Showing results by narrator "Robin Laing" in All Categories

Stephen Berry is about to jump off a bridge until a suicide prevention counsellor stops him. A week later, Stephen is dead. Found at the bottom of a cliff, DI Luc Callanach and DCI Ava Turner are drafted in to investigate whether he jumped or whether he was pushed.... As they dig deeper, more would-be suicides roll in: a woman found dead in a bath; a man violently electrocuted. But these are carefully curated deaths – nothing like the impulsive suicide attempts they’ve been made out to be.

When legendary TV actor Montgomery Pryce is shot in the chest by an arrow and killed while on stage during a Robin Hood convention, Detective Inspector Declan Walsh and the team of the Last Chance Saloon are brought in to solve the murder, only to find that nearly everyone there holds a bow capable of loosing the arrow.

When silence falls, who will hear their cries? The body of a young girl is found dumped on the roadside on the outskirts of Edinburgh. When pathologists examine the remains, they make a gruesome discovery: the outline of a doll carved into the victim’s skin. DCI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach are struggling to find leads in the case until a doll made of skin is found nestled beside an abandoned baby. After another young woman is found butchered, Luc and Ava realise the babydoll killer is playing a horrifying game. And it’s only a matter of time before he strikes again.

Elspeth, Meggy and Xavier are locked in a flat. They don’t know where they are, and they don’t know why they’re there. They only know that the shadow man has taken them, and he won’t let them go. Desperate to escape, the three of them must find a way out of their living hell, even if it means uncovering a very dark truth. Because the shadow man isn’t a nightmare. He’s all too real.

Following the bombshell ending of Kill Your Darlings, Declan Walsh has a new job, a new office and a new remit—but when a City of London art gallery discovers the star of their latest exhibition dead, with only a signed, painted "kiss" on his neck to go on, Declan and his team must investigate a murder that involves brutal vengeance, a family linked to a painting stolen by the Nazis in WW2, and a long-forgotten promise.

AD 381. Five years have gone by since a Roman governor ordered the deaths of a Gothic king and his attendants at a feast in their honor. This disastrous act led to warfare in the Roman Empire and the death of the Emperor Valens. The Empire is now at peace, but the powerful brother of the murdered king has sworn revenge on the regicides, and will not rest until they are hunted down. For the eight legionaries who carried out the killings, the bloodshed is only just beginning.

In these wry and hilarious diaries, Shaun provides an inside look at the trials and tribulations of life in the book trade, from struggles with eccentric customers to wrangles with his own staff, who include the ski-suit-wearing, bin-foraging Nicky. He takes us with him on buying trips to old estates and auction houses, recommends books - both lost classics and new discoveries - introduces us to the thrill of the unexpected find, and evokes the rhythms and charms of small-town life, always with a sharp and sympathetic eye.

When the body of convicted serial killer Jacob Spears, AKA the 'Essex Ripper' is found, hanged outside the walls of onetime Newgate Prison, DI Declan Walsh and the team of the Last Chance Saloon find themselves in a race against time—as they hunt a vicious vigilante, targeting serial killers, and leaving a trail of executed bodies at locations connected to London's violent capital punishment past.

Edinburgh is gripped by the greatest terror it has ever known. A lone bomber is targeting victims across the city, and no one is safe. DCI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach face death every day - and not just the deaths of the people being taken hostage by the killer. When it becomes clear that with every tip-off they are walking into a trap designed to kill them, too, Ava and Luc know that finding the truth could mean paying the ultimate price.

There's no easy way to die.... Unknown to DI Luc Callanach and the newly promoted DCI Ava Turner, a serial killer has Edinburgh firmly in his grip. The killer is taking his victims in the coldest, most calculating way possible - engineering slow and painful deaths by poison, with his victims entirely unaware of the drugs flooding their bloodstream until it's too late.

In the middle of a rock festival, a charity worker is sliced across the stomach. He dies minutes later. In a crowd of thousands, no one saw his attacker. The following week, the body of a primary school teacher is found in a dumpster in an Edinburgh alley, strangled with her own woollen scarf. D.I. Ava Turner and D.I. Luc Callanach have no leads and no motive – until around the city, graffitied on buildings, words appear describing each victim.

Father Christmas, otherwise known as good ol' Santa Claus is dead, murdered in the street, poisoned with a fatal cocktail laced with mistletoe for that 'Christmas touch'. But he wasn't the first, and he won't be the last—because across London, people in Father Christmas hats are being poisoned. Homeless Santas, shopping store grotto Santas, it doesn't matter, as the killer seems to be hunting anyone wearing the hat.

When a decades-old body is discovered in an underground cell in Temple Church, DI Declan Walsh and the team of the Last Chance Saloon are sent to discover more on it - in particular, why a twenty-year old body has been dug up from their place of rest, and deliberately placed in a room known only as the 'penitential cell', once used by the Knights Templar to punish the unholy.

Someone is killing London "black cab" taxi drivers. Seemingly unconnected, but all with the same MO, bodies are being found across the City of London, and only two clues connect them; an unknown killer with a crooked walking cane, and the title to a folk song placed on rolled paper inside their mouths. Now, DCI Walsh and his team, still reeling after the end of Harvest For The Reaper must hunt down the killer.

When East-End gangster and 'frenemy' to the Last Chance Saloon, Johnny Lucas, is accused of murdering a London gangland rival in his boxing club, he claims his brother was the killer. The only problem though is that his brother, Jackie, is actually Johnny's multiple personality. Pulled in to prove the case, DI Declan Walsh and his team soon realize that Johnny might be as innocent as he claims, as a new player is in town, claiming to be Johnny's brother Jackie in the flesh, a man who shouldn't exist yet can prove he does, is starting to carve out his own empire.

On a remote Highland mountain, the body of Elaine Buxton is burning. All that will be left to identify the respected lawyer are her teeth and a fragment of clothing. In the concealed back room of a house in Edinburgh, the real Elaine Buxton screams into the darkness…. Detective Inspector Luc Callanach has barely set foot in his new office when Elaine’s missing persons case is escalated to a murder investigation. Having left behind a promising career at Interpol, he’s eager to prove himself to his new team.

When a body is found beside the Roman Fort Gate on the London Wall, dressed as a Roman Soldier and with an antique Roman Gladius stabbed into their chest, it's tasked to DCI Declan Walsh and the team of the Last Chance Saloon to investigate the murder, leading them into a rabbit hole of similarly themed attacks - as re-enactors perform real-life battles at various locations for a "History of London" celebration during the day, with some taking a darker and more brutal approach at night.

What is paranoia? What makes us mistrustful? How can this be overcome? Daniel Freeman, Professor of Psychology at Oxford, has spent thirty years at the vanguard of paranoia research and treatment. This remarkable and moving book tells the story of that journey. For decades, conventional wisdom held that paranoia was only experienced by people with severe mental health problems and little could be done to rectify its disastrous effects.

Before he was a policeman, DI Declan Walsh was a Corporal in the Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police, resigning after a case went terribly wrong, ending with Declan and his SIB partner, Lance-Corporal Moses killing the main suspect of a case in self-defence.

Investigative journalist Shona Sandison is attending the wedding of her closest friend and former colleague, Vivienne. But the night before the wedding, Viv’s reclusive school friend, Dan, jumps from a roof to his death. Shona is the only witness to the suicide—and so the only person who saw the occult tattoos covering Dan’s body, and heard the unsettling, mystical phrases he was uttering.