Denise Mina reimagines Raymond Chandler's famed and troubled detective Philip Marlowe in this gritty thriller set in 1940s Los Angeles.

"This is Marlowe." "Mr. Philip Marlowe?" She asked. I glanced at the clock. It was exactly eleven am, as if she had been waiting by the phone for an appointed hour, following someone else's orders to the letter. "What, d'you think we're a troupe of brothers? There is only me."

It's mid-September, a heatwave has descended on the parched hills of LA and Private Detective Philip Marlowe is called to the Montgomery estate, an almost mythic place sitting high on top of Beverly Hills. Wealthy twenty-two-year-old Chrissie Montgomery, set to inherit an enormous fortune, is missing. She's a walking target, ripe for someone to get their claws into. Her dying father, along with his sultry bottle blonde girlfriend, wants her found before that happens. They've hired Anna Riorden, Marlowe's nemesis, too.

The search takes them to the roughest neighbourhoods of LA through dive bars and Skid Row. And that's before he finds the body at The Brody Hotel.

Who will get to her first, Marlowe, Anne, or the men chasing her fortune? And does she want to be found?

DECEPTION. THEFT. MURDER. ALL YOU NEED IS CONFIDENCE.

When amateur film-maker Lisa Lee vanishes from a Scottish seaside town, journalists Anna and Fin find themselves at the centre of an internet frenzy to find her. But she may not be the hapless victim everyone thinks she is.

The last film she made showed her breaking into an abandoned French chateau and stumbling across a priceless Roman silver casket. The day after Lisa vanishes the casket is listed for auction in Paris, reserve price fifty million euros, with a catalogue entry that challenges the beliefs of a major world religion.

On a thrilling chase across Europe to discover what happened to Lisa, Anna and Fin are caught up in a world of international art smuggling, religious zealotry and murder.

But someone doesn't want them to find the missing girl... and will do anything to stop them.

'a tour de force work of art' - The Wall Street Journal, Best Books of the Year Longlisted for the 2022 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award It's Saturday evening, 9 March 1566, and Mary, Queen of Scots, is six months pregnant. She's hosting a supper party, secure in her private chambers. She doesn't know that her Palace is surrounded - that, right now, an army of men is creeping upstairs to her chamber. They're coming to murder David Rizzio, her friend and secretary, the handsome Italian man who is smiling across the table at her. Mary's husband, Lord Darnley, wants it done in front of her and he wants her to watch it done ... Denise Mina brilliantly portrays the sexual dynamics and politics of power - between men and women, monarch and subjects, master and servants. The period is masterfully researched yet lightly drawn, the characterisation quick, subtle and utterly convincing. This breathtakingly tense work is a tale of sex, secrets and lies, one that explores the lengths that men - and women - will go to in the search for love and power.

'a tour de force work of art' - The Wall Street Journal, Best Books of the Year Longlisted for the 2022 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award It's Saturday evening, 9 March 1566, and Mary, Queen of Scots, is six months pregnant. She's hosting a supper party, secure in her private chambers. She doesn't know that her Palace is surrounded - that, right now, an army of men is creeping upstairs to her chamber. They're coming to murder David Rizzio, her friend and secretary, the handsome Italian man who is smiling across the table at her. Mary's husband, Lord Darnley, wants it done in front of her and he wants her to watch it done ... Denise Mina brilliantly portrays the sexual dynamics and politics of power - between men and women, monarch and subjects, master and servants. The period is masterfully researched yet lightly drawn, the characterisation quick, subtle and utterly convincing. This breathtakingly tense work is a tale of sex, secrets and lies, one that explores the lengths that men - and women - will go to in the search for love and power.

WINNER OF THE CWA SHORT STORY DAGGER In Bloody Scotland a selection of Scotland's best crime writers use the sinister side of the country's built heritage in stories that are by turns gripping, chilling and redemptive. Stellar contributors Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Denise Mina, Ann Cleeves, Louise Welsh, Lin Anderson, Doug Johnstone, Gordon Brown, Craig Robertson, E S Thomson, Sara Sheridan and Stuart MacBride explore the thrilling potential of Scotland's iconic sites and structures. From murder in an ancient broch and a macabre tale of revenge among the furious clamour of an eighteenth century mill, to a dark psychological thriller set within the tourist throng of Edinburgh Castle and a rivalry turning fatal in the concrete galleries of an abandoned modernist ruin, this collection uncovers the intimate - and deadly - connections between people and places. Prepare for a dangerous journey into the dark shadows of our nation's buildings - where passion, fury, desire and death collide.

A missing filmmaker. A stolen antique. Someone will kill to stop them being found. . . FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF CONVICTION COMES AN ESCAPIST THRILLER *A Scotsman Book of the Year* When amateur film-maker Lisa Lee vanishes from a Scottish seaside town, journalists Anna and Fin find themselves at the centre of an internet frenzy to find her. But she may not be the hapless victim everyone thinks she is. The last film she made showed her breaking into an abandoned French chateau and stumbling across a priceless Roman silver casket. The day after Lisa vanishes the casket is listed for auction in Paris, reserve price fifty million euros, with a catalogue entry that challenges the beliefs of a major world religion. On a thrilling chase across Europe to discover what happened to Lisa, Anna and Fin are caught up in a world of international art smuggling, religious zealotry, and murder. But someone doesn't want them to find the missing girl... and will do anything to stop them. 'Denise Mina is crime-writing royalty' Val McDermid, author of A Place Of Execution 'Denise Mina is the cream of the crop, an author who pushes the crime novel in new and exciting directions' Ian Rankin, author of A Song For The Dark Times

'Denise Mina is a one-of-a-kind storyteller' James Patterson "This is Marlowe." "Mr. Philip Marlowe?" She asked. I glanced at the clock. It was exactly eleven am, as if she had been waiting by the phone for an appointed hour, following someone else's orders to the letter. "What, d'you think we're a troupe of brothers? There is only me." It's mid-September, a heatwave has descended on the parched hills of LA and Private Detective Philip Marlowe is called to the Montgomery estate, an almost mythic place sitting high on top of Beverly Hills. Wealthy twenty-two-year-old Chrissie Montgomery, set to inherit an enormous fortune, is missing. She's a walking target, ripe for someone to get their claws into. Her dying father, along with his sultry bottle blonde girlfriend, wants her found before that happens. They've hired Anna Riorden, Marlowe's nemesis, too. The search takes them to the roughest neighbourhoods of LA through dive bars and Skid Row. And that's before he finds the body at The Brody Hotel. Who will get to her first, Marlowe, Anne, or the men chasing her fortune? And does she want to be found? Discover the rest of the inimitable Philip Marlowe series - nine classic Chandler adventures, from The Big Sleep to The Long Goodbye, available now in paperback and eBook from Penguin Books. ______________________________ Readers love The Second Murderer: 'I must congratulate Denise Mina for bravely stepping into the shoes of Raymond Chandler and continuing the tales of the much loved Philip Marlowe... I think the author has done a great job capturing the essence of Marlowe such as his duelling dialogue with other characters or his descriptions of the heat soaked LA landscape in midsummer. The Chandler sarcastic humour is also present....one line I cant seem to find but from memory was something like..." this place was so sleazy even the rats had to wipe their feet on the way out". Brilliant! I encourage all fans of the genre to read this book. It is very well written and much like Chandlers books, the descriptions are so vivid you feel you are in each scene.' Michael N., 5 stars

'a bedrock of the Scottish theatre industry' The Guardian 'a major part of Scotland's new playwriting landscape' The Scotsman After running for fifteen years, the founding principles of A Play, a Pie and a Pint remain steadfast - a new play at lunchtime every week that lasts no more than an hour, accompanied by a pie and a pint. As well as producing thirty-three new plays per year, Oran Mor also biannually hosts its much-adored pantomimes for grown up kids - both Summer and Winter - which have become a staple of the Glasgow theatrical calendar. This first volume collects some of the most popular and critically acclaimed plays from the phenomenal back catalogue. Includes the plays: A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity (Douglas Maxwell) Toy Plastic Chicken (Uma Nada-Rajah) Chic Murray: A Funny Place for A Window (Stuart Hepburn) Ida Tamson (Denise Mina) Jocky Wilson Said (Jane Livingstone and Jonathan Cairney) Do Not Press This Button (Alan Bissett)

Maureen O'Donnell wakes up one morning to find her therapist boyfriend murdered in the middle of her living room and herself a prime suspect in a murder case. Desperate to clear her name and to get at the truth, Maureen traces rumors about a similar murder at a local psychiatric hospital, uncovering a trail of deception and repressed scandal that could exonerate her - or make her the next victim. A shattering first novel... You can't look away from it.-New York Times Book Review I can't think of a more interesting - and less likely - crime hero than Maureen O'Donnell, the damaged but determined center of Denise Mina's marvelous debut mystery. . . . The book bristles with angry energy and the spare urban poetry of its unique language. -Chicago Tribune A groundbreaking book . . . its emotional rawness and visceral honesty pack a punch more potent than any boxer-turned-PI could provide.-Washington Post Book World This raw, powerful story is an exceptional debut. -Kansas City Star A compelling story. . . . This is the reason we read mysteries. -Rocky Mountain News

BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY INTRODUCED BY DENISE MINA 'Highsmith is a giant of the genre. The original, the best, the gloriously twisted Queen of Suspense' MARK BILLINGHAM A gripping novel that explores the shifting sands of moral values - is murder still murder when committed in a lawless place? Howard Ingham, an American writer, is in Tunisia working on a screenplay, and feeling stranded. No one has written to him since he arrived - neither the film director who he is supposed to be meeting in Tunis, nor his lover in New York. The erratic mail eventually brings news of the director's suicide. For reasons obscure even to himself, Ingham decides to stay and work on a novel, but a series of events - a hushed-up murder and a vanished corpse - lures him inexorably into the deep, ambivalent shadows of the town; into deceit and away from conventional morality. Ultimately, what is in question is not justice or truth, but the state of his oddly quiet conscience. 'Highsmith is the poet of apprehension rather than fear . . . Highsmith's finest novel to my mind is The Tremor of Forgery, and if I were asked what it is about I would reply, "apprehension"' GRAHAM GREENE

The Blunderer was written by Highsmith in between Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley. The novel follows the young, successful and handsome, Walter Stackhouse who seems to have it all, that is, until the day his wife's body is found at the bottom of a cliff. Under the intense scrutiny of the investigation he commits one mistake, then another, until - in true Highsmithian fashion - Walter finds his perfect life derailed. Now Walter is running from the obsessions of the murderer, and the suspicions of the lead cop, not to mention his own increasingly life-threatening blunders.

Paddy Meehan is no stranger to murder--as a reporter she lives at crime scenes--but nothing has prepared her for this visit from the police. Her former boyfriend and fellow journalist Terry Patterson has been found hooded and shot through the head. Paddy knows she will be of little help--she had not seen Terry in more than six months. So she is bewildered to learn that in his will he has left her his house and several suitcases full of notes. Drawn into a maze of secrets and lies, Paddy begins making connections to Terry's murder that no one else has seen, and soon finds herself trapped in the most important--and dangerous--story of her career.

"Stunning. . . . The danger reaches a frightening pitch."--Rocky Mountain News
"Mina offers us a complex plot with a shocking ending, all told in an amazingly original voice." -"Cleveland Plain Dealer"
"This is a terrific book." -"Dallas"" Morning News"
A "New York Times" Notable Book of the Year
Trying to escape her own troubled past and the memories of her lover's murder, Maureen O'Donnell finds refuge working as a counselor at a shelter for battered women. When the body of shelter resident Ann Harris washes up on the banks of the ThamesRiver two weeks later, Maureen vows to discover what happened and to prove that Ann's husband is not to blame. Taking her search to London, Maureen soon encounters disturbing truths about Ann's hidden past - including a secret that has Maureen fighting for her life.
"Atmospheric, intense, and full of the disturbing flavor of inner-city lowlife." -"Guardian"
"Reads like a slap in the face - and a kick in the ribs and a fist in the stomach . . . like its powerful predecessor, "Garnethill."" -"New York"" Times Book Review"

A MISSING FILMMAKER. A STOLEN ANTIQUE. SOMEONE WILL KILL TO STOP THEM BEING FOUND... 'Denise Mina is crime-writing royalty' Val McDermid, author of A Place of Execution When filmmaker, Lisa Lee goes missing, alongside a priceless Roman silver casket, there is no doubt the two are linked together. The day after her vanishing, the casket is listed for auction in Paris with a reserve price of fifty million euros. On a thrilling chase across Europe to discover what happened to Lisa, journalists Anna and Fin are caught up in a world of international art smuggling, billionaire con artists and religious zealotry. ______________________________ 'Riveting, fast-paced' Sunday Times 'A joy to read' Daily Telegraph 'A cinematic thriller... Hitchcockian' The Times *A Scotsman Book of the Year* *PRE-ORDER THE SECOND MURDERER. Journey through the shadowy underbelly of 1950s LA with iconic detective Philip Marlowe in Denise Mina's new murder mystery. Out in July 2023. *

INTRODUCED BY DENISE MINA 'Highsmith probes to the very core of her heroine with a controlled ferocity and single-mindedness that illuminates every page of her novel. It is a masterly book, a haunting book, a book that lingers long in the memory and constantly disturbs and delights' The Times 'A work of extraordinary force and feeling . . . her strongest, her most imaginative and by far her most substantial novel' New Yorker Edith Howland's diary is her most precious possession, and as she is moving house she is making sure it's safe. A suburban housewife in fifties America, she is moving to Brunswick with her husband Brett and her beloved son, Cliffie, to start a new life for them all. She is optimistic, but most of all she has high hopes for her new venture with Brett, a local newspaper, the Brunswick Corner Bugle. Life seems full of promise, and indeed, to read her diary, filled with her most intimate feelings and revelations, you would never think otherwise. Strange, then, that reality is so dangerously different . . . 'Edith's Diary is certainly one of the saddest novels I ever read, but it is also one of the mere twenty or so that I would say were perfect, unimprovable masterpieces' A. N. Wilson, Telegraph

"There's no going wrong with a Denise Mina mystery." (Entertainment Weekly) It's the week before Christmas when a lone robber bursts into a Glasgow post office carrying an AK-47. An elderly man suddenly hands his young grandson to a stranger and helps the gunman fill bags with cash. He opens the door for the gunman and bows his head; the robber shoots the grandfather, tearing him in two. DS Alex Morrow arrives on the scene and finds that the alarm system had been disabled before the robbery. Yet none of the employees can be linked to the gunman. And the grandfather is above reproach. As Morrow searches for the killer, she uncovers a hidden, sinister political network. Soon it is chillingly clear: no corner of the city is safe, and her involvement will go deeper than she could ever have imagined.

'The most exciting crime writer to have emerged in Britain for years' Ian Rankin 'Denise Mina is Britain's best living crime writer' Sunday Express FROM THE COSTA-SHORTLISTED BESTSELLING AUTHOR In Glasgow, a child goes missing, taken from the front garden of his home. The investigation leads the police to the doors of two young boys. Paddy Meehan has just started work at a local newspaper where she dreams of becoming an investigative journalist. Although everyone around her believes the boys acted on their own, she is certain there is more to it and begins to ask awkward questions. But Paddy's investigation has repercussions she never anticipated. Shunned by those closest to her, she finds herself dangerously alone. And someone is trying to stop her discovering the truth. The first novel in the addictive Paddy Meehan series, from award-winning author Denise Mina.

Power, abuse, love gone horribly wrong - and a crime that stretches back two decades... From the two-time THEAKSTONS OLD PECULIER CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD-winning author. A girl who has seen more darkness than most. A Scottish lawyer waiting to be killed. A fingerprint discovered at a murder scene, from a man who couldn't possibly have been there. As DI Alex Morrow investigates the death of a young businessman, she uncovers a vicious network of power and corruption that reaches back to Glasgow on the night Princess Diana died. And to a fourteen-year-old girl sat in a car with a dead body, the murder weapon still in her hand.

'A masterpiece by the woman who may be Britain's finest living crime novelist' Daily Telegraph 'Absorbing... this is a bravura performance, a true original' Ian Rankin Glasgow, 1957. It is a December night and William Watt is desperate. His family has been murdered and he needs to find out who killed them. He arrives at a bar to meet Peter Manuel, who claims he can get hold of the gun that was used. But Watt soon realises that this infamous criminal will not give up information easily. Inspired by true events, The Long Drop follows Watt and Manuel along back streets and into smoky pubs, and on to the courtroom where the murder trial takes place. Can Manuel really be trusted to tell the truth? And how far will Watt go to get what he wants? **A TIMES TOP 10 CRIME NOVEL OF THE DECADE** __________________ Praise for THE LONG DROP: 'Extraordinary' Guardian 'This book is so, so good. Forensic, beautiful and gripping' Graham Norton 'Revisits a dark episode in Glasgow's past... Mina navigates the uneasy territory between fact and fiction with consummate grace' Val McDermid

THE TIMES CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 COSTA NOVEL AWARD 'This is crime writing of the highest order' The Times When Margo goes in search of her birth mother for the first time, she meets her aunt, Nikki, instead. Margo learns that her mother, Susan, was a sex worker murdered soon after Margo's adoption. To this day, Susan's killer has never been found. Nikki asks Margo for help. She has received threatening and haunting letters from the murderer, for decades. She is determined to find him, but she can't do it alone... *NOMINATED FOR THE THEAKSTON OLD PECULIER CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD* *A DAILY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020, SELECTED BY LEE CHILD* CONFIDENCE, THE NEW NOVEL BY DENISE MINA, IS AVAILABLE NOW _______________________________________________________ PRAISE FOR NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR DENISE MINA: 'More proof that Denise Mina is Britain's best living crime writer' Sunday Express on The Less Dead 'Mina is the most compassionate of crime novelists... a dark and heartfelt novel' Mail on Sunday on The Less Dead 'Denise Mina is the cream of the crop, an author who pushes the crime novel in new and exciting directions and never fails to deliver' Ian Rankin 'You won't be able to put Conviction down' Reese Witherspoon 'Unsettling, evocative and staggeringly good' Daily Express on The Long Drop 'An atmospheric recreation of a vanished Glasgow...and a compelling exploration of the warped criminal mind' The Times on The Long Drop: Top Ten Crime Novels of the Decade 'Denise Mina gets to the heart of what crime really is. You feel like you are right there, in all the dark nooks and crannies that her characters inhabit' Sunday Times and International Bestselling Author, Karin Slaughter ____________________________________________________ READERS LOVE THE LESS DEAD: 'One of the best books you'll read' ***** 'Unputdownable' ***** 'Gripping' ***** 'An intelligent, gripping and compassionate crime novel' *****