A SILENT VOW Spain, 2020. When ex-pat fugitive Jack Cleland watches his girlfriend die, gunned down in a pursuit involving officer Cristina Sanchez Pradell, he promises to exact his revenge by destroying the policewoman. A SILENT LIFE Cristina’s aunt Ana has been deaf-blind for the entirety of her adult life: the victim of a rare condition named Usher Syndrome. Ana is the centre of Cristina’s world — and of Cleland’s cruel plan. A SILENT DEATH John Mackenzie — an ingenious yet irascible Glaswegian investigator — is seconded to aid the Spanish authorities in their manhunt. He alone can silence Cleland before the fugitive has the last, bloody, word

Hidden Faces is a remarkable novel, a thriller of great sensitivity by an exciting new writer. Scottish reporter Colin Bannerman is sent to Brussels to write a series of articles about the Common Market. His editor asks him to stay at the home of a newspaper colleague for the duration of his visit. Bannerman dislikes the man, Slater, intensely but unexpectedly forms an attachment to Tania, Slater’s young, autistic daughter. Shortly after Bannerman’s arrival, Slater and a junior minister at the EEC, Robert Gryffe, are assassinated. Tania accidentally witnesses the crime and the murderer is given instructions to find and kill her. Meanwhile the local police are instructed to cover-up the double murder for political reasons. But Bannerman is determined to find out and reveal the truth

Husband and wife Niamh and Ruaridh Macfarlane co-own Ranish Tweed, a company that weaves its own special variety of Harris cloth. When Niamh learns of Ruaridh’s affair with the Russian designer Irina Vetriv and witnesses the pair be blown up by a car bomb in Paris, her life is left in ruins. She returns to the Isle of Lewis with her husband’s remains and finds herself the prime suspect in her murder case. A French detective is sent to the Hebrides to look into her past and soon Niamh and the detective are working together to discover the truth

A CITY IN QUARANTINE London, the epicenter of a global pandemic, is a city in lockdown. Violence and civil disorder simmer. Martial law has been imposed. No-one is safe from the deadly virus that has already claimed thousands of victims. Health and emergency services are overwhelmed. A MURDERED CHILD At a building site for a temporary hospital, construction workers find a bag containing the rendered bones of a murdered child. A remorseless killer has been unleashed on the city; his mission is to take all measures necessary to prevent the bones from being identified. A POWERFUL CONSPIRACY D.I. Jack MacNeil, counting down the hours on his final day with the Met, is sent to investigate. His career is in ruins, his marriage over and his own family touched by the virus. Sinister forces are tracking his every move, prepared to kill again to conceal the truth. Which will stop him first — the virus or the killers?

It has been a whirlwind few years for Li Yan and Margaret Campbell. Nowadays, both are busy juggling their huge professional workloads — Li as the newly promoted chief of Beijing’s serious crime squad, and Campbell as lecturer at the University of Public Security — with the day-to-day raising of their young son, Li Jon. When a desperate mother appeals to Campbell’s own maternal instincts, Li agrees to look into the disappearance of a 17-year-old Beijing girl, Jiang Meilin. Yet Li’s investigation soon turns from a favour into a full-scale murder enquiry. And when he receives an anonymous note he learns Jiang Meilin’s death is tied to a dangerous underground trade, and a dark marital rite from China’s past

In a sleepy French village, the body of a man shot through the head is disinterred by the roots of a fallen tree. A week later a famous art critic is viciously murdered in a nearby house. The deaths occurred more than seventy years apart. Asked by a colleague to inspect the site of the former, forensics expert Enzo Macleod quickly finds himself embroiled in the investigation of the latter. Two extraordinary narratives are set in train — one historical, unfolding in the treacherous wartime years of Occupied France; the other contemporary, set in the autumn of 2020 as France re-enters Covid lockdown. And Enzo’s investigations reveal an unexpected link between the murders — the Mona Lisa. Tasked by the exiled General Charles de Gaulle to keep the world’s most famous painting out of Nazi hands after the fall of France in 1940, 28-year-old Georgette Pignal finds herself swept along by the tide of history. Following in the wake of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa as it is moved from château to château by the Louvre, she finds herself just one step ahead of two German art experts sent to steal it for rival patrons — Hitler and Göring. What none of them know is that the Louvre itself has taken exceptional measures to keep the painting safe, unwittingly setting in train a fatal sequence of events extending over seven decades. Events that have led to both killings. The Night Gate spans three generations, taking us from war-torn London, the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, Berlin and Vichy France, to the deadly enemy facing the world in 2020. In his latest novel, Peter May shows why he is one of the great contemporary writers of crime fiction

Innocence is a force more potent, sometimes, than evil. For it has no concept of its own power to destroy. The Noble Path is the story of two people who become its victims. Jack Elliot is a man without a soul. A discredited British Army officer, he kills now for money. For him life is cheap — even his own. Only death comes expensive. And when Ang Yuon, a wealthy Cambodian refugee, asks him to cross from Thailand to rescue his wife and children from the Khmer Rouge, Elliot demands an extravagant fee. For this time he expects, perhaps hopes, to die. But even Elliot is unprepared for the scale of suffering inflicted on an innocent Cambodian people, or for the curse it brings him — a reason to live. Lisa is Elliot’s teenage daughter, stepping into the unknown in search of the father she has never met. Following him as far as Bangkok, she falls foul of his ruthless Thai associates. In her innocence she sees the obsequious Tuk. Than as no more than a concerned friend of her father, and the beautiful, bewitching Grace as his talented protégé. She does not realise that Tuk’s business interests encompass girls as well as guns, and that Grace is a cunning procuress who can find any number of buyers for an innocent English girl... In the fetid jungles of Cambodia or on the storm-tossed South China Sea, in the opulent mansions of Bangkok or in its seamy back streets, Elliot and Lisa tread the hard path of enlightenment, and head inexorably towards a final, unexpected and devastating encounter

Всемирно известный, любимый критиками и публикой, Питер Мэй вновь удивляет читателей своим криминальным триллером, описывая мир, скорого наступления которого никто не мог предвидеть и в котором мы все оказались в 2020 году. «Локдаун» – это виртуозно написанный роман, в котором каждый тщательно выверенный факт стоит на своем месте. «Локдаун» – это Лондон на фоне глобальной эпидемии. Эта книга, которая описывает опыт выживания в закрытом городе под угрозой смертельного вируса, была написана в 2005 году, но 15 лет назад показалась издателям неправдоподобной дистопией, а сейчас удивляет и пугает своим правдоподобием, которое до дрожи напоминает предвидение

Жестяной ящик, замурованный в катакомбах Парижа… Полиция находит в нем золотой кулон, старинный стетоскоп, военный крест, берцовую кость и… череп. Экспертиза устанавливает — череп принадлежит известному политику, бесследно исчезнувшему десять лет назад. Но… зачем убийца положил в ящик все остальное? За расследование берется Энцо Маклеод, давно отошедший от дел британский криминалист, которому под силу раскрыть даже самое изощренное преступление…

Пекин — город, за внешне респектабельным фасадом которого скрыто множество тайн. И детективу «убойного» отдела Ли Яню хорошо известны самые темные стороны жизни столичных улиц… Однако еще никогда ему не приходилось сталкиваться с таким трудным и необычным делом… Три трупа — за одну ночь. Два убийства — и одно самосожжение. На первый взгляд между жертвами вообще нет связи. Но Ли Янь и его коллега из США, патологоанатом Маргарет Кэмпбелл, приходят к неожиданному выводу: они имеют дело с тремя убийствами, тесно связанными между собой. И ключом к разгадке может стать имя сгоревшего «самоубийцы», обнаруженного в парке… Кто он? Почему с ним расправились столь необычным способом? Ли и Маргарет шаг за шагом приближаются к разгадке. Но за каждым их шагом следит таинственный убийца, готовясь нанести следующий удар…

Сюжет романа «Скала» разворачивается на острове Льюис, далеко от берегов северной Шотландии. Произошло жестокое убийство, похожее на другое, случившееся незадолго до этого в Эдинбурге. Полицейский Фин Маклауд родился на острове, поэтому вести дело поручили именно ему. Оказавшись на месте, Маклауд еще не знает, что ему предстоит раскрыть не только убийство, но и леденящую душу тайну собственного прошлого. Питер Мэй, известный шотландский автор детективов и телесценарист, снимал на Льюисе сериал на гэльском языке и провел там несколько лет. Этот опыт позволил ему придать событиям, описанным в книге, особую достоверность. Картины сурового, мрачного ландшафта, безжалостной погоды, традиционной охоты на птиц погружают читателя в подлинную атмосферу шотландской глубинки

Детектив Дин Маклауд возвращается на родину — остров Льюис. Он уволился из полиции и его единственная цель — забыть прошлое: гибель маленького сына и развод с женой. Но, едва начав готовиться к восстановлению дома своих давно умерших родителей, бывший детектив вынужден отложить планы. В трясине торфяного болота найден неопознанный труп с перерезанным горлом и следами пыток. Опознать личность «болотного человека», как называют такие «находки» местные полицейские обычно почти невозможно — он мог пролежать в торфяной трясине и тысячу лет. На предплечье мертвеца детективы обнаруживают портрет Элвиса Пресли, а эксперты сообщают о его генетической идентичности с ДНК местного фермера Тормода, страдающего маразмом и плохо соотносящего прошлое и настоящее. Вместе с расследованием убийства на поверхность всплывают трагическое прошлое, семейные тайны и Дину приходится расследовать дело, ведь дочь старого фермера, Маршели — первая и единственная любовь бывшего детектива и хочет знать правду о своем отце

Третата, завършваща част от поредицата сблъсква Фин Маклауд с отдавна забравени призраци от миналото. Като шеф на охраната на голямо частно имение на острова бившият полицай е натоварен с разследването на бракониерството в района, което придобива застрашителни размери. Работата му го отвежда при Уистлър Макаскил, близък негов приятел от тийнейджърските години и… пазител на дълго прикривана тайна. Срещата придобива неочакван и зловещ развой и докато Фин се опитва да събере парчетата от миналото, разбира, че разкриването на истината ще разруши бъдещето. Трите книги може да бъдат четени като самостоятелни романи, но кумулативният им ефект е по-мощен — характерите на героите добиват пълнокръвни очертания, а историята и фолклорът на Хебридските острови, неизменна част и от тази книга, ни потапят в дълбините на това загадъчно място. „Въпреки че ние трудно да се сбогуваме с Фин, можем да поздравим Мей за това, че се придържа към представата си за идеално изградена трилогия.” Индипендънт