Where Secrets Lie by D. S. Butler
When decomposed human remains are discovered in a suitcase behind a locked door in the home of an elderly man, Detective Karen Hart thinks the facts speak for themselves. That is, until she finds the warning: It’s time to pay for your crime.
The body belongs to a former teacher, Oliver Fox, who vanished from the village thirty years earlier. Hart’s instincts tell her there is something untoward about this rural Lincolnshire community—especially when she uncovers evidence suggesting that, although Fox was a victim, he certainly wasn’t innocent. As the extent of Fox’s crimes becomes apparent and the web of lies continues to unravel, almost nobody in the village is above suspicion.
When there are whispers of child abuse in connection with the case, it’s clear someone is willing to do anything to keep the sinister truth buried. Can Hart find the culprit before more lives are lost?
The Couple on Cedar Close by Anna-Lou Weatherley
One sunny August afternoon, the residents of Cedar Close throw their annual summer barbecue. Children play in the cherry-tree lined street, tables are laden with food, and the wine is flowing. For Laurie Mills, it’s her first time meeting the neighbours. And it’s the first time she discovers her husband Robert is having an affair.
Cedar Close has always been a nice place to live – a quiet suburban street where everyone looks out for one another and bad things don’t happen.
Until late one evening, when Robert Mills is found dead in his bedroom.
Downstairs, in their beautiful kitchen, his wife Laurie sits alone in the dark with her head in her hands.
She can’t remember the last few hours, but she knows she didn’t kill Robert.
The trouble is, no-one believes her…
The Binding by Bridget Collins
Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a letter arrives summoning him to begin an apprenticeship. He will work for a Bookbinder, a vocation that arouses fear, superstition and prejudice – but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.
He will learn to hand-craft beautiful volumes, and within each he will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s something you want to forget, he can help. If there’s something you need to erase, he can assist. Your past will be stored safely in a book and you will never remember your secret, however terrible.
In a vault under his mentor’s workshop, row upon row of books – and memories – are meticulously stored and recorded.
Then one day Emmett makes an astonishing discovery: one of them has his name on it.
The Disappeared by Sibel Hodge
On a routine flight from Africa to England, Dr Mason Palmer is tragically killed when the light aircraft he’s travelling on crashes and disappears in dense bushland.
Ten months later, Nicole Palmer is still trying to block out the grief of her husband’s sudden death. Until one morning she receives a photo of Mason through the post, along with a cryptic message. A message only he could’ve written.
But when Nicole tries to find out if Mason is really alive and what actually happened to him in Africa, everyone she turns to for answers ends up dead.
Determined to find the truth, Nicole uncovers a conspiracy that spans the globe, and discovers there are powerful people who are prepared to kill to keep her silent.
The Kiss Thief by LJ Shen
They say your first kiss should be earned. Mine was stolen by a devil in a masquerade mask under the black Chicago sky. They say the vows you take on your wedding day are sacred. Mine were broken before we left church. They say your heart only beats for one man. Mine split and bled for two rivals who fought for it until the bitter end. I was promised to Angelo Bandini, the heir to one of the most powerful families in the Chicago Outfit. Then taken by Senator Wolfe Keaton, who held my father’s sins over his head to force me into marriage. They say that all great love stories have a happy ending. I, Francesca Rossi, found myself erasing and rewriting mine until the very last chapter. One kiss. Two men. Three lives. Entwined together. And somewhere between these two men, I had to find my forever.
The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup
One blustery October morning in a quiet Copenhagen suburb, the police make a terrible discovery. A young woman is found brutally murdered with one of her hands missing. Above her hangs a small doll made of chestnuts.
Ambitious young detective Naia Thulin is assigned the case. Her partner, Mark Hess, is a burned-out investigator who’s just been kicked out of Europol. They soon discover a mysterious piece of evidence on the chestnut man – evidence connecting it to a girl who went missing a year earlier and is presumed dead; the daughter of politician Rosa Hartung. The man who confessed to her murder is behind bars and the case long since closed.
Soon afterwards, a second woman is found murdered, along with another chestnut man. Thulin and Hess suspect that there’s a connection between the Hartung case and the murdered women. But what is it?
Thulin and Hess are racing against the clock, because it’s clear that the killer is on a mission that is far from over . . .
Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen McManus
The perfect town is hiding secrets. Two teenagers are dead. Two murders unsolved. And a killer who claims to be coming back. Ellery’s never been to Echo Ridge, but she’s heard all about it. It’s where her aunt went missing at age sixteen, never to return. Where a Homecoming Queen’s murder five years ago made national news. And where Ellery now has to live with a grandmother she barely knows, after her failed-actress mother lands in rehab.
Malcolm grew up in the shadow of the Homecoming Queen’s death. His older brother was the prime suspect and left Echo Ridge in disgrace. His mother’s remarriage vaulted them to Echo Ridge’s upper crust, but it could all change when mysterious threats around town hint that a killer plans to strike again. And the return of Malcolm’s brother doesn’t help matters. But his return is just a coincidence… isn’t it? Ellery and Malcolm both know it’s hard to let go when you don’t have closure.
Then another girl disappears. As they race to unravel what happened, they realise every secret has layers in Echo Ridge. The truth might be closer to home than either of them want to believe. And somebody would kill to keep it hidden.
The Club by Jonathan Clegg & Joshua Robinson
How did English football – once known for its stale pies, bad book-keeping and hooligans – become a commercial powerhouse and the world’s premium popular entertainment?
This was a business empire built in only twenty-five years on ambition, experimentation and gambler’s luck. Lead by a motley cast of executives, Russian oligarchs, Arab Sheikhs, Asian Titans, American Tycoons, battle-hardened managers, ruthless agents and the Murdoch media – the Premier League has been carved up, rebranded and exported to phenomenal 185 countries. The United Nations only recognizes 193.
But the extraordinary profit of bringing England’s ageing industrial towns to a compulsive global attention has come at a cost. Today, as players are sold for hundreds of millions and clubs are valued in the billions, local fans are being priced out – and the clubs’ local identities are fading. The Premier League has become the classic business fable for our globalised world.
Drawing on dozens of exclusive and revelatory interviews from the Boardrooms – including Liverpool’s John W. Henry, Tottenham’s Daniel Levy, Martin Edwards and David Gill at Manchester United, Arsène Wenger and Stan Kroenke at Arsenal, Manchester City’s sporting director Txiki Begiristain, and executives at Chelsea, West Ham, Leicester City and Aston Villa – this is the definitive bustand boom account of how the Premier League product took over the world.
Mr Five Per Cent by Dr Jonathan Conlin
When Calouste Gulbenkian died in 1955 at the age of 86, he was the richest man in the world, known as ‘Mr Five Per Cent’ for his personal share of Middle East oil. The son of a wealthy Armenian merchant in Istanbul, for half a century he brokered top-level oil deals, concealing his mysterious web of business interests and contacts within a labyrinth of Asian and European cartels, and convincing governments and oil barons alike of his impartiality as an ‘honest broker’. Today his name is known principally through the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, to which his spectacular art collection and most of his vast wealth were bequeathed.
Gulbenkian’s private life was as labyrinthine as his business dealings. He insisted on the highest ‘moral values’, yet ruthlessly used his wife’s charm as a hostess to further his career, and demanded complete obedience from his family, whom he monitored obsessively. As a young man he lived a champagne lifestyle, escorting actresses and showgirls, and in later life – on doctor’s orders – he slept with a succession of discreetly provided young women. Meanwhile he built up a superb art collection which included Rembrandts and other treasures sold to him by Stalin from the Hermitage Museum.
Published to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth, Mr Five Per Cent reveals Gulbenkian’s complex and many-sided existence. Written with full access to the Gulbenkian Foundation’s archives, this is the fascinating story of the man who more than anyone else helped shape the modern oil industry.
When All is Said by Anne Griffin
At the bar of a grand hotel in a small Irish town sits 84-year-old Maurice Hannigan. He’s alone, as usual -though tonight is anything but. Pull up a stool and charge your glass, because Maurice is finally ready to tell his story.
Over the course of this evening, he will raise five toasts to the five people who have meant the most to him. Through these stories – of unspoken joy and regret, a secret tragedy kept hidden, a fierce love that never found its voice – the life of one man will be powerfully and poignantly laid bare.
Heart-breaking and heart-warming all at once, the voice of Maurice Hannigan will stay with you long after all is said.
*All book descriptions are taken from Amazon*