Showing results by publisher "Quercus" in All Categories

Elizabeth II's coronation is looming, but the murder of their wartime commander, Colonel Cartwright, spoils the happy mood for DI Edgar Stephens and magician Max Mephisto. A playbill featuring another deceased comrade is found in Colonel Cartwright's possession, and a playing card, the ace of hearts: the blood card. The wartime connection and the suggestion of magic are enough for him to put Stephens and Mephisto on the case.

Accused of grassing up a fellow officer and driven brutally out of home and job, DI Grace Fisher is thankful to survive some dark times and find haven with the Major Investigation Team in Essex. Any hopes of a quiet start to her new life are dashed by the discovery of the body of a female student, last seen at a popular bar in Colchester. Grace has her first case. When a second student, also out drinking, is murdered and left grotesquely posed, the case becomes headline news. Someone is leaking disturbing details to a tabloid crime reporter. Is it the killer? Or a detective close to the case?

A missing art student. An international investigation. A secret that will shatter Bruno's charming village of St Denis. A rich American art student is found dead at the bottom of a well in an ancient hilltop castle. The young woman, Claudia, had been working in the archives of an eminent French art historian, a crippled Resistance war hero, at his art-filled chateau.

Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. As a literature teacher specialising in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland, she teaches a short course on it every year. Then Clare's life and work collide tragically when one of her colleagues is found dead, a line from an R. M. Holland story by her body. The investigating police detective is convinced the writer's works somehow hold the key to the case.s....

Damien Lewis' best seller tells the action-packed, riveting story of the band of mavericks and visionaries who made the SAS. Using hitherto untold stories and new archival sources, Damien Lewis follows one close-knit band of warriors from the SAS foundation through to the Italian landings—chronicling the extraordinary part they played as the tide of the Second World War truly turned in the Allied's favour. This is a narrative of wall-to-wall do-or-die action and daring, chronicling the exploits of some of the most highly decorated soldiers of the 20th century.

When 30-year-old Nick loses his prestigious job at a city law firm, he is forced to grudgingly accept work as a Santa at a local Christmas grotto. There he meets five-year-old Alfie, and all Alfie wants for Christmas is for his mum to be happy again. She has been sad ever since his dad died three years ago. Moved by the boy's selfless wish, Nick arranges a date between Alfie's mum, Sarah, and his best friend, Matt.

Brighton, 1963. Edgar Stephens has been promoted to Superintendent and is married to his former sergeant, Emma Holmes. Edgar's wartime partner in arms, magician Max Mephisto, is a movie star in Hollywood, while his daughter Ruby has her own TV show. The funeral of an old friend highlights just how much the gang's lives have changed in the last nine years. Edgar is struggling with fresh responsibilities and the new swinging Brighton of rioting mods and rockers; Emma is chafing against the restrictions of life as a housewife.

Bernie Gunther is back, in deeper trouble than ever in this new novel from the master of the historical thriller. Summer, 1942. When Bernie Gunther is ordered to speak at an international police conference, an old acquaintance has a favour to ask. Little does Bernie suspect what this simple surveillance task will provoke. One year later, resurfacing from the hell of the Eastern Front, Bernie receives another task that seems straightforward: locating the father of Dalia Dresner, the rising star of German cinema.

The Nazi Hunters is the incredible, hitherto untold story of the most secret chapter in the SAS' history. Officially, the world's most elite special forces unit was dissolved at the end of the Second World War and not reactivated until the 1950s. Among their last actions was a disastrous commando raid into occupied France in 1944, which ended in the capture, torture and execution of 31 soldiers.

Out of the blue, Susie Jones is contacted on social media by Anna, the girl she gave up for adoption fifteen years ago. But when they meet, Anna's home life sounds distinctly strange to Susie and her husband Gabe. And when Anna's adoptive parents seem to overreact to the fact she contacted them at all, Susie becomes convinced that Anna needs her help. But is Anna's own behaviour simply what you'd expect from someone recovering from a traumatic childhood? Or are there other secrets at play here - secrets Susie has also been hiding for the last 15 years?

Cat panics when she sees a photofit of a murder suspect flash up on the news. It looks exactly like her, and to make matters worse, the victim is her childhood best friend, Charlie. The following day, the police arrive at her doorstep to question her. She hadn't seen or spoken to Charlie in years, but could the secrets of their past finally be coming back to haunt her? Desperate to find out who gave the police her description and to protect her five-year-old son, Cat investigates. She knows she is innocent and will stop at nothing to prove it. But some secrets are best left buried....

Revered artist Kim Lord is about to unveil her most shocking show yet: Still Lives, a series of self-portraits in which she impersonates the female victims of America's most famous homicides, from Nicole Brown Simpson to the Black Dahlia. As celebrities and rich patrons pour into LA's Rocque Museum for the opening night, the attendees wait eagerly for Kim's arrival. All except Maggie Richter, museum editor and ex-girlfriend of Greg Shaw Ferguson, Kim's new boyfriend. But Kim never shows up to her party, and the crowd's impatience slowly turns to unease.

Jack Dee is here to help. Too often today the emphasis in psychotherapy is on providing clients with a metaphorical hug when what they so clearly need is good slap, so Jack Dee took the matter into his own hands, and whilst everyone else was baking bread and clearing out their cupboards during lockdown, he retrained online as a psychotherapist. After an incredibly gruelling four hours of study, he got his certificate of completion from The Ruislip College of Advansed Learning (sic).

In the summer of 1943, the largest invasion fleet ever assembled sailed for fortress Europe, aiming to bulldoze its way onto Nazi shores. At its vanguard went a few hundred elite forces soldiers, the Royal Navy warship carrying them bearing the iconic winged dagger emblem on its prow, plus the motto 'Who Dares Wins'. Led by the legendary SAS commander Blair 'Paddy' Mayne, these war-bitten, piratical raiders were tasked to do the impossible - to bludgeon their way through the most heavily defended enemy shoreline, so enabling the ensuing forces to follow on.

Thirty-two-year-old Jessica is newly divorced and has returned home to live with her parents whilst she puts the pieces of her life back together. But Jessica isn't the only one with problems, as her mother, Jean, has recently been diagnosed with dementia. Shortly after Jessica's arrival, one of the neighbours falls to her death, in what appears to be a terrible accident. However, Jean claims that the woman was murdered by her husband and that she witnessed the whole thing.

The French Riviera, 1956. A world-weary Bernie Gunther is working under a false name as a hotel concierge. His attempts to keep his nose clean go horribly awry when a wartime acquaintance sucks him into a blackmail plot involving one of the most famous British writers of the 20th century and the Cambridge Spies. Bernie is missing his old detective life when his past walks through the door in the shape of Harold Hennig, a former captain in the Nazi security service - the man who, in 1945, was responsible for the deaths of thousands, among them a woman Bernie loved.

It is summer in St Denis and Bruno is busy organising the annual village concert. He's hired a local Périgord folk group, Les Troubadours, to perform their latest hit 'A Song for Catalonia'. But when the song unexpectedly goes viral, the Spanish government, clamping down on the Catalonian bid for independence, bans Les Troubadours from performing it. The timing couldn't be worse, and Bruno finds himself under yet more pressure when a specialist sniper's bullet is found in a wrecked car near Bergerac.

The death of a 90-year-old woman with a heart condition should absolutely not be suspicious. DS Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing to concern her in carer Natalka's account of Peggy Smith's death. But then Natalka reveals that Peggy lied about her heart condition and that she had been sure someone was following her....

From April 1942 to March 1944, Hélène Berr, a recent graduate of the Sorbonne, kept a journal that is both an intensely moving, intimate, harrowing, appalling document and a text of astonishing literary maturity. With her colleagues, she plays the violin and she seeks refuge from the everyday in what she calls the "selfish magic" of English literature and poetry. But this is Paris under the occupation and her family is Jewish. Eventually, there comes the time when all Jews are required to wear a yellow star.

Ruby Winter is surprised when her reclusive father invites a strange solider into their house. Intrigued, she tries to eavesdrop on their conversation, but is alarmed when she hears a fight break out. She dashes into the kitchen to save her dad, but he's not the one in trouble. The soldier has been stabbed and is bleeding out on the floor. Refusing her pleas to call an ambulance, her dad urges her to pack a bag—they have to run. As they try to escape her dad is shot and Ruby is chased by one of the soldier's comrades but is hidden by Lucas, a boy she has ignored up till now.