Oxford
5 primary works
Book 1
One quiet evening in Oxford a house near to Sarah Tucker's suddenly explodes. The cause is later given out to be a gas leak, but when a child disappears in the aftermath, Sarah - a young married woman, bored and unhappy with her life - becomes obsessed with trying to find her. Very soon she's left wondering whether she has really ever known anybody or anything at all as her attempts at investigation reveal that people long thought dead are still among the living, while the living are joining the dead. Her own life however, becomes distinctly less boring. What begins in this peaceful suburb comes to a compelling climax on a remote and unwelcoming Scottish island, as the hunt for the missing child takes Sarah out of her marriage and into a journey with a companion who himself is being hunted by murderous and apparently official forces. This acclaimed first novel sets a cracking pace with a satisfying denouement.
Book 2
When a woman dies beneath the wheels of a train and her newly acquired lover fails to turn up at the funeral, private investigator Zoe Boehm is hired to find him. And in attempting to unlock the secrets of a woman she's never met, in search of a man who might be anyone, Zoe, already struggling to come to terms with the violence in her past and the possible damage in her future, only finds more questions: where did Alan Talmadge come from? Why does he appear to have no history? How did he meet Caroline Daniels? And has he killed before? At the same time, other deaths distract Zoe - what took a young boy, frightened of heights, to the top of a towerblock from which he fell to his death? Zoe is accustomed to finding answers to the questions she asks; accustomed too to finding the people she looks for. But as her search leads her nearer to the hearts of two very different kinds of criminal, she starts to wonder whether the man she is looking for has found her first. And if he has, is that going to make her another victim - or might it prove to be her salvation?
Book 3
When Tim Whitby checks into a hotel, he's not intending to check out again - but then he meets Katrina Blake, a woman in need of rescue. When Arkle, Baxter and Trent inherit the family business, they're not planning on making a go of it - there are quicker ways of getting rich, if you're not squeamish about the violence involved. And when Zoe Boehm agrees to track down the masked men who robbed Harold Sweeney's jewellery shop, she's hoping to pay off the taxes she's avoided. She's not expecting to wind up in a coffin. But Arkle has a crossbow; Tim has a life that's run out of purpose, and even battered Katrina has her secrets. And death, like taxes, can't be avoided forever.
Book 4
When a body is hauled from the River Tyne, Sarah Tucker heads North for a closer look. She identifies the dead woman as private detective Zoe Boehm, but putting a name to the corpse only raises further questions. Did Zoe kill herself, or did one of her old cases come looking for her? Why was she wearing a jacket a murderer had stolen years before? And what's brought Sarah's former sparring partner Gerard Inchon to the same broken-down hotel? Coincidence is an excuse that soon looks pretty unconvincing. From derelict shipyards to its glitzy new quayside, Newcastle shows a different face everywhere Sarah looks. But then so do all the people she encounters,gangster, barman, scientist, cop - Sarah can't trust anyone. Nor can she leave until she's found the answer, however dangerous that discovery might turn out to be...
Book 5
When a man with a gun breaks into her school, nursery teacher Louise Kennedy knows there's not likely to be a happy ending...But Jaime isn't there on a homicidal whim, and is as scared as the hostages he's taken. While an armed police presence builds up outside, he'll only talk to Ben Whistler, an MI6 accountant who worked with his lover, Miro. Miro's gone missing, along with a huge sum of money intended for reconstruction work in Iraq.Jaime doesn't believe Miro's a thief - though he certainly had secrets. But then, so does Louise; so do the other hostages; and so do some of those on the outside, who'd much rather Jaime was silenced...