A SUNDAY TIMES BEST CRIME BOOK OF 2022 In a grand old mansion in the middle of the Sussex countryside, seven people have seen more than they should... The new chilling thriller from Lesley Thomson. In a small community James Ritchie was looking forward to spending the day with his son, though he was a little late picking him up from his ex-wife, Anna. In the middle of nowhere Later that afternoon, they are found dead, the victims of a double stabbing. Anna will never see her family again. You need to keep your secrets close... As DI Toni Kemp unravels the case, she is brought to a grand country mansion, long ago converted into flats. In this quiet, peaceful place, seven long-term residents have seen more than they should. But this is a tight-knit group - and they are good at keeping secrets... PRAISE FOR THE COMPANION: 'Like the best of Barbara Vine and Agatha Christie crossed with the unique Lesley Thomson brilliance.' Elly Griffiths 'This modern take on the country-house mystery shocks from the off.' The Times 'Colourful characters and devious plotting.' Ian Rankin 'Electrifying, gritty.' Woman's Own

'Always a treat reading Lesley Thomson.' Ian Rankin Eighty years of secrets. A body that reveals them all. 1940. At Yew Tree House, recently widowed Adelaide Stride is raising her two daughters alone – but it’s not just the threat of German invasion that keeps her up at night. She is surrounded by enemies posing as allies and, while war rages, she grows sure that something terrible is about to happen. 2023. Soon after Stella Darnell begins her holiday at Yew Tree House, a skeleton is found in a pillbox at the bottom of the garden. The bullet hole in the skull tells her that the person was murdered. This triggers the unravelling of a mystery eighty years in the making. Soon, Stella will learn that Adelaide was right to worry – the fighting might have been happening abroad, but the true enemy was always much closer to home... The new must-read psychological procedural in the Detective's Daughter series from critically acclaimed author, Lesley Thomson, for fans of Elly Griffiths, Val McDermid and Mari Hannah. Praise for The Detective's Daughter series: 'Cunningly plotted.' Mick Herron 'One of the most original characters in British crime fiction.' Sunday Times 'In the best traditions of the classic whodunnit, this is Midsomer Murders for grown-ups.' Sunday Express

'Lesley Thomson gets better and better' Ian Rankin. When Freddy Power was eighteen, her father threw her out. Her sin had been to fall in love with a woman. Freddy waited for two decades to be invited back into the family. The summons never came. But now, in the wake of her parents' death, Freddy feels the call of home like a siren's song. The ferry from France emerging out of the mist. Fisherman unloading trawlers down at the harbour. Her childhood friends, Mags and Toni, walking on the cliffs at sunset. Yet when she arrives in Newhaven, she finds that time has not stood still. After twenty-two years of silence, her brothers exclude her, and Mags and Toni feel like strangers. But then Mags goes missing, and old secrets - and old passions - are reignited. Freddy is determined to lead the hunt for the woman who was her first love. Even if it means confronting the past, and facing up to the truth about her family. Reviews for Death of a Mermaid: 'Catholic guilt, monstrous hypocrisy and all kinds of fishy business are explored in an atmosphere of creeping dread' The Times. 'A truly brilliant book, full of atmosphere and a creeping sense of menace. Lesley Thomson lures you in with meticulously drawn characters and a matchless sense of place, and then you are caught in the jaws of a remorseless thriller' Elly Griffiths. 'A strong sense of place, wonderfully woven with a cast of memorable characters' Mari Hannah. 'Death of a Mermaid is a tense, beautifully written novel, with characters so well-crafted you expect them to walk off the page' Rachael Blok. 'A powerful tale of dark secrets that fester in a small seaside town' William Shaw.

The detective's daughter Stella Darnell connects a murder in Tewkesbury Abbey to a decades-old mystery in wartime London. From the number 1 bestselling author of The Detective's Daughter. London, 1940 A woman lies dead in a bombed-out house. It looks like she's another tragic casualty of the Blitz, until police pathologist Aleck Northcote proves she was strangled and placed at the scene. But Northcote himself has something to hide. And when his past catches up with him, he too is murdered. Tewkesbury, 2020 Beneath the vast stone arches of Tewkesbury Abbey, a man has been fatally stabbed. He is Roddy March, an investigative journalist for a podcast series uncovering miscarriages of justice. He was looking into the murder of police pathologist Dr Aleck Northcote - and was certain he had uncovered Northcote's real killer. Stella Darnell used to run a detective agency alongside her cleaning business. She's moved to Tewkesbury to escape from death, not to court it - but Roddy died in her arms, and Stella is someone impelled to root out evil when she finds it. Now she is determined to hunt down Roddy's killer - but then she finds another body...

Cleaner-turned-detective Stella Darnell connects a murder in Tewkesbury Abbey to a decades-old mystery in wartime London. From the number 1 bestselling author of The Detective's Daughter. London, 1940 A woman lies dead in a bombed-out house. It looks like she's another tragic casualty of the Blitz, until police pathologist Aleck Northcote proves she was strangled and placed at the scene. But Northcote himself has something to hide. And when his past catches up with him, he too is murdered. Tewkesbury, 2020 Beneath the vast stone arches of Tewkesbury Abbey, a man has been fatally stabbed. He is Roddy March, an investigative journalist for a podcast series uncovering miscarriages of justice. He was looking into the murder of police pathologist Dr Aleck Northcote - and was certain he had uncovered Northcote's real killer. Stella Darnell used to run a detective agency alongside her cleaning business. She's moved to Tewkesbury to escape from death, not to court it - but Roddy died in her arms and, Stella is someone impelled to root out evil when she finds it. Now she is determined to hunt down Roddy's killer - but then she finds another body...

From the number one bestseller of The Detective's Daughter.

For forty years, someone has got away with murder...

Forty years ago, seventeen-year-old Cassie Baker took a shortcut home from a small Cotswolds village, and was never seen again.

Twenty years later, Cotswolds police found Cassie's remains while searching for another missing teenager, Bryony Motson. Bryony's body was never found.

Now Stella Darnell, cleaner and private detective, has decided to find out what happened to Bryony. She knows her investigation will be dangerous. Because, for too long, someone has got away with murder. Someone who will do anything to keep it that way...

A haunted house, a broken family and a body that has never been found... January, 1987: Helen Honeysett, a young newlywed, sets off for an evening run from her Thames-side cottage. She never comes home. January, 2016: Twenty-nine years later, Helen's body has never been found. Her husband asks private detective Stella Darnell to find out what happened all those years ago. But how can you hunt a killer whose trail has long gone cold?

Seven cryptic photographs. A decades-old case. Can one woman find a killer? Before his death, Terry Darnell was a famous detective. His daughter Stella, a cleaner, has inherited his methodical mind. She has also inherited a strange case file: seven photographs of empty streets. Why did her father keep them for so many years? One photo dates from 1966, to a day when a young girl witnessed something that would haunt her forever. As Stella scrubs away at the truth, the events of that day begin to haunt her too... THE DETECTIVE'S DAUGHTER SERIES: The Detective's Daughter. Ghost Girl. The Detective's Secret. The House With No Rooms. The Dog Walker.

A woman lies dead on the ground. A girl watches from the shadows. What did she really see? The summer of 1976 was the hottest in living memory. A lost little girl, dizzied by the head, stumbled upon a deserted museum. She thought she saw a woman lying dead on the ground. But when she opened her eyes, the woman had gone. Forty years later, cleaner and detective Stella Darnell is investigating a suspected murder in the Botanical Gardens at Kew. Working methodically, stain by stain, she is drawn into an obsessive world, and towards a killer who has never been caught...

A spellbinding mystery of obsession and guilt, this is also the poignant story of what happens to those left behind when a child vanishes without trace. It is the summer of 1968, the day Senator Robert Kennedy is shot. Two nine-year-old girls are playing hide and seek in the ruins of a deserted village. Alice has discovered a secret about Eleanor Ramsay's mother, and is taunting the other girl. When it is Eleanor's turn to hide, Alice disappears. Years later, an extraordinary turn of events opens up shocking truths for the Ramsay family and all who knew the missing girl.

As winter closes its grip on snow-bound London, a cleaner determines to solve the case that her detective father never could. A Kindle number one bestseller. It was the murder that shocked the nation. Kate Rokesmith, a young mother, walked to the banks of the Thames with her three-year-old son. She never came home. For three decades, the case file has lain, unsolved, in the corner of an attic. Until the detective's daughter, Stella Darnell, starts to clear out her father's house after his death... Reviews for The Detective's Daughter: 'A haunting novel about loss and reconciliation, driven by a simple but clever plot' Sunday Times 'This book has a clever mystery plot - but its excellence is in the characters, all credible and memorable, and in its setting in a real West London street, exactly described' Literary Review 'A thoughtful, well-observed story ... It reminded me of Kate Atkinson' Scott Pack 'A cerebral thriller ... Evokes chills from more than just the frigid winter nights' Forward Reviews Magazine 'Lesley Thomson gets better and better' Ian Rankin

A spellbinding mystery of obsession and guilt, this is also the poignant story of what happens to those left behind when a child vanishes without trace. It is the summer of 1968, the day Senator Robert Kennedy is shot. Two nine-year-old girls are playing hide and seek in the ruins of a deserted village. Alice has discovered a secret about Eleanor Ramsay's mother, and is taunting the other girl. When it is Eleanor's turn to hide, Alice disappears. Years later, an extraordinary turn of events opens up shocking truths for the Ramsay family and all who knew the missing girl.

A SUNDAY TIMES BEST CRIME BOOK OF 2022 In a grand old mansion in the middle of the Sussex countryside, seven people have seen more than they should... The new chilling thriller from Lesley Thomson. James Ritchie was looking forward to a boys' day out with his son, Wilbur - even if he was a little late picking him up from the home of his ex-wife, Anna. Annoyed by his late arrival, and competing for their son's attention, Anna leaves the two of them to their day with the promise of a roast dinner when Wilbur returns. But Anna will never see her family again. That afternoon, James and Wilbur are found dead, the victims of a double stabbing on the beach. DI Toni Kemp, of Sussex police, must unravel a case which has shocked the county to its core. What she discovers will lead her to Blacklock House, a grand country mansion, long ago converted into flats. Here in the middle of nowhere, where a peacock struts the lawn, and a fountain plays intermittently, seven long-term residents have seen more than they should. But this is a community who are good at keeping secrets... 'Like the best of Barbara Vine and Agatha Christie crossed with the unique Lesley Thomson brilliance.' Elly Griffiths 'This modern take on the country-house mystery shocks from the off.' The Times 'Colourful characters and devious plotting.' Ian Rankin 'Electrifying, gritty.' Woman's Own

'A class above' IAN RANKIN. Forty years ago, in the dark of the playground, two children's lives were changed for ever. The case of six-year-old Sarah Ferris, killed in an empty playground, haunted Hammersmith police for decades. Not just because the victim would never see her seventh birthday. But because solving the case meant arresting another child on suspicion of Sarah's murder. Now, forty years later, cleaner-turned-detective Stella Darnell has unearthed new information about Sarah and her killer. As Stella pieces together the truth about what happened all those years ago, she is drawn into a story of jealousy, betrayal and the end of innocence. A story that has not yet reached its end... 'One of the most original characters in British crime fiction' SUNDAY TIMES. 'Thomson creates a rich and sinister world that is utterly unique ... Gloriously well-written' WILLIAM SHAW.