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No One Would Do What the Lamberts Have Done
You think it will never happen to you. The doorbell. The policeman. The words that turn your world inside out: I'm afraid there's been an incident... For Sally Lambert, those words mean only one thing—danger. Not just for her family, but for Champ, their loyal and beloved dog. A single accusation, a neighbor's grudge, and suddenly the Lamberts are trapped in a nightmare with no escape. Unless they make one.
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The Last Death of the Year
#6 in the New Hercule Poirot Mysteries Series
New Year's Eve, 1932. Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool arrive on the tiny Greek island of Lamperos to celebrate the holiday with what turns out to be a rather odd community living in a dilapidated house. A dark sense of foreboding overshadows the beautiful island getaway when the guests play a New Year's Resolutions game after dinner and one written resolution gleefully threatens to perform "the last and first death of the year." Hours later, one of the home's residents is found dead on the terrace. In light of the shocking murder, Poirot reveals to Catchpool the real reason he's brought him to the island and both men resolve to ensure that the first murder will be the last.
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Hercule Poirot's Silent Night
#5 in the New Hercule Poirot Mysteries Series
It's December 19, 1931. Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool are looking forward to a much-needed, restful Christmas holiday, when they are called upon to investigate the murder of a man in a Norfolk hospital ward. Cynthia Catchpool, Edward's mother, insists that Poirot stay with her in a crumbling mansion by the coast, so that they can all be together for the festive period while he solves the case. As Poirot digs into the mystery, he discovers that the murdered man was a retired post office master, and by all accounts very well-liked. The local constabulary's investigation failed to uncover how someone could have entered a hospital room and killed him under the noses of the staff. Cynthia's friend Arnold is soon to be admitted to that same hospital, and his wife is convinced he will be the killer's next victim, though she refuses to explain why. With no obvious motive or suspect, Poirot has less than a week to solve the crime and prevent more murders, if he is to escape from this nightmare scenario and get home in time for Christmas. Meanwhile, someone else—someone utterly ruthless—also has ideas about what ought to happen to Hercule Poirot...
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The Couple at the Table
#11 in the Zailer & Waterhouse Mysteries Series
Jane and William are enjoying their honeymoon at an exclusive couples-only resort... ...until Jane receives a chilling note warning her to "Beware of the couple at the table nearest to yours." At dinner that night, five other couples are present, and none of their tables is any nearer or farther away than any of the others. It's almost as if someone has set the scene in order to make the warning note meaningless—but why would anyone do that? Jane has no idea. But someone in this dining room will be dead before breakfast, and all the evidence will suggest that no one there that night could have possibly committed the crime.
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The Killings at Kingfisher Hill
#4 in the New Hercule Poirot Mysteries Series
Hercule Poirot is traveling by luxury passenger coach from London to the exclusive Kingfisher Hill estate. Richard Devonport has summoned the renowned detective to prove that his fiancée, Helen, is innocent of the murder of his brother, Frank. Poirot will have only days to investigate before Helen is hanged, but there is one strange condition attached: he must conceal his true reason for being there from the rest of the Devonport family. The coach is forced to stop when a distressed woman demands to get off, insisting that if she stays in her seat, she will be murdered. Although the rest of the journey passes without anyone being harmed, Poirot's curiosity is aroused, and his fears are later confirmed when a body is discovered with a macabre note attached . . .
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Perfect Little Children
All Beth has to do is drive her son to his soccer game, watch him play, and then return home. Just because she knows her ex-best friend lives near the field, that doesn't mean she has to drive past her house and try to catch a glimpse of her. Why would Beth do that and risk dredging up painful memories? She hasn't seen Flora for twelve years. She doesn't want to see her today—or ever again. But she can't resist. She parks outside the open gates of Newnham House, watches from across the road as Flora arrives and calls to her children Thomas and Emily to get out of the car. Except . . . There's something terribly wrong. Flora looks the same, only older. Twelve years ago, Thomas and Emily were five and three years old. Today, they look precisely as they did then. They are Thomas and Emily without a doubt, but they haven't changed at all. They are no taller, no older. Why haven't they grown? How is it possible that they haven't grown up?
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The Understudy
Carolyn, Bronnie, Elise, and Kendall are bound together by one thing - their four daughters are best friends at the highly competitive Orla Flynn Academy for the Performing Arts. Imogen Curwood is a new girl at the Academy and her behaviour is odd from the start. On the day she arrives, bad things start to happen. As one threatening incident follows another, the four mothers begin to ask themselves: are their girls in danger? When an attempted murder rocks the school, Imogen is pleased to report that she has an alibi. If she isn't the guilty party, someone else must be.
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The Mystery of Three Quarters
#3 in the New Hercule Poirot Mysteries Series
Hercule Poirot returns home after an agreeable luncheon to find an angry woman waiting to berate him outside his front door. Her name is Sylvia Rule, and she demands to know why Poirot has accused her of the murder of Barnabas Pandy, a man she has neither heard of nor ever met. She is furious to be so accused, and deeply shocked. Poirot is equally shocked, because he too has never heard of any Barnabas Pandy, and he certainly did not send the letter in question. He cannot convince Sylvia Rule of his innocence, however, and she marches away in a rage. Shaken, Poirot goes inside, only to find that he has a visitor waiting for him — a man called John McCrodden who also claims also to have received a letter from Poirot that morning, accusing him of the murder of Barnabas Pandy... Poirot wonders how many more letters of this sort have been sent in his name. Who sent them, and why? More importantly, who is Barnabas Pandy, is he dead, and, if so, was he murdered? And can Poirot find out the answers without putting more lives in danger?
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Keep Her Safe
Pushed to the breaking point, Cara Burrows flees her home and family and escapes to a five-star spa resort she can't afford. Late at night, exhausted and desperate, she lets herself into her hotel room and is shocked to find it already occupied — by a man and a teenage girl. A simple mistake at the front desk... but soon Cara realizes that the girl she saw alive and well in the hotel room is someone she can't possibly have seen: the most famous murder victim in the country, Melody Chapa, whose parents are serving natural life sentences for her murder. Cara doesn't know what to trust — everything she's read and heard about the case, or the evidence of her own eyes. Did she really see Melody? And is she prepared to ask herself that question and answer it honestly if it means risking her own life?
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Closed Casket
#2 in the New Hercule Poirot Mysteries Series
"What I intend to say to you will come as a shock..." With these words, Lady Athelinda Playford -- one of the world's most beloved children's authors -- springs a surprise on the lawyer entrusted with her will. As guests arrive for a party at her Irish mansion, Lady Playford has decided to cut off her two children without a penny . . . and leave her vast fortune to someone else: an invalid who has only weeks to live. Among Lady Playford's visitors are two strangers: the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and Inspector Edward Catchpool of Scotland Yard. Neither knows why he has been invited -- until Poirot begins to wonder if Lady Playford expects a murder. But why does she seem so determined to provoke a killer? And why -- when the crime is committed despite Poirot's best efforts to stop it -- does the identity of the victim make no sense at all?
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The Next to Die
#10 in the Zailer & Waterhouse Mysteries Series
What if having a best friend could put you in the crosshairs of a killer? A psychopath the police have dubbed "Billy Dead Mates" is targeting pairs of best friends, and killing them one by one. Before they die, each victim is given a small white book. For months, detectives have failed to catch Billy, or figure out what the white books symbolize and why the killer leaves them behind. The police are on edge; the public in a panic. Then a woman, scared by what she's seen on the news, comes forward. What she reveals shocks the investigators and adds another troubling layer to an already complex case. Stand-up comedian Kim Tribbeck has one of Billy's peculiar little books. A stranger gave it to her at a gig she did last year. Was the stranger Billy, and is he targeting her—or is it something more nefarious? Kim has no friends and trusts no one, so how—and why—could Billy Dead Mates want to target her? If it's not her, then who will be the next to die?
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A Game for All the Family
You thought you knew who you were. A stranger knows better. You've left the city—and the career that nearly destroyed you—for a fresh start on the coast. But trouble begins when your daughter withdraws, after her new best friend, George, is unfairly expelled from school. You beg the principal to reconsider, only to be told that George hasn't been expelled. Because there is, and was, no George. Who is lying? Who is real? Who is in danger? Who is in control? As you search for answers, the anonymous calls begin—a stranger, who insists that you and she share a traumatic past and a guilty secret. And then the caller threatens your life. . . .
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Woman with a Secret
#9 in the Zailer & Waterhouse Mysteries Series
She's a wife. She's a mother. She isn't who you think she is. Nicki Clements has secrets, just like anybody else—secrets she keeps from her children, from her husband, from everyone who knows her. Secrets she shares with only one person: A stranger she's never seen. A person whose voice she's never heard. And then Nicki is arrested for murder. The murder of a man she doesn't know.
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The Monogram Murders
#1 in the New Hercule Poirot Mysteries Series
Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffeehouse is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered. She is terrified – but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done. Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at a fashionable London Hotel have been murdered, and a cufflink has been placed in each one's mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman? While Poirot struggles to put together the bizarre pieces of the puzzle, the murderer prepares another hotel bedroom for a fourth victim...
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The Orphan Choir
A mother with an empty nest is being haunted by a ghostly children's choir. Are they giving her an important message that only she can hear, or are their motives more sinister? Louise Beeston is being haunted. Louise has no reason left to stay in the city. She can't see her son, Joseph, who is away at boarding school, where he performs in a prestigious boys' choir. Her troublesome neighbor has begun blasting choral music at all hours of the night―and to make matters worse, she's the only one who can hear it. Hoping to find some peace, Louise convinces her husband, Stuart, to buy them a country house in an idyllic, sun-dappled gated community called Swallowfield. But it seems that the haunting melodies of the choir have followed her there. Could it be that her city neighbor has trailed her to Swallowfield, just to play an elaborate, malicious prank? Is there really a ghostly chorus playing outside her door? And why won't they stop? Growing desperate, she begins to worry about her mental health. Against the pleas and growing disquiet of her husband, Louise starts to suspect that this sinister choir is not only real but a warning. But of what? And how can it be, when no one else can hear it?
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Kind of Cruel
#7 in the Zailer & Waterhouse Mysteries Series
When Amber Hewerdine consults a hypnotherapist as a desperate last resort, she doesn't expect that anything much will change. She doesn't expect it to help with her chronic insomnia. She doesn't expect to hear herself, under hypnosis, saying words that mean nothing to her: 'Kind, cruel, kind of cruel' - words she has seen somewhere before, if only she could remember where. She doesn't expect to be arrested two hours later, as a result of having spoken those words out loud, in connection with the brutal murder of Katharine Allen, a woman she's never heard of . . .
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The Carrier
#8 in the Zailer & Waterhouse Mysteries Series
When Gaby's plane is delayed, she's forced to share a hotel room with a stranger: Lauren, who is terrified of her. But why is she scared of Gaby in particular? Lauren won't explain. Instead, she blurts out something about an innocent man going to prison for murder. Gaby soon suspects that Lauren's presence on her flight isn't a coincidence, because the murder victim is Francine Breary, the wife of the only man Gaby has ever truly loved. Tim Breary has confessed. He's even provided the police with evidence. The only thing he hasn't given them is a motive. He claims to have no idea why he murdered his wife...
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The Other Woman's House
#6 in the Zailer & Waterhouse Mysteries Series
It's past midnight, but Connie Bowskill can't sleep. To pass the time, she logs on to a real estate website in search of a particular house, one she is obsessed with for reasons she's too scared to even admit to herself. As she clicks through the virtual tour, she comes across a scene from a nightmare: a woman lying facedown on the living room floor in a pool of blood. But when she returns to show her husband, there is no body, no blood—just a perfectly ordinary room, with a perfectly clean beige carpet.
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The Cradle in the Grave
#5 in the Zailer & Waterhouse Mysteries Series
Television producer Fliss Benson is surprised to discover that her superstar boss, Laurie Nattrass, is stepping down from his post. She's even more surprised that he asks her to take over his documentary about crib-death mothers wrongly accused of murder. Thanks to Laurie's advocacy, three women are now free, while the doctor who testified against them is under investigation for misconduct. Then one of the mothers is found dead. In her pocket is a card with sixteen numbers on it, arranged in four rows of four- exactly like the anonymous card Fliss has just received in the mail.
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The Dead Lie Down
#4 in the Zailer & Waterhouse Mysteries Series
Ruth Bussey once did something wrong – horribly wrong – and was nearly destroyed by her punishment. Now, she has tentatively rebuilt her life and unexpectedly found love with a man named Aidan Seed. But Aidan also has a secret, and one day he confides in Ruth: years ago, he killed a woman named Mary Trelease. Ruth's initial horror turns to confusion when she realizes that she knows Mary Trelease, and Mary is very much alive. So why does Aidan insist that she's dead?
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The Wrong Mother
#3 in the Zailer & Waterhouse Mysteries Series
Sally Thorning is watching the news with her husband when she hears a name she never thought she'd hear again: Mark Bretherick. It's a name she shouldn't recognize. Last year, a work trip Sally had planned was canceled at the last minute. Desperate for a break from juggling her job and a young family, Sally didn't tell her husband that the trip had fallen through. Instead, she treated herself to a secret vacation in a remote hotel. While she was there, Sally met a man—Mark Bretherick. All the details are the same: where he lives, his job, his wife Geraldine and daughter Lucy. Except that the photograph on the news is of a man Sally has never seen before. And Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick are both dead...
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Little Face
#1 in the Zailer & Waterhouse Mysteries Series
The first time she goes out after their daughter is born, Alice leaves the two-week-old infant at home with her husband, David. When she returns two hours later, she insists that the baby in the crib is not her child. Despite her apparent distress, David is adamant that she is wrong. The police are called to the scene. Detective Constable Simon Waterhouse is sympathetic, but he doubts Alice's story. His superior, Sergeant Charlie Zailer, thinks Alice must be suffering from some sort of delusion brought on by postpartum depression. With an increasingly hostile and menacing David swearing she must either be mad or lying, how can Alice make the police believe her before it's too late?
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The Truth-Teller's Lie
#2 in the Zailer & Waterhouse Mysteries Series
Naomi Jenkins knows all about secrets: three years ago something so terrible happened to her that she's never told anyone about it. Now, Naomi has another secret: her relationship with the unhappily married Robert Haworth. When Robert vanishes without explanation, Naomi knows he must have come to harm. But the police are less convinced, particularly when Robert's wife insists he is not missing. In desperation, Naomi decides that if she can't persuade the detectives that Robert is in danger, she'll convince them that he is a danger to others. Naomi knows how to describe the actions of a psychopath; all she needs to do is dig up her own traumatic past.
