Showing results by narrator "Angela Ness" in All Categories

There's a murderer on the loose on a storm swept island cut off from the Scottish mainland. It's down to Losers Club, a quirky weight loss group led by the intrepid Penny Moon, to catch the culprit.

Helen Carter has just landed her first case as a detective: a murder in an abandoned cinema. A mysterious clock-like symbol is drawn on the wall...in blood. Stranger still is what the killer left behind: the business card of an ex-cop. Since being promoted from WPC, Helen is having trouble making her mark in the male-dominated Edinburgh CID, working under Inspector Jack Craven. He’s not happy about having a woman on his team. Witnesses won’t talk to her; her colleagues don’t take her seriously.

From an irresponsible baron whose body is discovered beneath a silver birch tree, to a classic detective duo solving a historic case as the lights go out across Europe, and an exclusive Tony Hill and Carol Jordan story, the characters McDermid conjures are enigmatic and dangerous. These evocative, atmospheric tales will shock and delight.

It's almost Christmas and, in a ballroom just beyond the cobbled streets of Edinburgh's Old Town, the most important event of the year is taking place–the Foxtrot Oscars. Mrs Hubbard's whole senior citizenship has been building towards the moment she and her Douglas take the Over Sixties Swingers Cup. What could possibly go wrong, dearies?

When she wangles the job of skippering a Viking longship for a film, Cass Lynch thinks her big break has finally arrived - even though it means returning home to the Shetland Islands, which she ran away from as a teenager. Then the 'accidents' begin - and when a dead woman turns up on the boat's deck, Cass realises that she, her family and her past are under suspicion from the disturbingly shrewd Detective Inspector Macrae.

Isla's got the designer clothes and dream job as head stylist at an exclusive salon. She's been so single-minded in this quest that she's forgotten to have a life outside of it. When her aunt is in desperate need at her own salon, Isla heads to the remote island of Auchenmor to help. Finn is 35, and reality has just hit him hard. Now his best friends are about to have a baby, and everything is changing. When into his life walks Isla...

For almost two decades before her or execution at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was a prisoner. From her chambers, she wrote countless letters, many encrypted using complex ciphers to prevent her communications from being intercepted. In this way, she used language to exert her will and her influence, even while incarcerated. More than 400 years after Mary's death, the discovery of further encoded letters has led to renewed interest in the breadth of her encrypted correspondence in captivity.

When Alice Mistlethwaite is shipped off to boarding school in Scotland, it's nothing like she imagines. Run by the mysterious Major, there are no punishments, and the students are more likely to be taught about body painting or extreme survival than maths or English! Then Alice's dad goes missing, and she must run away to find him. Can she persuade her new friends to help? So begins an epic quest across wild Scottish highlands and islands, where the children will face danger and excitement at every turn.

With intolerance and inequality increasingly normalised by the day, it's more important than ever for women to share their experiences. We must hold the truth to account in the midst of sensationalism and international political turmoil. Nasty Women is a collection of essays, interviews and accounts on what it is to be a woman in the 21st century. People, politics, pressure, punk. Keep telling your stories.

Fit a sotter! The Major Investigations Team is on the island and Sergeant Wilson is a woman on a mission. She must solve the murder of the lighthouse keeper before the MIT eat all the good police biscuits. The DCI might have ordered her to do door-to-door enquiries, but she was la-la-la-not-listening at the time. Convinced that the answer lies in Beacon Brodie's mysterious past, she has instead conscripted the best of the Losers Club minions to discover the truth.

When Tuppence was born, I thought I was complete. Even when my marriage to Leon began to falter, at least I had my baby girl to look after. Adults have problems all the time, but children have a way of making them seem so insignificant. But then Tuppence goes missing and I realise how my life has been teetering on the brink for so long. Now it's just me and my husband again, the two of us and all our problems, and we're forced to work together as a team to get our beloved daughter back.

The islanders are up to the high doh. Scotland's popular reality game show, Game of Trust, is being filmed at Vik Castle and two of their own are taking part. Will the “Saviours” team help them survive, or will the “Murderers” team eliminate them first? When Sergeant Wilson receives intelligence that the international art thief, Shoogledy Jack, has infiltrated the game in order to steal Laird Hamish's valuable painting, she commandeers Losers Club to help her unmask the villain.

Detective Helen Carter is called to a crime scene: a barmaid, Tina French, has been strangled. Murdered on her way home from work to look after her sick son. Meanwhile, Moira McKenzie leaves her lover's townhouse and gets home to find her abusive husband, Reggie, washing blood from his hands. Later, in their garden shed, she finds incriminating photos, keepsakes and newspaper cuttings about old murder cases. When the police are called to their home, they find a pool of blood and a shattered glass table, but no sign of Moira.

When a visiting yachting couple go missing from the Shetland oil capital of Brae, sailing skipper Cass Lynch overcomes her mistrust of the land world to ask for help from her old adversary DI Gavin Macrae. He discovers a link to international art theft and warns Cass to steer clear - but when one of her sailing pupils goes missing, she goes alone to discover the secrets of the Neolithic tomb known locally as a ‘trowie mound’.... Ghosts, folklore and a nail-biting finale at the local show come together to make an atmospheric, fast-moving thriller.

Edinburgh student Rose MacLeod has been losing time for as long as she can remember. Days and weeks disappear, leaving terrifying gaps in her memory. Now she is seeing horrifying visions - waking nightmares of violence and death. Around the world young women like her are being killed, and Rose has a ringside seat. Mal Fergusson was raised to hunt demons across Scotland. With his father dead and his brother in a coma, he no longer believes in the grand battle between good and evil. Instead, he scrapes a living as an investigator and hit man for the supernatural Mafia of Edinburgh.

Tensions are rising in the run up to the island event of the year—the Vik Show. Not only has the secret recipe for Mrs Hay's peppermint slices been stolen, but someone has had the bad manners to leave a dead body in the distillery. And what does any of this have to do with the disappearance of Elsie the librarian? A perfect storm of past secrets and political conspiracy is brewing, and it's up to the local weight-loss group, Losers Club, to save the day.

As summer draws to a close in Shetland, indomitable sailor Cass Lynch is preparing to look after eccentric, outspoken Tamar, who is returning from hospital following a fall. Recuperation should involve a peaceful week in Tamar's isolated cottage, but on arriving at the house, Cass finds there has been a break-in...curiously, only some old papers are disturbed. Then the body of a man is found in a cove close-by, and while it looks to be an accident at first glance, suspicions are quickly aroused - and soon the police have a murder on their hands.

Oh dearie me, the remote Scottish island of Vik is overrun with treasure hunters, Hollywood has arrived to film the next big blockbuster and Mrs Hubbard has accidentally poisoned Police Scotland. What a stramash! When Colin the curator is found bludgeoned to death in the museum, it's down to the island weight-loss group, Losers Club, to investigate.

Vik Island weight-loss group Losers Club is on the mainland for the Police Scotland Bravery Awards and, even better, they're staying in a posh hotel. Diet sheets have been abandoned and Gordon's dungarees are straining at the seams, so what could be nicer than a gentle stroll up Bennachie to offset all those breakfast sausages? When the Losers stumble upon the body of a young woman on the hillside, they quickly become entangled in a web of deceit surrounding local road protestors.

Beneath the surface lie deadly secrets... DI Shona Oliver agreed to move to Dumfries with her ex-banker husband when their teenage daughter got in with a bad crowd in London. As a Glasgow native, she's back on home turf. Living on the shores of the Solway Firth allows Shona to continue as an RNLI volunteer, and a call out to recover a woman's body indicates foul play. Police in Cumbria take the case but links back to Scotland keep Shona's team involved. As they investigate, reports of people trafficking and a spate of thefts from local shops compete for attention with a large scale drug bust.