He thinks he sees a flash of emotion in her eyes. Sympathy? Then it's gone. `Whatever you think this is going to be like,' she whispers, `it's going to be worse.' When beautiful serial killer Gretchen Lowell captured her last victim - the man in charge of hunting her down - she quickly established who was really in control of the investigation. So why, after ten days of horrifying physical and mental torture, did she release Detective Archie Sheridan from the brink of death and hand herself in?

It all happened so quickly. She couldn't have prevented it. Could she? Ina split second, Jenna Gray's world descends into a nightmare. Her only hope of moving on is to walk away from everything she knows to start afresh. Desperate to escape, Jenna moves to a remote cottage on the Welsh coast, but she is haunted by her fears, her grief and her memories of a cruel November night that changed her life forever. Slowly, Jenna begins to glimpse the potential for happiness in her future. But her past is about to catch up with her, and the consequences will be devastating.

This horrifying thriller, partly based on a true story, is the scariest novel yet from an international bestseller.

The crunching noise had resumed, now accompanied by a disgusting, indefinable smell. It could best be described as a blend of kelp and rotten meat. The voice spoke again, now slightly louder and clearer: "Don't go. Don't go yet. I'm not finished."
In an isolated village in the Icelandic Westfjords, three friends set to work renovating a derelict house. But soon they realise they are not alone there - something wants them to leave, and it's making its presence felt.
Meanwhile, in a town across the fjord, a young doctor investigating the suicide of an elderly woman discovers that she was obsessed with his vanished son. When the two stories collide the terrifying truth is uncovered...

They call him IQ. He's a loner and a high school dropout, his unassuming nature disguising a relentless determination and a fierce intelligence. His clients pay him whatever they can afford, a new set of tyres or some homemade muffins. But now he needs a client who can pay. And the only way to that client is through a jive-talking, low-life drug dealer he thought he'd left behind.

Everyone believes Alex is in a coma, unlikely to ever wake up. As his family debate withdrawing life support, and his friends talk about how his girlfriend Bea needs to move on, he can only listen.But Alex soon begins to suspect that the accident that put him here wasn't really an accident. Even worse, the perpetrator is still out there and Alex is not the only one in danger. As he goes over a series of clues from his past, Alex must use his remaining senses to solve the mystery of who tried to kill him, and try to protect those he loves, before they decide to let him go.

I make things disappear. It’s what I do. This time I’m tidying up the loose ends after a casino heist gone bad. The loose ends being amillion cash. But I only have 48 hours, and there’s a guy out there who wants my head in a bag. He’ll have to find me first. They don’t call me the Ghostman for nothing...

I work alone. I may be the best thief in the world but no one will ever know a single thing about me. Well, almost no one. A lifetime ago I had a mentor, Angela. She taught me how to be a criminal, how to run a heist. And now, six years after she vanished and left me high and dry on a job in Kuala Lumpur, she's sent me an SOS. Or at least I think it's her. If it is, then I've got to go. I owe her that much. So soon I'll be on a plane to Macau, either to see a friend or walk into a trap. Or both. But that's the way I like it. Sometimes the only thing that makes me happy is risking my life. Time to go.

Two young British students, Nazim Jamal and Rafi Hassan vanish without a trace. The police tell their parents that the boys had been under surveillance, that it was likely they left the country to pursue their dangerous new ideals. Seven years later, Nazim's grief-stricken mother is still unconvinced. Jenny Cooper is her last hope. Jenny is finally beginning to settle into her role as Coroner for the Severn Valley; the ghosts of her past that threatened to topple her, banished to the sidelines once more. But as the inquest into Nazim's disappearance gets underway, the stink of corruption and conspiracy becomes clear . . . As the pressure from above increases, a code of silence is imposed on the inquest and events begin to spiral out of all control, pushing Jenny to breaking point. For how could she have known that by unravelling the mysteries of the disappeared, she would begin to unearth her own buried secrets?

Iraq 2005... Seven mercenaries journey deep into the desert in search of Saddam's gold. They form an unlikely crew of battle-scarred privateers, killers and thieves, veterans of a dozen war zones, each of them anxious to make one last score before their luck runs out. They will soon find themselves marooned among ancient ruins, caught in a desperate battle for their lives, confronted by greed, betrayal, and an army that won't stay dead...

A frosty December night in Stockholm. Inside the City Hall, over a thousand guests attend the prestigious Nobel Prizewinners’ dinner. With a lavish meal laid on to the backdrop of a full orchestra, this is one of the city’s most glamorous events of the year. But things are different tonight. Two shots are fired on the dance floor. Crime reporter Annika Bengtzon is there, covering the event for the Evening Post. As the police realize she caught a glimpse of the suspect, she is far more interested in getting back to the newsroom. But as more brutal murders follow, Annika finds herself in the middle of something far larger than she had anticipated. No longer just a reporter but also a vulnerable key witness, she begins to close up the gaps linking these crimes, just as the suspect starts closing the net on Annika herself…

In the dead of night, three raging fires light up the city skies. It's more than a tragic coincidence. For DI Helen Grace the flames announce the arrival of an evil she has never encountered before. Because this is no firestarter seeking sick thrills, but something more chilling: a series of careful, calculating acts of murder. But why were the victims chosen? What's driving the killer? And who will be next? A powder keg of fear, suspicion and dread has been laid. Now all it needs is a spark to set it off . . .

Detective Inspector Helen Grace is no stranger to tragedy. But when a body is found in a Southampton nightclub, the death cuts too close to the bone.Hiding her personal connection to the victim - and a double-life which must remain secret at all costs - Helen becomes a woman possessed, working her team around the clock to chase down every lead.As the killer strikes again, the investigation takes its toll not only on Helen but also her senior officers. Tempers flare,friendships fray and Helen faces an impossible choice.Confess her sins and lose control of the case? Or keep living a lie, protecting her darkest secrets, and risk getting trapped in this tangled web? But whatever she does, this killer will not stop until the truth is revealed: there are some fates worse than death . .

Mickey Fitzpatrick has been patrolling the 24th District for years. She knows most of the working women by name. She knows what desperation looks like and what people will do when they need a fix. She’s become used to finding overdose victims: their numbers are growing every year. But every time she sees someone sprawled out, slumped over, cold to the touch, she has to pray it’s not her sister, Kacey. When the bodies of murdered sex workers start turning up on the Ave, the Chief of Police is keen to bury the news. They’re not the kind of victims that generate a whole lot of press anyway. But Mickey is obsessed, dangerously so, with finding the perpetrator - before Kacey becomes the next victim.

Finding himself the victim of a botched kidnapping attempt, Val Gyrth suspects that he might be in a spot of trouble. Unexpected news to him – but not to the mysterious Mr Campion, who reveals that the ancient Chalice entrusted to Val’s family is being targeted by a ruthless ring of thieves. Fleeing London for the supposed safety of Suffolk, Val and Campion come face to face with events of a perilous and puzzling nature – Campion might be accustomed to outwitting criminal minds, but can he foil supernatural forces?

Bellamy Lyston Price was only twelve years old when her older sister Susan was killed on a stormy Memorial Day. Bellamy's fear of storms is a legacy of the tornado that destroyed the crime scene as well as her memory of one vital fact that still eludes her. Now, 18 years later, Bellamy has written a novel based on Susan's murder. It's her first book, and it's an instant sensation. But because the novel is based on the most traumatic event of her life, she's published it under a pseudonym to protect herself and her family.But when a sleazy reporter for a tabloid newspaper discovers that the book is based on a real crime, Bellamy's identity - and dark family secrets - are exposed. Suddenly, she finds herself embroiled in a personal conflict and at the mercy of her sister's killer, who for almost two decades has gotten away with murder, and will stop at nothing to keep it that way.

Sam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby. But Miss Wonderley is in fact the beautiful and treacherous Brigid O'Shaughnessy, and when Spade's partner Miles Archer is shot while on Thursby's trail, Spade finds himself both hunter and hunted: can he track down the jewel-encrusted bird, a treasure worth killing for, before the Fat Man finds him?

A lethal new drug with devastating side effects, known as Meltdown, is threatening to destabilize society. Dudley knows that the security services have to act fast, and when his 4 x 4 arrives at their remote hideout in the Canadian lakes, eighteen-year-old Danny and his grandfather, ex-SAS hero Fergus Watts, are once again sucked into a deadly undercover operation and a race against time. Their search for the mastermind behind a pair of murderous gangland twins takes them from the clubs of Manchester to Spain and Germany, and Danny needs all his newly learned expertise when he comes up against an old adversary - someone he hoped never to encounter again. And this time, when the battle is joined, it is a battle to the end.

A powerful, thought-provoking novel about two sisters who must reclaim themselves after their lives are dramatically upended from one of our finest authors Alison Donnelly has suffered for love. Still stuck in the small NorthernIrish town where she was born, working for her father’s real estate agency, she hopes to pick up the pieces and get her life back together. Her sister Liz, a fiercely independent college professor who lives in New York City, is about to return to Ulster for Alison’s second wedding,before heading to an island off the coast of Papua New Guinea to make a TV show about the world’s newest religion.Both sisters’ lives are about to be shaken apart. Alison wakes up the day after her wedding to find that her new husband has a past neither of them can escape. In a rainforest on the other side of the planet, Liz finds herself becoming increasingly entangled in the eerie, charged world of Belef, the subject of her show, a charismatic middle-aged woman who is the leader of a cargo cult.As Modern Gods ingeniously interweaves the stories of Liz and Alison, itbecomes clear that both sisters must learn how to negotiate with the past, with the sins of fanaticism, and decide just what the living owe to the dead. Laird’s brave, innovative novel charts the intimacies and disappointments of a family trying to hold itself together, and the repercussions of history and faith.

Don't Point That Thing At Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli - Book 1 of the Mortdecai Trilogy, now a major motion picture starring Johnny Depp Introducing the Hon. Charlie Mortdecai, art dealer, aristocrat and assassin, in the first of the Mortdecai novelsPortly art dealer and seasoned epicurean Charlie Mortdecai comes into possesion of a stolen Goya, the disappearance of which is causing a diplomatic ruction between Spain and its allies. Not that that matters to Charlie ... until compromising pictures of some British diplomats also come into his possession and start to muddy the waters.

Judge Crowdy Lobbett has found evidence pointing to the identity of the criminal mastermind behind the deadly Simister gang. After four attempts on his life, he ends up seeking the help of the enigmatic and unorthodox amateur sleuth, Albert Campion. After Campion bundles Lobbett off to a country house in Mystery Mile deep in the Suffolk countryside, all manner of adventures ensue. It's a race against time for Campion to get the judge to safety and decipher the clue to their mysterious enemy's name. Luckily for Judge Lobbett, underneath his constant stream of nonsensical banter, Campion displays a diamond-sharp intelligence and a natural detective's instinct...

For centuries, their race has lived beneath the earth, emerging only at night, to feed quietly on the dregs of society and slip back into the shadows. But now their time has come - their time to rise up from their hiding places and take back what is theirs. San Francisco homicide detective Bryan Klauser is supposed to be hunting a serial killer. But a serial killer couldn't be responsible for the seemingly impossible DNA evidence the crime-scene techs keep finding - or for the gory, strangely prophetic dreams Bryan keeps having. And what about the connections he keeps finding to a century-old cult - and his superiors' sudden reluctance to give him the answers he needs about cases that should be dead and buried?

The sleepy seaside village of Porthaven hides a mystery... Mia's grandad has vanished and nobody knows why. When Mia and her mum go to support her grandma, Mia makes friends with local girl, Dee. But why does Dee seem so out of reach? Why does she claim to be facing violent storms when Mia sees only sunny skies? And can Mia solve the mystery and find her grandad before time and tide forever wash away his future?

Charlotte is looking after her best friend’s daughter the day she disappears. She thought the little girl was playing with her own children. She swears she only took her eyes off them for a second.Now, Charlotte must do the unthinkable: tell her best friend Harriet that her only child is missing. The child she was meant to be watching. Devastated, Harriet can no longer bear to see Charlotte. No one could expect her to trust her friend again. Only now she needs to. Because two weeks later Harriet and Charlotte are both being questioned separately by the police. And secrets are about to surface.

There are only two things in life that interest Stanley: solving crossword puzzles, and getting his hands on his mother-in-law's money. For twenty years, nearly all his adult life, the puzzles have been his only pleasure; his mother-in-law's money his only dream. And in all those years it has never once occurred to Stanley that she would try to outsmart him and the money might never be his. Until now. It is only now that Stanley, so clever at misleading double-meanings and devious clues, decides to construct a puzzle of his own - and so give death a helping hand.

On Thursday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention.
Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule.
Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess.
Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing.
Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher.
And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High's notorious gossip app.

Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention, Simon's dead. And according to investi­gators, his death wasn't an accident. On Thursday, he died. But on Friday, he'd planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they just the perfect patsies for a killer who's still on the loose? Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them.

Osama Bin Laden is dead. The President of the United States knows it. The world knows it. And SAS hero Joe Mansfield knows it. He was on the ground in Pakistan when it happened. He saw Seal Team 6 go in, and he saw them extract with their grisly cargo. He was in the right place at the right time. Or maybe, the wrong place at the wrong time. Because now, somebody wants Joe dead, and they're willing to do anything to make it happen. His world is violently dismantled. His family is targeted, his reputation destroyed. And as a mysterious and ruthless enemy plans a devastating terror attack on both sides of the Atlantic, Joe knows this: his only chance of survival is to find out what happened in Bin Laden's compound the night the Americans went in. But an unseen, menacing power has footprints it needs to cover. And it will stop at nothing to prevent him uncovering the sinister truth...

London, 1889. Oscar Wilde, celebrated poet, wit, playwright and raconteur is the literary sensation of his age. All Europe lies at his feet. Yet when he chances across the naked corpse of sixteen-year-old Billy Wood, posed by candlelight in a dark stifling attic room, he cannot ignore the brutal murder. With the help of fellow author Arthur Conan Doyle he sets out to solve the crime - but it is Wilde's unparalleled access to all degrees of late Victorian life, from society drawing rooms and the bohemian demi-monde to the underclass, that will prove the decisive factor in their investigation of what turns out to be a series of brutal killings. The Oscar Wilde Murders is a gripping detective story of corruption and intrigue, of Wilde's growing success, of the breakdown of his marriage, and of his fatal friendship with Aidan Fraser, Inspector at Scotland Yard . Set against the exotic background of fin-de-siecle London, Paris, Oxford and Edinburgh, Gyles Brandreth recreates Oscar Wilde's trademark sardonic wit with huge flair, intertwining all the intrigue of the classic English murder mystery with a compelling portrait of one of the greatest characters of the Victorian age.

VERITY. Things were difficult with Mike by the end. He was too much, too controlling – sometimes, I was afraid of him. But I’ve moved on now. I’m getting married to the man of my dreams – he looks after me, but he doesn’t stifle me. Mike and the games we used to play – that’s all in the past now. It’s time to move on. Mike and I are finished. MIKE. It was just a matter of time until she came back to me. After what I did, maybe she’s right to make me wait. But Verity knows how sorry I am. And the messages she sends me, the way she calls me, the way she acted last time I saw her – no-one acts like that if they’ve stopped caring. She’ll be mine again. No matter who stands in my way.

When his estranged grandfather is shot and left for dead, an Army Ranger must plunge into the criminal underworld of his youth to find a murderer and uncover a shocking family secret in this atmospheric and evocative debut thriller.

Van Shaw was raised to be a thief, but at eighteen he suddenly broke all ties to that life and joined the military—abandoning his illicit past and the career-criminal grandfather who taught him the trade. Now, after ten years of silence, his grandfather has asked him to come home to Seattle. But when Van arrives,he discovers his grandfather bleeding out on the floor from a gunshot to the head. With a lifetime of tough history between him and the old man, Van knows he’s sure to be the main suspect.

The most hotly anticipated paperback thriller of the year follows our hero Jack Reacher on a quest into his father's past, and climaxes in the most blood-curdling ticking time bomb of an adventure yet. The present can be tense . . . A young couple trying to get to New York City are stranded at a lonely motel in the middle of nowhere. Before long they’re trapped in an ominous game of life and death. But the past can be worse . . . Meanwhile, Jack Reacher sets out on an epic road trip across America. He doesn’t get far. Deep in the New England woods, he sees a sign to a place he has never been - the town where his father was born. But when he arrives he is told no one named Reacher ever lived there. Now he wonders: who’s lying? As the tension ratchets up and these two stories begin to entwine, the stakes have never been higher for Reacher. That’s for damn sure.

A terrifying act of violence… It takes a split second for your life to change forever. And for Andrea Oliver that split second is a mass shooting in her local mall.

A woman whose life is built on a lie… But this shocking act is only the start. Because then, as the bodies fall around them, Andy’s mother Laura takes a step forward into the line of fire.

A fight for survival… Hours later, Laura is in hospital, her face splashed over the newspapers. But the danger has only just begun. Now Andy must embark on a desperate race against time to uncover the secrets of her mother’s past before any more blood is shed…

Minneapolis homicide cops Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth fish a murdered drag queen out of the Mississippi. Another day, another corpse. Except the victim's death throes quickly appear in a video posted online. And there are other videos, other murders. Unable to trace who is posting the videos, the cops turn to Grace MacBride and her crew of eccentric computer mavericks. But as the bodies and videos stack up, the team desperately try and answer a terrifying question:Is this the work of a lone individual? Or of several killers who have taken social networking to the darkest extreme. . .

Ty Hauck has left law enforcement for a job with a big-time private security firm. But he quickly learns that life in the private sector can be every bit as dangerous as wearing a badge – if not more so. When a successful trader at one of Wall Street’s largest firms is murdered his suburban home along with his wife and daughter, it seems at first to be a case of burglary gone wrong.
Then another financial executive is found dead in a very suspicious ‘suicide’. As Hauck digs deeper he uncovers a horrifying financial conspiracy that stretches from New York to Central Europe to London. And its perpetrators will kill anyone who gets in their way…

Nick Stone left the Special Air Service in 1988, soon after being involved in the shooting of three IRA terrorists in Gibraltar. Now working for British Intelligence on deniable operations, he discovers the seemingly senseless murders of fellow SAS soldier Kev Brown and his family in Washington, DC. Only Kelly, seven years old, has survived - and immediately the two of them are on the run from unidentified pursuers. Stone doesn't even know which of them is the target. Stone is a master of his trade, resourceful and ruthless. On his own, he would stand a chance of escape. But, needing to protect the girl, he is hamstrung as together they are plunged into a dark world of violence and corruption in which friend cannot be told from foe. As the blistering narrative drives to its blazing and unexpected climax, Stone discovers the shocking truth about governments, terrorism and commerce - and the greed that binds the three together. Remote Control is a new kind of thriller, gritty, vivid and menacing, with a pace that never lets up. Other thriller writers talk the talk. Only McNab has walked the walk.

`Find what you were looking for, Inspector?' Every day the same question. A different uniform but the same question. They thought Lucia enjoyed being here. They thought that was why she kept coming back. But they were asking the wrong thing. She had found what she was looking for - she had found what she had been sent to discover - but she had found out more besides. The question was what to do about it.

When a young girl is found dead at the base of Hadrian's Wall, it's not long before Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels realises her death was no ordinary homicide. She was thrown from a great height and was probably alive before she hit the ground.
Then a local businessmen reports his daughter missing, has Daniels found the identity of her victim, or is a killer playing a sickening game?

No suspects. No clues. No rest for the wicked. 'You will raise money for the safe return of Alison and Jenny McGregor. If you raise enough money within fourteen days they will be released. If not, Jenny will be killed.'

Mike Zetterberg lives with his wife Ylva and their daughter in a house just outside Helsingborg. One evening, Ylva isn't home as expected after work. Mike passes it off as a drink with a work friend, but when she's still missing the next day, he starts to worry. As Mike battles suspicion from the police and his own despair, he is unaware that Ylva is still alive, just a stone's throw from his own home. Ylva has been drawn into a twisted plot of revenge and tragedy that leads back into her and her abductors' shared past...

FBI rookie Clarice Starling turns to Dr. Hannibal Lecter, monster cannibal held in a hospital for the criminally insane, for insight into the deadly madman she must find. As Dr. Lecter invites her into the darkest chambers of his mind, he forces her to confront her own childhood demons as the price of understanding, an unspeakable tuition he exacts to teach her how the monster thinks. And time is running out .
. .

Their bond was unbreakable.The truth was unimaginable. When Beatrice gets a frantic call in the middle of Sunday lunch to say that her younger sister, Tess, is missing, she boards the first flight home to London. But as she learns about the circumstances surrounding her Tess's disappearance, she is stunned to discover how little she actually knows of her sister's life - and unprepared for the terrifying truths she must now face.

The inspector frowned and examined the earth under the trees. As he scanned the glade, his stomach lurched. One, two, three, four. Five, counting the mound of earth disturbed under the tent. Somebody had cleared the earth of its natural layer and sown their own flowers. In five places. Five graves. A young woman, Fiona Holland, has gone missing from a small Irish village. A search is mounted, but there are whispers. Fiona had a wild reputation. Was she abducted, or has she run away? A week later, a gruesome discovery is made in the woods at Ireland's most scenic beauty spot - the valley of Glendalough. The bodies are all young women who disappeared in recent years. D.I. Tom Reynolds and his team are faced with the toughest case of their careers - a serial killer, who hunts vulnerable women, and holds his victims captive before he ends their lives. Soon the race is on to find Fiona Holland before it's too late. . .

t is 1969 and James Bond is about to go solo, recklessly motivated by revenge.
A seasoned veteran of the service, 007 is sent to single-handedly stop a civil war in the small West African nation of Zanzarim. Aided by a beautiful accomplice and hindered by the local militia, he undergoes a scarring experience which compels him to ignore M’s orders in pursuit of his own brand of justice. Bond’s renegade action leads him to Washington, D.C., where he discovers a web of intrigue and witnesses fresh horrors.
Even if Bond succeeds in exacting his revenge, a man with two faces will come to stalk his every waking moment.

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me.

1. I'm in a coma
2. My husband doesn't love me any more
3. Sometimes I lie

Unnerving, twisted and utterly compelling, you won't be able to put this new thriller down. Set to be the most talked about book in 2017, it's perfect for fans of Behind Closed Doors,The Girl on the Train and The Widow.

Hull private investigator Leo Rivers finds himself in a battle to keep tabloid sensationalism out of his quest for the truth behind the savage murder of a young prostitute. Investigating one death in a sequence of similar killings, Rivers is brought into conflict with an ambitious chief-of-police set on as much personal gain as possible from the search for Hull’s first modern serial killer. Set against a backdrop of the Humber river and the gradual destruction of the fishing industry, Rivers is drawn into a world of exploitation, ambition, vanity and violence in this final volume in a trilogy of outstanding contemporary noir.

Portland detective Archie Sheridan, the former head of the Beauty Killer Task Force, hunted Gretchen Lowell for years before she kidnapped him, tortured him, and then let him go. Now that she is behind bars, Archie is finally piecing his life back together. He's returned home to his ex-wife and their two children. But no matter how hard Archie tries,he just can't stop thinking about Gretchen... When the body of a young woman is discovered in Forest Park, Archie is reminded of the first corpse he discovered there a decade ago: it turned out to be the Beauty Killer's first victim, and Archie's first case. Then, the unthinkable happens: Gretchen escapes from prison, and once the news breaks, all of Portland goes on high alert...but secretly, Archie is relieved. He knows he's the only one who can capture Gretchen―and now he has a plan to get out from under her thumb once and for all. Even if it means becoming her last victim...

Journalist Madison Webb is obsessed with exposing lies and corruption. But she never thought she would be investigating her own sister's murder.

It is the year of our Lord 1363. And in the cathedral city of York people are dying in mysterious circumstances. But there seems to be a common thread - the herbal remedies dispensed by Nicholas Wilton, Master Apothecary. The first victim is an anonymous pilgrim. But when a highborn nobleman dies after taking the same potion the authorities decide to act. Dispatched to York, in disguise, to unravel the mystery, Owen Archer, former Captain of Archers, apprentices himself to the Apothecary. But it is from Wilton's beautiful wife Lucie that he must learn the arcane secrets of the trade. Slowly but surely Owen begins to uncover the truth. And when the deaths continue he realises to his horror he must count Lucie among the suspects.

While the US navy is distracted by hostile activity in the South China Sea, a nuclear weapon has been planted in the harbour of Norfolk, Virginia - the world's largest naval base. Jake Grafton, promoted to director of the CIA following the murder of his predecessor, is unaware of the insidious plot. Though he has received intelligence informing him that an attack is imminent. He does not know where. He does not know when. But he does know who to turn to in a time of crisis. Faced with the horror of a disaster that would eclipse Pearl Harbor in scale, Jake and his right-hand man Tommy Carmellini return in this explosive race-against time thriller.

It's late spring of 1990 and a love affair is flourishing: between Ivor Tesham, a thirty-three year old rising star of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, and Hebe Furnal, a stunning North London housewife stuck in a dull marriage. What excitement Hebe lacks at home, however, is amply compensated for by the well-bred and intensely attractive Tesham - an ardent womanizer and ambitious politican.

History notes that the ugly feud between J. Edgar Hoover and Martin Luther King, Jr., marked by years of illegal surveillance and the accumulation of secret files, ended on April 4, 1968 when King was assassinated by James Earl Ray. But that may not have been the case. Now, fifty years later, former Justice Department agent, Cotton Malone, must reckon with the truth of what really happened that fateful day in Memphis. It all turns on an incident from eighteen years ago, when Malone, as a young Navy lawyer, is trying hard not to live up to his burgeoning reputation as a maverick. When Stephanie Nelle, a high-level Justice Department lawyer, enlists him to help with an investigation, he jumps at the opportunity. But he soon discovers that two opposing forces--the Justice Department and the FBI--are at war over a rare coin and a cadre of secret files containing explosive revelations about the King assassination, information that could ruin innocent lives and threaten the legacy of the civil rights movement's greatest martyr. Malone's decision to see it through to the end ---- from the raucous bars of Mexico, to the clear waters of the Dry Tortugas, and ultimately into the halls of power within Washington D.C. itself ---- not only changes his own life, but the course of history.