Search Results for: suspension

Catherine Wilder was a strange girl, lovely but lonely. Sir Henry Wilder, her father, was the kind of eccentric, medical researcher who preferred to work in complete isolation. Catherine withdrew deeper into herself as the oppressing loneliness of her father’s remote mansion weighed upon her mind.
When she first heard the voice she wondered whether the mansion was haunted, then she feared for her sanity. But it was neither madness nor the supernatural which threatened her.
Mezak appeared to her suddenly in the twilight of the mansion’s gloomy corridors. He was more romantic than her wildest dreams. Although some of his language was beyond her understanding at first, it gradually became possible for them to communicate. Mezak was from the future, the remote future, but Catherine slowly realised that she was in love with him! Her father’s strange research into super-freezing and suspended animation gave her only a remote chance of reaching him, but she was prepared to take that chance. As Catherine placed herself in the freezing chamber, numbness and darkness crept over her…. Would she ever open those beautiful eyes again?

‘If I Should Die is a page turner thriller with great characters and literally heart-stopping suspense – I loved it!’ Mary Higgins Clark

In cities all over the USA people whose lives have just been saved by a medical miracle are dying mysterious and violent deaths. Chicago policeman Joe Duvall realises his sister’s life may be at risk, and a desperate race against time begins.

‘An exciting and compelling piece of storytelling. Fast moving and full of suspense’ Publishing News

When Meg Frazer’s actress mother is killed in a Hollywood accident, nineteen-year-old Meg finds it hard to adapt to life in Britain with her cold, distant father . . . and at night she is haunted by a strange dream of a face which she is sure has something to do with her past.

Meg follows a clue from the past to a remote Cornish Village. There she becomes involved in a nightmare web of terror and suspense . . . She meets a young man called Toby, who is different from her staid fiancé, but how is he wrapped up in the secrets she is unravelling?

First written as a short suspense story in the 1960’s, this YA romantic thriller went on to win an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Joan Aiken in 1972

“A cunning thriller romance, with the ever popular suspense and terror… good holiday reading for the not so bookish” Elaine Moss, Times

“Young, beautiful, talented, engaged to a handsome and successful stockbroker, she should have been content to stay in London. But irresistibly Meg was drawn back to Penlaggen…back into a forgotten past… And waiting for her was a man who exercised a strange and fearful power over her…and a secret that led her ever closer to danger” Fiction Database

“The suspense is wonderfully sustained and leads to a terrifying climax, and there is even a satisfying love story” Publisher’s Weekly

“A dream has haunted nineteen-year-old Meg for ten years, ever since her mother’s death. Now engaged and determined to exorcise the dream before her marriage, Meg drives to the remote Cornwall village of Penleggen where the author’s gift for direful scene and gripping incident takes control…the physical danger mounts as Meg’s psychological mystery is solved and a literate thriller gathers momentum” Kirkus review

A dark tale of the destructive power of love and obsession from ‘The supreme master of suspense’ NEW YORK TIMES

‘The father of the modern suspense story’ LA TIMES

When Louis Durand first meets his bride-to-be after a months-long courtship by mail, he’s shocked that she doesn’t match the photographs sent with her correspondence. But Durand has not exactly been truthful, either, concealing the details of his wealth. Mostly, he feels fortunate she is so much more beautiful than he expected.

Soon after they marry, however, he becomes increasingly convinced that the woman in his life is not the same woman with whom he exchanged letters – and then she suddenly disappears with his fortune.

Alone and desperate, Louis becomes obsessed with finding Julia and bringing her to justice – but it is only when he finally tracks her down that the nightmare truly begins…

Miranda Brand was uneasy even before the train left to take her to stay with her army cousin in divided Berlin. Then a story of a missing fortune in war-looted diamonds, told to pass the time on the journey, brings back nightmares of her past. And causes murder.

This is dazzling entertainment from a master of suspense.

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

Lieutenant Luis Mendoza is beset by two insistent puzzlers: how does his team nail the pair who are staging hold-ups at the best restaurants in town? And who was responsible for the brutal murder of an elderly widow?

Will Mendoza’s famous hunches point him to the answers?

It all started with the baby shower that friends gave Sergeant Hackett. There, Alice Mendoza, bride of Lieutenant Luis Mendoza, met the insufferable Margaret Chadwick.

But the next morning, Miss Chadwick’s body was discovered in the Southern Pacific freight yards, neatly strangled and minus a single clue. That was when Mendoza was called in . . .

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

Lieutenant Luis Mendoza is tasked with solving a double murder, shrouded in strange rites. Acting on one of his famous hunches, he is drawn into the world behind the glitter of Hollywood and into the Temple of Mystic Truth.

There he finds cultists Martin and Cara Kingman, who turn out to be less than spiritual . . .

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

Lieutenant Luis Mendoza works with an outstanding team at the Los Angeles Police Department. They need to be. On their hands is a case of a vanished treasure of coins; drug dealers and a clutch of law-breaking brothers.

As well as the cases, though, there’s an inside view of a police department and the varied lives of the characters who work within it.

Intriguing, suspenseful historical romance

When Beth leaves home – and more importantly, her domineering aunt – to take a PR job at a stately home she thinks she has finally found a path to happiness. But the inhabitants of the house are far more mysterious than she expected, and she soon finds herself with rather more to manage than she could ever have imagined . . .

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

One of Lieutenant Luis Mendoza’s most respected colleagues, young detective Tom Landers is under suspicion in a stolen car racket.

Internal affairs are investigating but Mendoza is not going to leave his man to the uncertain processes of departmental routine. Defying orders and protocol, he decides to do some investigating of his own…

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

A beautiful Hollywood blonde inexplicably vanishes from the restaurant she is dining in with her fiancé and is found with her neck broken and miles away from the scene of her disappearance.

Who lured her away? How? And, the most puzzling question for Lieutenant Luis Mendoza of Los Angeles’ Homicide Squad, is why?

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

When a con-man with many aliases is found shot dead in his car, there is only one clue – a single word that he had scrawled on a memo-pad as he was dying – and the suspects are many.

Enter Lieutenant Mendoza and his team at the Los Angeles Police Department, who approach the case with their usual tenacity and a dash of flair . . .

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

Has an innocent man suffered for another’s crime? Is there, lurking in the background a cunning maniac killer, selecting his victims carefully in turn?

Lieutenant Luis Mendoza has a hunch that could lead him to the killer – but not until his beloved wife Alison finds herself caught in the web, headed for disaster, and a grave close to the sea-shore…

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

An earthquake shakes Southern California and the Los Angeles Police Department. With no air-conditioning and a temperature around 98 degrees the heat is turned up when there’s a triple shooting of a highly respected Doctor, his wife and his nurse.

Can Lieutenant Luis Mendoza and his team solve the case while chaos reigns around them?

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

Things begin to heat up in the Los Angeles Police Department when Lieutenant Luis Mendoza’s stolid and good-natured colleague Sergeant Higgins is kidnapped by three dangerous escaped prisoners.

A manhunt is launched but no one expects Higgins to be seen alive again. Can Mendoza’s team ever recover, or is the officer’s return just around the corner?

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

Two little girls have been raped and murdered and every available officer in The Los Angeles Police Department is on the case.

Lieutenant Mendoza’s team meticulously make enquiries – there’s house-to-house checking, and exact tracing of the girl’s movements between home and school. No stone is left unturned, but what clues will finally reveal the children’s fate?

When a yacht explodes in the Bahamas, apparently killing six people, Sam Boyleston, an attorney from Texas and the brother of one of the victims, is compelled to investigate the circumstances, as does Raoul Kelly, a newspaper reporter.

After the disaster the yacht’s burned captain was temporarily marooned on a small island, and soon it becomes apparent that one person is ruthlessly manipulating events. But for Boyleston and Kelly proving guilt appears impossible …

‘A major suspense novel’ New York Times

Classic crime from the 1960s from a master of suspense

The first novel in the acclaimed Ben Anderson series.

‘Compton has been one of Britain’s most original and consistent novelists since the late Sixties, but he has never received the attention he deserves…Compton’s prose is fine-tuned, his human insights sharp, and his narrative pace filled with the weird synchronicities and dissonances of how violent things usually happen’ INDEPENDENT

‘No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford’ Elmore Leonard

In this riveting novel of psychological suspense, Charles Willeford charts a duel trajectory of alcoholic desire and destruction that is at once poignant, terrifying and utterly authentic.

Prowling the grimy streets of San Francisco, Helen is a beautiful, sensuous drunk – and a pathetically easy pick-up. Harry just wants to help, but before long they are both adrift in a sea of alcohol – until Harry conceives the ultimate crime.

Lieutenant Luis Mendoza celebrates his birthday with a more than usually exuberant outburst of murder and mayhem.

What has happened to the abducted Nurse Bradley? What fiend could have tied up Lila Wescott and whipped her while she suffocated? And who can be trying to poison Mr and Mrs Beebe with arsenic? Mendoza puts his hunches to the test . . .

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

The rain brought problems – difficult, ugly, weird problems – for Lieutenant Luis Mendoza. Senseless killings, cold-blooded murders, suicides. To say nothing of a ruthless gang of B-girls whose knockout drops knocked their victims out for good.

And then, on his own doorstep, Mendoza stumbled across a clue to one of the most vicious crimes he had ever been called on to solve.

‘A Luis Mendoza mystery means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

This swift-moving story of murder and suspense culminates in an unexpected and dramatic climax that is the hallmark of a James Hadley Chase novel.

Chris Burnett – successful, wealthy and married to the daughter of a multi-millionaire – receives severe brain injuries in a car accident. While convalescing Burnett disappears for 24 hours, during which time a prostitute is brutally murdered and mutilated.

Evidence found by a private inquiry points to Burnett. His wife, blackmailed by the inquiry agent, sets out to prove her husband’s innocence …

Lieutenant Luis Mendoza is faced with a crime close to home when his four-year-old twins are kidnapped. Not even Mendoza’s crystal ball can help him while his colleagues explore every possible theory and lead.

Are the twins being held for ransom? Or is the kidnapping a form of revenge? Mendoza has never been more human as a husband and father and more severely taxed as a detective . . .

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times