The Neighbour’s Secret
Anna Brown is building a new life for herself in St Abel’s Chapel in the English lake district. Quiet for most of the year, the village transforms during the last two weeks in October, when hundreds of visitors arrive for The Ingathering. Celebrations focus upon a mysterious evangelical church on the outskirts of the village. Relying upon the income from these two busy weeks, the villagers respect the church’s privacy. No one interferes. Anna’s curiosity is piqued when she befriends teenager Constance, who seems deeply afraid. The Ingathering, Anna learns, involves young church members making their way through the Hell House shortly after their 16th birthday. This series of theatrical tableau is designed to alert young people to the consequences…
Read more“A twisty, claustrophobic thriller.”
Good Housekeeping
The Fake Wife
Olive Anderson, wife of Michael Anderson MP, has gone missing. Late in the evening, in a heavy snow-storm, Olive walked out of her hotel in Cumbria with a mysterious stranger and hasn’t been seen since. Given the weather, and the perilous state of the roads, police are concerned for her safety. We are even more so, because despite being supposedly happily married to the ‘sexiest man in Parliament’, Olive allowed herself to be seduced by the mysterious stranger – a beautiful woman – only to find out that the stranger filmed the entire encounter and is threatening to post footage on the internet if Olive doesn’t leave the hotel immediately. Terrified that her life is about to fall apart, Olive…
Read more“Totally gripping, with characters who draw you in and twists you won’t see coming.”
JP Delaney
The Buried
The Craftsmen Series, Book 2
Florence Lovelady is the most senior serving policewoman in Britain. She is also battling severe mental health problems. In her own words, she is arguably insane. Her meteoric career and her insanity had the same root cause: the hunt for, and arrest of, a vicious child killer thirty years earlier. Florence was hailed as a hero for putting local businessman Larry Glassbrook behind bars but she paid a heavy price. She left Sabden, the small town in the north-west of England where Larry’s unspeakable crimes had taken place and vowed never to return. But Larry, serving a whole life sentence, has other plans. On his deathbed, he contacts Florence one last time, and provides evidence of more child murders. Not…
Read more“(The Buried’s) undoubted strengths include Bolton’s deftly shaded portrayal of the attitudes of yesterday towards women and the bonds of necessity between them."
THE TIMES (A November thriller of the month)
The Dark
Lacey Flint Series, Book 5
When a baby is snatched from its pram and cast into the river Thames, off-duty police officer Lacey Flint is there to prevent disaster. DCI Mark Joesbury has been expecting this. Monitoring a complex network of ‘dark web’ sites, Joesbury and his team have spotted a new terrorist threat from the extremist, women hating group known as ‘incels’ or ‘involuntary celibates’. Joesbury’s team are trying to infiltrate the ring of power at its core, but the dark web is built for anonymity, and the incel army is vast. Pressure mounts when the team learn the snatched baby incident is just the first in a series of violent attacks designed to terrorise women. Worse, the leaders of the movement seem to…
Read more"‘WHAT A BOOK! I absolutely loved every minute of it. I love everything Sharon writes, but she has excelled herself. Not only was it a very clever story with truly brilliant characters, but it was so relevant to today."
Rachel Abbott
The Pact
A golden summer, and six talented young friends are looking forward to the brightest of futures. From wealthy, privileged families, they all have places at top universities and are dreaming of fabulous careers. Felix wants to run his own company, Dan is heading for the top of academia and Xavier plans to make millions in the City. Talitha will take over her father’s law firm whilst Amber has ambitions to be Prime Minister. And then, the night before their A level results, a daredevil game goes horribly wrong. A mother and two young children are killed. Stunned and scared, the group see their plans and dreams slipping away. They will lose everything, become pariahs, spend years in prison. Unless… Megan,…
Read more“A delightfully dark game of consequences.”
The Times (Thriller of the Month)
The Night Train
The Night Train is the first anthology of short stories by Sharon Bolton. It contains eight stories, most of which are based on characters from her previously published books, and includes: From the world of the Craftsmen The Night Train Alive! All Soul’s Eve From the world of Lacey Flint Mugwort and Moonbeams Lacey’s Wedding From the world of Dead Woman Walking Time Travel, Flight and Invisibility In a world of its own… Mr and Mrs Jansen and the Mermaid And from the world of The Split The Snow Bride
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The Split
Felicity Lloyd, a young scientist, has accepted a research assignment on one of the most remote places on earth – the island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic. She thinks there, at last, she’ll be safe from her estranged husband, Freddie. He’s recently been released from prison and he’ll stop at nothing to find her. As the summer season draws to a close, Felicity is starting to relax. Once winter sets in, the cruise ships stop visiting and no one can get to South Georgia. There’s one more ship to dock, any day now, and Felicity can’t rest until she knows whether or not Freddie is on board. Well, spoiler alert, he is. The Split starts as a classic…
Read more“I’m a huge Sharon Bolton fan and this is her best yet…as always, great story, wonderful characters, all floating on a breathless buzz, somewhere between dread and fright.”
Lee Child
The Craftsman
The Craftsmen Series, Book 1
Florence Lovelady’s career was made when she convicted coffin-maker, Larry Glassbrook, of a series of child murders 30 years ago. Like something from our worst nightmares, the victims were buried…ALIVE. “And then she discovered something even more terrifying than that she was trapped in a coffin. She wasn’t alone.” Larry confessed to the crimes; it was an open and shut case. But now he’s dead and events from the past start to repeat themselves. Did she get it wrong all those years ago? Or is there something much darker at play? #HeWillComeForYou
Read more“Bolton is at her best….well crafted, blood chilling entertainment.”
The Guardian
Dead Woman Walking
A cold nugget in her heart told her that she hadn’t escaped after all, that five, ten, twenty years weren’t enough, that there was no escape and that the day would come when he would find her.” Just before dawn in the hills near the Scottish border, a young woman is brutally murdered. At the same time, a hot-air balloon crashes out of the sky. There’s just one survivor. She’s seen the killer’s face – and he’s seen hers. Now he won’t rest until he’s eliminated the only witness to his crime. Alone, scared, trusting no one, she goes on the run. But the biggest danger of all could be where she least expects to find it.
Read more"With Dead Woman Walking, Sharon Bolton exceeds her own high standards of excellence. It grips from the start."
The Times
Daisy In Chains
Famous killers have fan clubs. Hamish Wolfe is no different. Locked up for the rest of his life for the abduction and murder of three young women, he gets countless adoring letters every day. He’s handsome, charismatic and very persuasive. His admirers are convinced he’s innocent, and that he’s the man of their dreams. Who would join such a club? Maggie Rose is different. Reclusive and enigmatic; a successful lawyer and bestselling true-crime writer, she only takes on cases that she can win. Hamish wants her as his lawyer, he wants her to change his fate. She thinks she’s immune to the charms of a man like this. But maybe not this time . . .
Read more“Intelligent, eerie, compulsively readable.”
USA Today
Here Be Dragons
A Lacey Flint Short Story
There must be a thousand people in the vicinity of Westminster Bridge on this beautiful evening . . . in approximately thirty minutes’ time, many of them will be dead. Mark Joesbury, of Scotland Yard’s Covert Operations Unit, is undercover. Embroiled in a terrorist gang’s plans for a deadly attack at the heart of the capital, he’s risking everything to stop them. But as they prepare to target London’s most iconic landmarks, it’s no longer just countless strangers he’s fighting to save. Because they’ve also got the woman he loves, DC Lacey Flint…
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Little Black Lies
What’s the worst thing your best friend could do to you? Admittedly, it wasn’t murder. A moment’s carelessness, a tragic accident – and two children are dead. YOURS Living in a small, island community, you have to see the woman who destroyed your life every day. Each chance encounter is an agonizing reminder of what you lost – your family, your future, your sanity. How long before revenge becomes irresistible? With no reason to go on living, why shouldn’t you turn your darkest thoughts into deeds? So now, what’s the worst thing you can do to your best friend?
Read more“(Bolton’s) sharpest skills are in play (in this) intricately detailed mystery, but in the end – literally on the last page – it’s the plot that thrills.”
New York Times
A Dark and Twisted Tide
Lacey Flint Series, Book 4
Police sergeant Lacey Flint thinks she’s safe. She thinks her new job with the river police, and her new life on a house boat, will keep her away from danger. But she’s wrong. When Lacey discovers a body in the water, and sinister offerings appear in her home, she fears someone is trying to expose her darkest secret. And the river is the last place she should be.
Read more"Bolton is a gripping storyteller, with fine, haunted characters."
Peter James
Like This, For Ever
Lacey Flint Series, Book 3
Twelve-year-old Barney Roberts is obsessed with a series of murders. He knows the victims are all boys, just like him. He knows the bodies were found on river banks nearby. And he’s sure the killer will strike again soon. But there’s something else, a secret he’d rather not know, a secret he is too scared to share . . . And who would believe a twelve-year-old boy anyway? Like This, For Ever is a twisty, addictive, up-all-night thriller from a writer who loves nothing more than to play with your mind. LIKE THIS, FOR EVER is published as LOST in the US
Read more"SJ. (now Sharon) Bolton’s frisson-generating Blood Harvest gleaned her many followers and she is at her best with a dark psychological crime narrative, as here. Barney’s childhood has been less than ideal – he has a direct line to a killer, one who is likely to strike again. The victim is likely to be another boy – a boy, in fact, just like Barney; it will be a body drained of blood and left on a beach by the Thames. But will detectives Dana Tulloch and Mark Joesbury be up to this case? Typically gripping fare from the reliable Bolton."
Barry Forshaw – Good Book Guide, January 2014
Dead Scared
Lacey Flint Series, Book 2
When a Cambridge university student dramatically attempts to take her own life, DI Mark Joesbury realizes that the university has developed an unhealthy record of young people committing suicide in extraordinary ways. Despite huge personal misgivings, Joesbury sends young policewoman DC Lacey Flint to Cambridge with a brief to work undercover, posing as a vulnerable, depression-prone student. Psychiatrist Evi Oliver is the only person in Cambridge who knows who Lacey really is – or so they both hope. But as the two women dig deeper into the darker side of university life, they discover a terrifying trend… And when Lacey starts experiencing the same disturbing nightmares reported by the dead girls, she knows that she is next.
Read more“With five successful thrillers under her belt, S J Bolton is hot property in crime fiction right now.”
Stylist Magazine
If Snow Hadn’t Fallen
A Lacey Flint Short Story
‘Bolton knows precisely how to ratchet up the tension and tell a cracking story’ – GUARDIAN They say that snow covers everything that is mean and sordid and ugly in the world…but beneath the carpet of white, the ugliness remains. London. A few weeks before Christmas. Long-smouldering feelings come to a head in a burst of shocking violence. A young Muslim man is brutally murdered by a masked gang. There is just one witness to the horrific crime: DC Lacey Flint. Or at least that’s what she thinks…
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Now You See Me
Lacey Flint Series, Book 1
Despite her life-long fascination with Jack the Ripper, young detective constable Lacey Flint has never worked a murder case or seen a corpse up close. Until now … As she arrives at her car one evening, Lacey is horrified to find a woman slumped over the door. She has been brutally stabbed, and dies in Lacey’s arms. Thrown headlong into her first murder hunt, Lacey will stop at nothing to find this savage killer. But her big case will also be the start of a very personal nightmare. When Lacey receives a familiar letter, written in blood, pre-fixed Dear Boss, and hand delivered, it is clear that a Ripper copycat is at large. And one who is fixated on Lacey…
Read more“NOW YOU SEE ME is really special: multi-layered and sophisticated, but tough, too – like being hit in the face with a Swiss watch.”
Lee Child
Blood Harvest
Now you see her Gillian is haunted by the disappearance of her little girl two years ago. A devastating fire burned down their home, but she remains convinced her daughter survived. Now you don’t Ten year old Tom lived by a neglected church. Is he the only one who sees the strange, solitary child playing there? And what is she trying to tell him? Now you run There’s a new vicar in town – Harry. But menacing events suggest he isn’t welcome. What terrible secret is this town hiding? Blood Harvest was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger, the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, the Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel and the Mary Higgins…
Read more“S J Bolton has already made a considerable name for herself with her well-crafted, original and spooky crime thrillers Sacrifice and Awakening, and Blood Harvest is every bit as menacing.”
Daily Mail
Awakening
“Chilling, eerie and intense.” New of the World. You know that feeling? The one that makes you want to glance over your shoulder? All Clara Benning wants is a peaceful life as a wildlife vet, and to hide her disfigurement from the world. But now she doesn’t have a choice. Because a man has died from a suspicious snake bite, and Clara’s concern leads her to the abandoned house at the end of the lane, and an unspeakable tragedy that occured half a century ago.
Read more"… a clever, intricately plotted thriller, full of characters far from the conventional mould of the genre… S J Bolton has elevated herself to the High Priestess of English Rural Gothic. If she carries on like this, she’ll have worshippers in their millions.”
The Times
Sacrifice
Moving to remote Shetland has been unsettling enough for consultant surgeon Tora Hamilton, even before the gruesome discovery she makes one rain-drenched Sunday afternoon… Deep in the peat soil of her field she’s shocked to find the perfectly preserved body of a young woman, a gaping hole in her chest where her heart has been brutally removed. Three rune marks etched into the woman’s skin bear an eerie resemblance to carvings Tora has seen all over the islands: in homes she has visited, even around a fireplace in her own cellar. But, as she uncovers disturbing links to an ancient Shetland legend, the police, her smooth-talking boss and even her own husband are at pains to persuade her to leave…
Read more"Splendidly crafted, deeply disturbing . . . this debut novel will deservedly be a bestseller."
The Times
