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Shoot for the Face
Jason Rogers couldn’t remember the last time he had slept soundly. After surviving 20 years in the high-octane world of Russian investment banking, he knew that his time there as the high-flying international banker to the oligarchs was coming to an end.
The bank he’d built from scratch in the 90s, Falcon Capital, his pride and joy, was being assailed on all sides by shadowy forces in Russian society with impeccable government connections, the “siloviki”. To compound matters, his chief risk officer had approved a loan to an oligarch, Ari Kandinskiy, who was down on his luck and had all but gone broke. His efforts to recover desperately needed funds from the stricken oligarch would pit him against powerful interests in Moscow – including Ruslan Akhmatov, the mercurial emissary of Russia’s most troublesome regional governor.
Desperate times would call for desperate measures. Jason Rogers would have to call one final time on the services of Dmitry Ovchinnikov, the Siberian hitman who was a little rough around the edges and dressed like an American cowboy – but who had proved so terribly effective at neutralising his client’s enemies over the years and despatching them to cemeteries all over Russia.
Dmitry Ovchinnikov’s capacity for violence and appetite for dispensing his own, unique brand of “justice” would result in some of Moscow’s most bloody executions in recent memory. It would trigger an orgy of revenge killings which would see the body parts of prominent members of the Russian underworld scattered all over the white tablecloths of that city’s finest restaurants.
Would Jason Rogers come to regret the murderous gang war that he had unleashed on the streets of Moscow? Would he become one of its victims?
Only time would tell…
£10.99 -
Some Service to the State
The year is 1925. In the borderlands of a newly partitioned Ireland, a doctor new to Northern Ireland begins a search for a missing patient, a young girl who has fallen pregnant.
Meeting a wall of silence, she enlists the help of a local, a former IRA volunteer recently released from jail. Their enquiry brings them into contact with a community still suffering from the wounds of civil war. More worrying for them, they find they are beginning to rattle skeletons that some powerful people would prefer went undisturbed.
As they slowly begin to unravel the truth of the girl’s fate, they find that the traces they are following lead to some crimes more monstrous that they ever previously considered.
“Some Service to the State is a superb book with dialogue that would not be out of place on the stage of the Abbey Theatre. Mick McAlinden is a former IRA man caught on the wrong side of the border and the wrong side of history: a law student who ends up working in an abattoir. Aidan McQuade has created a character whose travails highlight the thwarted dreams and the tragedy of partition for so many people in post-revolutionary Ireland.”
- Ronan McGreevy, journalist and author of Great Hatred: the Assassination of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson.
“Like Graham Greene, Dennis Lehane, and Louise Penny before him, McQuade takes the humble crime story and uses it like a scalpel to probe and expose the darkness in human souls and human society.”
- Martin W. Sandler, National Book Award-winning author and historian.
“The sparring sparky dialogue is a delight and never fails to vivify the darkness. McQuade shows prodigious skill in shining a spotlight on the scandal of mother-and-baby homes and in brilliantly imbuing the past with his own potent blend of heart, soul and wit.”
- Rosemary Jenkinson, multi-award winning playwright and author of Marching Season.
£9.99 -
South Island Slaughter
When Detective Superintendent Cully returns to South Island for a long-awaited school reunion, little does he know that the event will swiftly turn into a nightmare. A devastating mass shooting unfolds, and Cully is thrust into the role of leading the investigation. However, amidst the chaos, he battles his own demons, fearing that past abusive behavior will resurface with deadly consequences.
The victims, all connected to Cully’s school days, include Sophie Cairns, a former classmate and his ex-girlfriend, who miraculously survives the tragedy. In her book, a trauma therapist boldly suggests that fatal violence is the only solution to unbearable agony.
As the relentless police team hunts down the shooter, Cully’s path intertwines with that of DC Indah Kasali, forging a close bond. Sophie and Indah find themselves entangled in a battle to win Cully’s affections.
South Island Slaughter is a gripping thriller that explores the harrowing aftermath of tragedy, the complexities of human relationships, and the haunting effects of a troubled past.
£12.99 -
Stumped
The brutal murder of a young married woman during an annual cricket match in the sleepy countryside village of Bundary near Bristol forms the backdrop to a novel of illicit affairs, an escort agency and the attempted break-up of an international drug smuggling ring based in the Balkans and operating in Britain and Eastern Europe.
Solving the murder involves cooperation between the Avon and Somerset Police and officers from the West Midlands who are working with The National Crime Agency to discover how drugs are being imported into Britain from The Balkans.
The visiting cricket team captain is a known drug dealer from the Wolverhampton area who is offered amnesty of a potential prison sentence if he will go undercover to try to break up the drug ring.
This brings him into contact with one of the suspects for the murder as he travels to Dubrovnik and Montenegro, where he meets up with the operators of the drug cartel who own a vineyard near Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro.
£8.99 -
Suicide or Murder
Mina, a Lufthansa flight attendant, and Adam, a trainee police detective, establish a loving relationship formed around an astounding story (purported to be true) that boggled police investigators and medical examiners in LA. The story investigates the legal ramifications associated with a bizarre death that was chosen as the most unusual case on record for presentation at the 25th Anniversary dinner of the American Association of Forensic Scientists.
It may be difficult to envisage a growing romance within the confines of a murder mystery; however, the unusually volatile pressures and emotions that surround this case are, in fact, the perfect vehicle to exhibit the unique personalities of the involved characters. This story is sometimes bizarre and sometimes amusing and it becomes quite difficult to keep in mind that a large part of it is claimed to have really happened.
£9.99 -
Terminal Descent
In Terminal Descent, the fine line between ambition and obsession blurs, as the magnetic pull of wealth and the libertine allure of promiscuity weave a culture veering on the precipice of moral decay. The path once tread in pursuit of lofty ladders now morphs into dark, enigmatic alleys leading to a slippery slide of relentless descent.
As the veils of societal decorum thin, the narrative plunges into a whirlpool where unchecked desires and unrestrained indulgences set the stage for a haunting spectacle of human nature stripped bare. Terminal Descent is an evocative exploration of how the seductive dance between aspiration and moral compass can spiral into a fall from grace, narrating a tale where every choice made casts a long, indelible shadow.
£17.99 -
The Angel of Death
By day, Alan is a friendly, charming, handsome insurance salesman, selling equity release plans to retired middle-class couples. By night, Alan becomes the ‘Angel of Death’, wreaking his twisted vengeance on such happy couples.
Alan seeks fame. He wants to be the most famous murderer in history – so he hammers a wooden stake into the hearts of his victims and draws a crude picture of an avenging angel on their chests. He sends a letter to the local paper stating his grand plan – to kill one victim per week. He wears full PPE clothing and leaves no trace. Without evidence, he reasons, he is safe.
The police call in a specialist criminal profiler on loan from the FBI. He assists the local police to discover a prime suspect. Meantime, Alan falls in love and has to reconsider his future. Lady Luck intervenes.
£8.99 -
The Black Pool
The Black Pool spans the life of a Dubliner, who was born in the late 1960s, covering his involvement in gangland events in the City of Dublin and Europe across a 50-year period.
The story will take you through Dublin’s devastating heroin epidemic of the 1980s and continuing on into the underground rave scene of the 1990s. From here the story takes you into the phenomenon of Ibiza’s dance craze, and into the gangland war for control of the cocaine market that was to start flourishing in the era of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger.
This is not a story of heroes but a story of how the reality of gangs and crime can get hold of a city and bring it to its knees. It asks: Is it for the bravado of becoming a household name and main man on the block? Or is it a stain on society that young men and women turn to crime to make ends meet?
This is the story of Thomas Moran.
£11.99 -
The Brummie Boys of Aston
Birmingham, 1993. Under dim streetlamps, childhood friends Thomas, David, Henry, and Ernest drunkenly wind through the rainy streets, heading for the pub. While the others earn honest livings, David hatches risky schemes, plunging toward illegal drug trade and endangering them all. As his thirst for fast cash grows wilder, tensions mount among the foursome. Will their bond prove strong enough to stop David’s fall into Birmingham’s criminal underworld or will greed take them all down?
£9.99 -
The Chairman
India’s finest cricketer is found murdered in a Kolkata dressing room. Theories abound about who is responsible: match fixers, Pakistani fans or disaffected team mates? All eyes are on India until Australia’s best player also meets his demise in the cricket nets at the SCG.
It is Mike Dunn’s job to find out who is dismissing the world’s best cricketers. The mission takes him across the globe searching for a murderer or a group of assassins who are tearing the game asunder.
In a thrilling race around the world, Dunn finds himself a step behind at every turn until a chilling theory reveals itself…
£9.99 -
The Danger Continues
Two weeks of lust and love making awaited Brett Davis as he flew to Hong Kong, on leave from his role as an elite commando with his Nation’s Special Forces.
However, he was unaware that his woman was not the only one waiting for him.
Deadly assassins were waiting in the wings, hired by a powerful Asian crime syndicate who had made a pledge to kill this bastard known as Brett Davis.
Either way, he was about to enter very dangerous territory.
He would either die making love to his lady, or he would succumb to an assassin’s bullet.
£7.99 -
The Devil’s Ferryman
Detective Inspector Jimmy Nicholls is an outstanding young police officer in the Met who is leading the investigation into the brutal murder of four drug-addicted lowlifes, killed on the doorstep of one of the most notorious crime bosses in London. As he begins his investigation, he finds himself being warned off investigating the crime boss by the Met Commissioner, who also happens to be the father of his girlfriend, and a man he has known most of his life.
With no leads and little in the way of forensic evidence, the case doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. That is until the killer gets in touch with Nicholls in a completely unexpected way and warns him not to speak to anyone else, or his life will be in danger.
Nicholls initially has no choice but to comply with the killer’s demands but as more details are revealed, Nicholls learns some grisly details about his own family’s past that leads him to question who the real criminals are.
Nicholls and the killer begin to form an uneasy alliance as they work together to uncover some shocking truths about the relationship between organised crime and corruption in London. As the machinations of power are slowly revealed, Nicholls learns of a nefarious plot by the criminals to take control of the government. It is down to him and the killer to stop it.
£9.99