Peter James’s first novel-length collection of short stories. These include all the stories in Short Shockers 1 & 2 plus many new ones. With each twist of the knife, a chilling new journey begins... From a woman intent on bizarre revenge, to a restaurant critic with a morbid fear of the number thirteen; and from a man arranging a life-changing assignation, to a couple heading for a disaster-filled vacation... In multi-million-copy bestselling author Peter James’ collection of short stories we first come to meet Brighton’s finest detective, Roy Grace, and read the tale that went on to inspire James’ hugely successful novel, Dead Simple. James exposes the Achilles heel of each of his characters, and makes us question how well we can trust ourselves, and one another. Each tale carries a twist that will haunt readers for days after they turn the final page... Combining every twisted tale from the ebook bestsellers Short Shockers One and Short Shockers Two,with a never-seen-before collection of new material, A Twist of the Knife shows Peter James as the undisputed grand master of storytellers with this sometimes funny, often haunting, but always shocking collection

Primera hora de la mañana. La llamada a casa del comisario Roy Grace para informar sobre el hallazgo del cadáver de una mujer en un macabro escenario desata en el sofocante agosto de Brighton un despliegue policial que se irá viendo incrementado con la aparición de más víctimas. Con la ayuda del sargento Glenn Branson y del resto de su equipo, Grace deberá hacer frente al torbellino de pesquisas e interrogatorios agotadores, atormentado por la sombra de su esposa desaparecida, Sandy, que al parecer ha sido vista en Munich tras nueve años de ausencia. El lujo, la belleza y el dinero que decorara el mundo de las víctimas se van desdibujando progresivamente en medio de la sangre y la sospecha. Azuzada por la falta de noticias en verano, la prensa clava sus fauces en el caso y Roy Grace se convierte en el punto de mira de una ciudad plagada de turistas. Ante la presión de los medios de comunicación y el creciente nerviosismo de los ciudadanos, la policía investiga a contrarreloj los macabros asesinatos cuyas pistas van cercando casi sin respiro a un único sospechoso. Pero ¿cómo puede un hombre matar a su víctima y encontrarse al mismo tiempo a noventa kilómetros de distancia?

You don’t know me, but I thought I knew you... A man waits at a London airport for Ingrid Ostermann, the love of his life, to arrive. Across the Atlantic, a retired NYPD cop waits in a bar in Florida’s Key West for his first date with the lady who is, without question, his soulmate. The two men are about to discover they’ve been scammed out of almost every penny they have in the world — and that neither women exist. Meanwhile, a wealthy divorcée plunges, in suspicious circumstances, from an apartment block in Munich. In the same week, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is called to investigate the suicide of a woman in Brighton, that is clearly not what it seems. As his investigations continue, a handsome Brighton motivational speaker comes forward. He’s discovered his identity is being used to scam eleven different women, online. The first he knew of it was a phone call from one of them, out of the blue, saying, ‘You don’t know me, but I thought I knew you’. That woman is now dead. Roy Grace realizes he is looking at the tip of an iceberg. A global empire built on clever, cruel internet scams and the murder of anyone who threatens to expose them

Don't imagine for one moment that I'm not watching you… The Metropole Hotel, Brighton. After a heady New Year's Eve ball, a woman is brutally raped as she returns to her room. A week later, another woman is attacked. Both victims' shoes are taken by the offender… Detective Superintendent Roy Grace soon realises that these new cases bear remarkable similarities to an unsolved series of crimes in the city back in 1997. The perpetrator had been dubbed '-Shoe Man' and was believed to have raped five women before murdering his sixth victim and vanishing. Could this be a copycat, or has Shoe Man resurfaced? When more women are assaulted, Grace becomes increasingly certain that they are dealing with the same man. And that by delving back into the past – a time in which we see Grace and his missing wife Sandy still apparently happy together – he may find the key to unlocking the current mystery. Soon Grace and his team will find themselves in a desperate race against the clock to identify and save the life of the new sixth victim…

I want them to suffer, and I want them dead…Carly Chase is traumatised ten days after being in a fatal traffic accident which kills a teenage student from Brighton University. Then she receives news that turns her entire world into a living nightmare. The drivers of the other two vehicles involved have been found tortured and murdered. Now Detective Superintendant Roy Grace of the Sussex Police force issues a stark and urgent warning to Carly: She could be next. The student had deadly connections. Connections that stretch across the Atlantic. Someone has sworn revenge and won't rest until the final person involved in that fatal accident is dead. The police advise Carly her only option is to go into hiding and change identity. The terrified woman disagrees – she knows these people have ways of hunting you down anywhere. If the police are unable to stop them, she has to find a way to do it herself. But already the killer is one step ahead of her, watching, waiting, and ready…

Abby stepped in the lift and the doors closed with a sound like a shovel smoothing gravel. She breathed in the smell of someone else's perfume, and lemon-scented cleaning fluid. The lift jerked upwards a few inches. And now, too late to change her mind and get out, with the metal walls pressing in around her, they lunged sharply downwards. Abby was about to realize she had just made the worst mistake of her life…' Amid the tragic unfolding mayhem of the morning of 911, failed Brighton never-do-well Ronnie Wilson sees the chance of a lifetime, to disappear and reinvent himself in another country. Five years later the discovery of the skeletal remains of a woman's body in a storm drain in Brighton, leads Detective Superintendent Roy Grace on an enquiry spanning the globe, and into a desperate race against time to save the life of a woman being hunted down like an animal in the streets and alleys of Brighton

Lynn Barrett is a single mother, trying to cope with life after divorce. And her life becomes an even bigger nightmare when daughter Caitlin is diagnosed with terminal liver disease. She is put on the transplant waiting list, but there is a world shortage and most patients will die while waiting. In desperation, Lynn turns to the internet and discovers an organ broker who can provide her with a liver but it will cost Lynn GBP250,000.To save her daughter she mortgages her home and borrows from family and friends to raise the money. A few days later the organ broker tells Lynn she has found a young woman, a perfect match for Caitlin, who is in a coma following a car smash in Italy. Meanwhile Roy Grace is working on the case of the remains of three young people recovered from the seabed off the coast of Brighton. These remains lead him to a Romanian trafficking organization of street kids from the Eastern bloc for the UK sex trade; some of them are also traded as organ donors…

Fans of Peter James and his bestselling Roy Grace series of crime novels know that his books draw on in-depth research into the lives of Brighton and Hove police and are set in a world every bit as gritty as the real thing. His friend Graham Bartlett was a long-serving detective in the city once described as Britain’s ‘crime capital’. Together, in Death Comes Knocking, they have written a gripping account of the city’s most challenging cases, taking the reader from crime scenes and incident rooms to the morgue, and introducing some of the real-life detectives who inspired Peter James’s characters. Whether it’s the murder of a dodgy nightclub owner and his family in Sussex’s worst non-terrorist mass murder or the race to find the abductor of a young girl, tracking down the antique trade’s most notorious ‘knocker boys’ or nailing an audacious ring of forgers, hunting for a cold-blooded killer who executed a surfer or catching a pair who kidnapped a businessman, leaving him severely beaten, to die on a hillside, the authors skilfully evoke the dangerous inside story of policing, the personal toll it takes and the dedication of those who risk their lives to keep the public safe

Edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci and including stories by Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, and more, this one-of-a-kind anthology pulls together the most beloved characters from the best and most popular thriller series today. Worlds collide! In an unprecedented collaboration, twenty-three of the world’s bestselling and critically acclaimed thriller writers have paired their series characters — such as Harry Bosch, Jack Reacher, and Lincoln Rhyme — in an eleven-story anthology curated by the International Thriller Writers (ITW). All of the contributors to FaceOff are ITW members and the stories feature these dynamic duos: • Patrick Kenzie vs. Harry Bosch in “Red Eye,” by Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly • John Rebus vs. Roy Grace in “In the Nick of Time,” by Ian Rankin and Peter James • Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy vs. Aloysius Pendergast in “Gaslighted,” by R.L. Stine, Douglas Preston, and Lincoln Child • Malachai Samuels vs. D.D. Warren in “The Laughing Buddha,” by M.J. Rose and Lisa Gardner • Paul Madriani vs. Alexandra Cooper in “Surfing the Panther,” by Steve Martini and Linda Fairstein • Lincoln Rhyme vs. Lucas Davenport in “Rhymes With Prey,” by Jeffery Deaver and John Sandford • Michael Quinn vs. Repairman Jack in “Infernal Night,” by Heather Graham and F. Paul Wilson • Sean Reilly vs. Glen Garber in “Pit Stop,” by Raymond Khoury and Linwood Barclay • Wyatt Hunt vs. Joe Trona in “Silent Hunt,” by John Lescroart and T. Jefferson Parker • Cotton Malone vs. Gray Pierce in “The Devil’s Bones,” by Steve Berry and James Rollins • Jack Reacher vs. Nick Heller in “Good and Valuable Consideration,” by Lee Child and Joseph Finder So sit back and prepare for a rollicking ride as your favorite characters go head-to-head with some worthy opponents in *FaceOff*—it’s a thrill-a-minute read

Abby entro al elevador y las puertas se cerraron con el sonido de una pala levantando canto rodado. De pronto sintio el perfume de alguien mas y tambien de un limpiador con aroma de limon. El elevador se movio unos cuantos centimetros hacia arriba. Y ahora era demasiado tarde para cambiar de idea y salir: con el metal de las paredes presionandola, comenzo a caer por el vacio. Abby se dio cuenta de que acababa de cometer el peor error de su vida… En medio del caos de la manana del 9/11, el negociante Ronnie Wilson ve la oportunidad de su vida. Para salir de sus deudas, desaparecera y se re-inventara a si mismo en otro pais. / Abby stepped in the lift and the doors closed with a sound like a shovel smoothing gravel. She breathed in the smell of someone else's perfum, and lemon-scented cleaning fluid. The lift jerked upwards a few inches. And now, too late to change her mind and get out, with the metal walls pressing in around her, they lunged sharply downwards. Abby was about to realize she had just made the worst mistake of her life…Amid the tragic unfolding mayhem of the morning of 9/11, failed Brighton businessman and ne'er-do-well Ronnie Wilson sees the chance of a lifetime, to shed his debts, disappear and reinvent himself in another country.Six years later, the discovery of the skeletal remains of a woman's body in a storm drain in Brighton, leads Detective Superintendent Roy Grace on an enquiry spanning the globe, and into a desperate race against time to save the life of a woman being hunted down like an animal in the streets and alleys of Brighton. 'One of the most fiendishly clever crime fiction plotters

Tom Bryce did what any decent person would do. But within hours of picking up the CD that had been left behind on the train seat next him, and attempting to return it to its owner, he is the sole witness to a vicious murder. Then his young family are threatened with their lives if he goes to the police. But supported by his wife, Kellie, he bravely makes a statement, to the murder enquiry team headed by Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, a man with demons of his own – including his missing wife – to contend with. And from that moment, the killing of the Bryce family becomes a mere formality – and a grisly attraction. Kellie and Tom's deaths have already been posted on the internet. You can log on and see them on a website. They are looking good dead. 'Destined for the bestsellers' – "Independent on Sunday". 'A terrific tale of greed, seduction and betrayal' – "Daily Telegraph"

An ugly duckling as a child, Jodie Bentley had two dreams in life — to be beautiful and rich. She's achieved the first, with a little help from a plastic surgeon, and now she's working hard on the second. Her philosophy on money is simple: you can either earn it or marry it. Marrying is easy, it's getting rid of the husband afterwards that's harder, that takes real skill. But hey, practice makes perfect... Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is feeling the pressure from his superiors, his previous case is still giving him sleepless nights, there have been major developments with his missing wife Sandy, and an old adversary is back. But worse than all of this, he now believes a Black Widow is operating in his city. One with a venomous mind... and venomous skills. Soon Grace comes to the frightening realization that he may have underestimated just how dangerous this lady is

Edited by Lee Child, this is the follow-up to FaceOff, but this time 11 female thriller writers with 11 male thriller writers. 

Cuando encuentra un CD de ordenador que alguien ha olvidado en el asiento contiguo del tren en el que viaja, Tom Bryce hace lo que cualquier persona decente haría: lo recoge y cuando llega a casa intenta averiguar a quién pertenece para poder devolvérselo. Sin embargo, su buena fe topará con el horrible contenido del disquete: un estremecedor asesinato. En un principio, duda sobre la veracidad de los hechos de los que es testigo, ¿realidad o ficción? Sin embargo, a partir de ese momento, su vida y la de su familia comienzan a correr peligro. Al poco tiempo aparece el cadáver decapitado de una joven cuya identidad se desconoce; la única pista de la que dispondrá la policía será la presencia de un escarabajo oculto entre los restos de la víctima, en lo que parece ser el indicio de un juego macabro. Al frente de la investigación se colocará el peculiar detective Roy Grace, especializado en la resolución de casos que llevan años sin resolver, y cuyo pasado y personales métodos, entre los que se halla su fe en la videncia para la resolución de los crímenes más complicados, le confieren una discutida posición dentro del cuerpo de policía

Lorna Belling, desperate to escape the marriage from hell, falls for the charms of another man who promises her the earth. But, as Lorna finds, life seldom follows the plans you’ve made. A chance photograph on a client’s mobile phone changes everything for her. When the body of a woman is found in a bath in Brighton, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is called to the scene. At first it looks an open and shut case with a clear prime suspect. Then other scenarios begin to present themselves, each of them tantalizingly plausible, until, in a sudden turn of events, and to his utter disbelief, the case turns more sinister than Grace could ever have imagined

When Christopher Thomas, a curator at San Francisco's Museum of Fine Arts, is murdered and his decaying body is found in an iron maiden in Berlin, his wife Rosemary Thomas is the prime suspect. Long suffering under Christopher's unfaithful ways, Rosemary is tried, convicted and executed. Ten years later, Jon Nunn, the detective who cracked the case, becomes convinced that the wrong person was put to death. Along with financier Tony Olsen, he plans to gather everyone who was there the night Christopher died and finally uncover the truth about what happened that fateful evening. Could it have been the ne'er do well brother Peter Hausen, interested in his sister's trust fund having got through his own; the curatorial assistant Justine Olengard, used and betrayed by Christopher; the artist Belle who turned down his advances only to see her career suffer a setback; or someone else all together? No Rest for the Dead is a thrilling, page-turning accomplishment that only the very best thriller writers could achieve

More than twenty New York Times bestselling authors team up to create a first-rate serial novel — a collaboration that combines the skills of America’s greatest storytellers to produce a gripping, spellbinding mystery. Alexander McCall Smith. Sandra Brown, Faye Kellerman, J.A. Jance, Jeffery Deaver, Kathy Reichs, Lisa Scottoline, Jeff Lindsay. These are only a handful of the names that make up the all-star lineup of authors behind No Rest for the Dead, a tale of vengeance, greed, and love that flows seamlessly,in the words of David Baldacci, “as it passes from one creator's mind to the next.” When Christopher Thomas, a ruthless curator at San Francisco’s McFall Art Museum, is murdered and his decaying body is found in an iron maiden in a Berlin museum, his wife, Rosemary, is the primary suspect, and she is tried, convicted and executed. Ten years later, Jon Nunn, the detective who cracked the case, is convinced that the wrong person was put to death. In the years since the case was closed, he's discovered a web of deceit and betrayal surrounding the Thomases that could implicate any number of people in the crime. With the help of the dead woman's friend, he plans to gather everyone who was there the night Christopher died and finally uncover the truth, suspect by suspect. Solving this case may be Nunn’s last chance for redemption… but the shadowy forces behind Christopher’s death will stop at nothing to silence the past forever. In this innovative storytelling approach, each of these twenty-five bestselling writers brings their distinctive voice to a chapter of the narrative, building the tension to a shocking, explosive finale. No Rest for the Dead is a thrilling, page-turning accomplishment that only America’s very best authors could achieve

For LA producer Larry Brooker, this is the movie that could bring the fortune that has so long eluded him…For rock superstar, Gaia, desperate to be taken seriously as an actor, this is the role that could get her an Oscar nomination For the City of Brighton and Hove, the publicity value of a major Hollywood movie being filmed on location, about the city's greatest love story between King George 1Vth and Maria Fitzherbert – is incalculable. For Detective Superintendent Roy Grace of Sussex CID, it is a nightmare unfolding in front of his eyes. An obsessed stalker is after Gaia. One attempt on her life is made days before she leaves her Bel Air home to fly to Brighton. Now, he has been warned, the stalker may be at large in his city, waiting, watching, planning

Fabián Hightower llega de madrugada a casa después de viajar toda la noche en coche. Saluda a su madre y se retira a su habitación. Por la mañana, Alex, una atractiva y triunfadora mujer de negocios recientemente separada de su marido, acude a su trabajo y le comunican que su hijo ha muerto en Francia a consecuencia de un accidente de coche. Probablemente se trata de un error o de una confusión de nombres, Fabián está en casa, en su habitación… Pero efectivamente el joven ha muerto en tales circunstancias. Ahora Alex vive sola, rodeada de recuerdos de su hijo. Y comienza a experimentar una serie de hechos que pronto se convertirán en una pesadilla de espanto y horror: Fabián no se ha ido, su presencia es patente en torno a sus allegados y se manifiesta mediante extraños sucesos sobrenaturales. Cuando Alex comprende que su seguridad está en peligro, se confía a su amigo Philip Main, científico y escritor cuyo padre había sido un sacerdote exorcista. Y tras la terrible revelación de una médium a la que acude en busca de ayuda, Alex acepta que tiene que liberarse a toda costa del maléfico poder que se cierne sobre ella, estrechando un círculo mortal a su alrededor…

En el hotel Metropole de Brighton, la noche de Nochevieja una mujer es brutalmente violada cuando regresa a su habitación. Una semana más tarde alguien ataca a otra mujer. El violador se lleva los zapatos de las dos… El detective Roy Grace se da cuenta enseguida de que estos casos son muy similares a otros que quedaron sin resolver en 1997 en cuya investigación él participó. Al criminal se le apodó Hombre de los zapatos y se cree que violó a cinco mujeres antes de acabar asesinando a la sexta de sus víctimas y de desvanecerse. Ahora, Grace no sabe si se trata de alguien imitando los ataques originales o del propio Hombre de los zapatos que ha reaparecido, pero cuando las violaciones se suceden, Grace acaba por convencerse de que se trata del mismo hombre. Y de que escarbando en el pasado -una época en que Roy Grace todavía era feliz junto a su esposa Sandy, ahora desaparecida-puede encontrar la clave para resolver la investigación. Pero tiene que ser una carrera contra reloj, porque la policía se teme que vuelva a repetirse la historia después cuando llegue a la sexta víctima

Moving from the heart of Brighton and Hove to the Sussex countryside is a big undertaking for Ollie and Caro Harcourt and their 12-year-old daughter, Jade. But when they view Cold Hill House — a huge, dilapidated Georgian mansion — Ollie is filled with excitement. Despite the financial strain of the move, he has dreamed of living in the country since he was a child, and he sees Cold Hill House as a paradise for his animal-loving daughter, the perfect base for his web-design business and a terrific long-term investment. Caro is less certain, and Jade is grumpy about being separated from her friends. Within days of moving in, it becomes apparent that the Harcourt family aren't the only residents of the house. A friend of Jade's is the first to see the spectral woman, standing behind her as the girls talk on FaceTime. Then there are more sightings as well as increasingly disturbing occurrences in the house. As the haunting becomes more malevolent and the house itself begins to turn on the Harcourts, the terrified family discover Cold Hill House's dark history and the horrible truth of what it could mean for them

La vida de Lynn Barrett se convierte en una pesadilla cuando a su hija Caitlin se le diagnostica un cáncer de hígado terminal. La escasez de órganos hace que incluso candidatos idóneos para un trasplante fallezcan mientras esperan que se les pueda realizar la operación. Desesperada, Lynn recurre a un traficante de órganos que encuentra en Internet quien, curiosamente, enseguida le confirma que ha encontrado a una donante perfecta. Entre tanto, Roy Grace está trabajando en un caso en que a los restos de tres jóvenes que han aparecido en las profundidades de la costa de Brighton les faltan los órganos vitales… La pista llevará a Grace a Rumanía donde operan las mafias de traficantes de órganos de las que el detective sospecha

A Michael Harrison pretenden gastarle una broma inolvidable en su despedida de soltero; algo que jamás pueda olvidar: enterrarlo vivo durante unas horas. Todo se complicará cuando sus amigos, que son los únicos que conocen el verdadero paradero de Michael, mueran esa misma noche en un accidente de tráfico. Abandonado a su suerte, el único enlace con el exterior será Davey, un chico retrasado mental que recogerá del lugar del accidente el watkie-tatkie con el que los amigos de Michael pretendían seguir en contacto con él. A la cabeza de las investigaciones sobre la desaparición se pondrá Roy Grace, un policía experto en desaparecidos. Paulatinamente, las pistas se irán entrelazando de forma confusa unas con otras: historias de amor y de celos, identidades falsas… Así pues, poco a poco, se va descubriendo que lo que, en principio, era una broma estúpida, puede que, en el fondo, tal vez, sea un plan tejido por oscuros motivos. Peter James nos presenta en Una muerte sencilla a Roy Grace, un personaje brillante y atormentado, experto en resolver crímenes pero incapaz de enfrentarse a su propio pasado

They were marked for death. The last words Jamie Ball hears from his fiancée, Logan Somerville, are in a terrified mobile phone call. She has just driven into the underground car park beneath the block of flats where they live in Brighton. Then she screams and the phone goes dead. The police are on the scene within minutes, but Logan has vanished, leaving behind her neatly parked car and mobile phone. That same afternoon, workmen digging up a park in another part of the city, unearth the remains of a woman in her early twenties, who has been dead for thirty years. At first, to Roy Grace and his team, these two events seem totally unconnected. But then another young woman in Brighton goes missing — and yet another body from the past surfaces. Meanwhile, an eminent London psychiatrist meets with a man who claims to know information about Logan. And Roy Grace has the chilling realization that this information holds the key to both the past and present crimes... Does Brighton have its first serial killer in over eighty years?