and a tumbledown house, has...

‘I wondered if I was dying. I wasn’t afraid to die but, such was the pain in my gut, I wished it would happen soon.’ The night before the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket sees the great and the good of the horse-racing community gathered for a prestigious black-tie Gala dinner. It is a fitting testament to the glamour of the...

Gabriel Allon, art restorer and spy, is about to face the greatest challenge of his life. An al-Qaeda suspect is killed in London, and photographs are found on his computer – photographs that lead Israeli intelligence to suspect that al-Qaeda is planning one of its most audacious attacks ever, straight at the heart of the Vatican. Allon warns the Pope’s...

The New Girl Friend was published in 1985, and the title story earned Rendell her second Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe award. 'Every tale is carefully crafted and climaxed, her feel for lurking malevolence is as assured as ever.' -The Times Then came The Copper Peacock in 1991, a collection of nine short horror stories in which 'the...

When a teacher is found dead, having apparently committed suicide, his friend Pierre Hoffman takes over class 4F and finds himself responsible for a group of strangely subdued, well-behaved and yet menacing pupils. Assuming their behaviour to be a response to the trauma of their teacher's death, Pierre Hoffman at first takes it easy with the precocious class, refusing to...

'A breath of fresh cold air . . . a dangerous edge to gladden fans of Lisbeth Salander' Boyd Tonkin The first in the Rebecka Martinsson series from the million-book bestselling author, for fans of Stieg Larsson, The Bridge and The Killing TV series. A church in the glittering frozen wastes of northern Sweden. Inside, a sacrifice: the body of...

He thought he had it easy, until he fell into the middle of a murderous drug war . . . 'This one you'll have trouble putting down' New York Times Nick Breakspear thought he had opted for the easy life, but acting as nursemaid for the idle rich aboard the luxury yacht Wavebreaker in the Bahamas does have its downside....

Los Angeles is full of actors. For psychologist Alex Delaware, finding out what's real and what's not is about to become a matter of life and horrific death ... Called in to evaluate an aspiring actress accused - along with her boyfriend - of staging her own abduction, Alex is indifferent when the case seems to go nowhere. But then...