Search Results for: suspension

The body of a woman from respectable, conservative Glendale is found stashed under a ramshackle house in the middle of the inner city. Detective Luis Mendoza marks the rising heat by the crime and violence raging through the sun-baked streets of Los Angeles – and it’s going to be a hot one . . .

A thug is shot to death. A mysterious string of robberies continues unabated . . . all without a clue. But the family-man cop knows that where there’s heat there’s fire – and a cold trail to nowhere promises to turn into a red-hot path leading straight to the damned.

‘A Luis Mendoza mystery means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

THE HARD-CORE SCIENCE OF HAL CLEMENT
The supreme practitioner of “hard” science fiction, Hal Clement combines ingenious problem-solving with suspenseful drama and action. These ten stories show the mastery of science and fiction that Clement has displayed in such favourites as Mission of Gravity, Iceworld, and Needle.
UNCOMMON SENSEIf your back’s to the wall, even a deadly predator can be useful.
ANSWER”Know thyself” is great advice…if you don’t follow it all the way.
QUESTION OF GUILTWas he a medical pioneer…or the first vampire?
IMPEDIMENTMind-reading makes for perfect trust – as long as it works both ways!
-AND LOTS MORE!

In The Moment of the Magician Alan Dean Foster continues the adventures of Jon Thomas Meriweather, the Spellsinger, in a land where magic and constant danger combine against a background of beauty and individual courage.

Jon-Tom (as he is known in the land), in his quest to find a way back to his own world, discovers that there exists in the land another human from Earth who may hold the secret he so desperately seeks. This individual, however, is reputedly evil and has strange powers.

Jon-Tom’s adventures in seeking out this mysterious and dangerous human make this sequel to The Day of Dissonance a suspenseful and exciting saga in the Spellsinger epoch.

Kemlo, with two other boys from Satellite K, are allowed to accompany a small research team setting off to reconnoiter Deimos, a moonlet of Mars.

The research ship has a smooth journey until it encounters a fierce astral storm, but eventually lands safely on Deimos – where some peculiar magnetic forces put all the instruments out of action.

From then on the suspense is terrific. Kemlo and his friends find their way barred by a moving wall of lighted shapes and, scattered, are apparently attacked by transparent figures etched in vivid light. Up to the very end the doubt remains: will the power of the Martian Ghosts triumph or be broken?

In THE LAD AND THE LION, Edgar Rice Burroughs has returned to a theme that catapulted his name to fame when he wrote “Tarzan of the Apes”. For here is the story of a youth – actually a deposed king – whose life is preserved by a miracle and who grows up on a derelict ship in companion with a lion.
Eventually the winds and currents deposit the strange pair on the coast of Africa, and the youth learns the lessons of the wild, helped by his closest friend and protector, the giant, black-maned lion.
The book is filled with the loyalty and staunch friendship of beasts – and with the treachery of man. It has all the trills and adventure and suspense that have made fans of millions of Edgar Rice Burroughs readers.

‘We reap and we thresh; grain for half the world. We are the Grain Kings raised of old.’

They call them the Grain Kings. Gigantic mechanical monarchs of the wheat-bearing plains that were once the frozen Alaskan wastes. Whole eco-systems in themselves, they can supply the food so desperately needed by the teeming millions of our overpopulated planet. But even now, as the whole world waits in hungry suspense, the great powers battle for control of the prairies and two competing combine harvesters find they are heading on a course of collision. A collision with catastrophic consequences – not only for the hundreds of crewmen aboard each massive machine but for the future survival of all mankind.

Mistaken identity, romance, suspense – perfect for fans of Bridgerton

‘I cannot marry him,’ said Caroline. ‘I am not Kate. I am only her twin.’

All Caroline knew when she came to her senses was that when her twin sister’s desperate plea for help came, she had rushed to Italy to be with her. There was a coach accident – but she can remember nothing more . . .

Now suddenly Kate had disappeared and Caroline found herself wearing Kate’s clothes and unable to convince anyone she was really Caroline. But she had to convince someone. And quickly. Because Kate was about to marry her Italian nobleman cousin, Leoni . . .

By the author of Rogue Male, a classic thriller of the twentieth century.
‘Household … helped to develop the suspense story into an art form’ New York Times

When retired mining engineer Yarrow is disturbed after midnight by Barnabas Fosworth, he assumes that he is just a curious eccentric. But by helping Fosworth in his search for the mysterious girl he seeks, Yarrow soon finds his life inexplicably threatened by a mystical sect who believe that taking life is forgivable, since death is only a transition.

Entombed in a cavern in the Mendips, Yarrow discovers the ancient secrets that have their origins in paleolithic paintings; and it is only through this new knowledge that he can hope to escape a very unpleasant death.

Agnes receives few compliments, and Henry Preble is not so bad-looking even if he does have a reputation for cornering girls at work. In the eyes of the world, knowing that you’re on the shelf at twenty-four can do strange things to a girl. So strange that you might wake up one morning with almost no recollection of the previous night’s events . . . Published for the first time in the UK, The Gardenia, the basis for Fritz Lang’s 1953 classic Hollywood noir film The Blue Gardenia, is a gripping story of suspense and a brilliant exposé of the press sensationalism of 1950s America.

This volume also contains Out of the Blue, which was made into a comedy film in 1947 starring George Brent and Carole Landis.

September is the worst month for heat in Southern California, and LAPD lieutenant Luis Mendoza is feeling the burn as the sweltering temperatures raise tempers and violence.

Heading the list is the bizarre murder of a young French girl – which eventually leads Mendoza to Paris. An old man smothered in his hospital bed; a polite holdup artist nicknamed Baby Face; a Hollywood matron who disappears while visiting a sick friend and the grisly murder of a family who has just moved from Wisconsin keep the skilful Mendoza and his force pounding the scorching pavements in a crime wave that, like the heat, offers no sign of relief.

‘A Luis Mendoza mystery means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

Spring fever has hit Luis Mendoza, both on the job and at home. But it hasn’t erased the LAPD’s endless caseload of bizarre crimes and difficult cases.

‘Dapper Dan’, the rapist and murderer whose dashing looks and easy charm give him the perfect ploy to trap his pretty victims; a stickup artist who has found a foolproof weapon: a ferocious Doberman; a gruesome double homicide-suicide with a weird twist; a senator’s ‘natural’ death that suddenly doesn’t appear so natural – all add up to a month of murder most strange, and Mendoza knows it’s time to finally clean house.

‘A Luis Mendoza mystery means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

A bunch of kids from a Catholic School on a school trip to the Museum of National History seems like a safe day out. But when the nuns counted heads outside the building, young Joyce McCauley was missing. The Feds, believing it to be a snatch, are waiting for the ransom note to turn up.

But Lieutenant Luis Mendoza of the LAPD has other suspicions. He has been working with violence and death longer than he cares to remember and has seen it all. Mendoza is certain some nut has kidnapped Joyce, and sets about tracing the girl in his suave, tough and matchless fashion.

‘A Luis Mendoza mystery means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

It was strictly a duty call and Pat Carroll wasn’t looking forward to it one bit. But she was in Wales and her fiance’s family lived nearby. He was dead now, killed in an accident, and Pat felt that since she was so close to his family’s home she should pay her respects to the woman who would have been her mother-in-law. It would be a bore, but it was the least she could do. And, besides, it was only for a day or two. But the day or two dragged on and Pat found herself the helpless prisoner of a fanatic madwoman. Locked in a hideous room, she was trapped in an infinite eternity of a waking nightmare . . .

‘A great suspense shocker in the icy horror tradition of Psycho‘ Boston Herald

It’s the early 21st century. Ed Stone says he’s been in suspended animation since the 1930s. He says he was kidnapped by aliens. He says they sent him forth on a mission: to convince the nations of the world to build massive vault, a mile on each side, in which humanity’s billions will lie in suspension and survive the impending destruction of the Earth.

Ed Stone says all these things, and the strangest part is that people believe him – ordinary people and powerful people alike. So begins Why Do Birds, a classically science-fictional novel of ideas and quite possibly Damon Knight’s most haunting work, a terrifying tale of deceit and human folly.

For Jeff Johnston, a young historical researcher for a Civil War novelist, reality is redefined on a bitter cold night near the close of a lingering winter. He meets Annie, an intense and lovely young woman suffering from vivid, intense nightmares. Haunted by the dreamer and her unrelenting dreams, Jeff leads Annie on an emotional odyssey through the heartland of the Civil War in search of a cure. On long-silenced battlefields their relationship blossoms – two obsessed lovers linked by unbreakable chains of history, torn by a duty that could destroy them both. Suspenseful, moving and highly compelling, Lincoln’s Dreams is a novel of rare imaginative power that strikes a chord deep within the hearts of us all.

Will she ever escape her past?

Romantic suspense for fans of Joan Aiken and Bridgerton

Young Hester Malpass knew little of her past. Only that she was an orphan who was now working in a railway station restaurant for a tyrannical old woman. She dreamed of escape, of finding a brighter place for herself out in the world.

Then one day, dashing Captain Deveraux, a famous balloonist, lured her away to become his partner in a new aerial adventure. Had Hester not fallen in love with the captain, she would never have dared. But dare she did.

Life took a violent and frightening turn. Suddenly Hester was confronted with the strange ghosts of her past, and the deadly secret of the fine and handsome captain.

It was the party of a lifetime – but she never arrived…

‘Vera Caspary is an expert at suspense and suspicion’ New York Times

When popular young schoolteacher Nina Redfield reports to police the whereabouts of Bushie Neal, a criminal on the run, she sets off a chain of events over which she has no control.

Nina is about to leave for a Hallowe’en party at a friend’s house. An escort is sent to collect her, so it’s no surprise to Nina when a masked man in a Harlequin costume calls for her. But Nina and her escort never reach the party . . .

Could her past association with Bushie’s sworn enemy Nick Brazza have any connection to her disappearance? And has she been spirited to safety – or further into danger?

An aristocratic family hiding secrets – and murder.

Classic crime from ‘One of American’s favourite writers’ Mary Higgins Clark

‘Suspense to the very end’ NEW YORK TIMES

Nurse Sarah Keate is no stranger to mystery – she has solved conspiracies and murders in places as varied as her once-sleepy hospital ward, a gothic mansion, and the Sand Hills of Nebraska. But the Thatchers are different. As close to aristocracy as an American family can get, one of their own requires Keate’s care for a suspicious bullet wound to his right shoulder. A wound a relative insists was self-inflicted …

When the victim dies under even stranger circumstances, Keate knows that he was murdered. As the family closes ranks and struggles to keep its darkest secrets buried, Nurse Keate will stop at nothing to find the truth – but at what cost?

The dense forests and forbidding jungles of Africa harbour innumerable uncanny mysteries, dangers and horrors.

Among these, often reported though little known, is a secret society of Leopard Men. By day and night they are the terror of the vast domain they frequent. Their orgies, their rites, their ruthless power form the basis of this series of adventures, of which Tarzan of the Apes is the central figure.

Adding to the suspense, an absorbing detail of interest is the mysterious quest of a beautiful American girl braving the dangers of the Dark Continent alone; while nonetheless interesting are two luckless and poverty-stricken white ivory poachers, whose trails cross those of both the Lord of the Jungle and the lone girl – trails that lead three of them to the forbidden precincts of the Holy of Holies of the Leopard Men, where no white man has ever been and returned alive.

A beautiful woman – with no memory – and the people who claim to know her may not have her best interests at heart…

‘Vera Caspary is an expert at suspense and suspicion’ New York Times

Kate and Allan Royce are driving home from a party in Westport, Connecticut one night when they see a girl in a beautiful but muddied dress wandering in the road and stop to pick her up. She is suffering from amnesia, so they name her Elizabeth X and take her into their home while the police try to establish her identity.

They are left in peace, until first a couple claim her as their daughter and then a psychiatrist arrives to say that she has escaped from his clinic. What does seem certain is that she is the child of wealthy parents.

But who really is Elizabeth X, and what has happened to her?

Twenty-two stories and novella-length works, mixing imagination with suspense in the kind of tale that can slide into the back of your mind and then stay there for the rest of your life… well-known as a novelist and screenwriter, the author of Valley of Lights and Oktober has assembled a signature collection from over two decades’ worth of his lesser-known short fiction.
A telephone chat line where not all of the respondents can be found amongst the living… the terrified flight of a hit-and-run driver whose fate was sealed at the moment of his deed… the seduction and harrowing education of a young artist in nineteenth-century France… the unholy alliance of an honest psychic and a skeptical conjurer…
All brought together in one volume for the first time anywhere, with an introduction by TV scriptwriter/producer Brian Clemens and an afterword filled with background insights and dashes of autobiography.

‘A star in our galaxy of crime writers’ FINANCIAL TIMES

Superb crime fiction from the CWA Diamond Dagger Award Winner

‘Yorke practised deception artfully and with style’ GUARDIAN

‘Mistress of the skilfully spun suspense novel’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Nesta Falconer, an attractive widow, lives with her fifteen-year-old daughter Philippa, managing brother-in-law Charles Falconer’s household after the breakdown of his marriage. Nesta’s comfortable position is threatened when her sister Claire, returning from America, comes to stay at her cottage.

Charles realises that Nesta is a menace to Philippa’s happiness, and that she has been responsible for much distress. His mother, a formidable old lady, plays a part in revealing Nesta not only to her family but to herself as a negative person who contributes little to the happiness of others.

Georges Rivac is in big trouble. His London contact doesn’t want his business and has never heard of Rivac’s Czech client. And Rivac’s chances of proving his innocence rapidly diminish when that client finally turns up – dead.

Then Rivac meets Zia, the delectable Hungarian, whose job it was to watch the Czech’s movements. And together they uncover a hornet’s nest of espionage and treachery that send them running for their lives.

By the author of Rogue Male, one of the classic thrillers of the twentieth century: a bestseller that redefined its genre Guardian

Geoffrey Household returns to the rural England of Rogue Male and Watcher in the Shadows, with the savage hunting of his two heroes from the estuaries of South Devon to the empty Marlborough Downs.

The novel reveals at last the fate of Alwyn Rory, the security officer who was believed to have taken a bribe to allow a naval spy to escape and to have defected to Russia rather than face trial. Both Rory and his new ally, Adrian Gurney, by whom the story is told, are on the run and may be killed with impunity, as they do not exist …