Originally published: London: Constable, 1997.

Eight years ago David Beck was knocked unconscious and left for dead, and his wife Elizabeth was kidnapped and murdered. Dr Beck re-lived the horror of what happened that day every day of his life. Then one afternoon, he receives an anonymous email telling him to log on to a certain website. The screen opens on to a web cam - and it is Elizabeth's image he sees. As Beck tries to find out if Elizabeth is truly alive, and what really happened the night she disappeared, the FBI are trying to pin Elizabeth's murder on him. And everyone he turns to seems to end up dead...

Early on a cold Somerset morning, ten year old Alesha Daniels is reported missing by her father, a violent alcoholic. Her mother, a known drug addict, is found unconscious, but it's her mother's boyfriend the police are keen to trace. As the hunt for Alesha gathers pace, a second local girl is taken, plunging another family into the depths of despair. Cutting short his holiday, DI Nick Dixon races home to join the Major Investigation Team, but no sooner has he identified a network of local suspects than they begin to show up dead. At odds with his superiors, Dixon is convinced the child abductions are anything but random, but nobody is prepared for the investigation to lead quite so close to home. Can Dixon and his team crack the case before all the suspects are silenced? And will he find the missing girls before it's too late?

Thea Slocombe, née Osborne, is trying to settle into normal, domestic life with Drew and his two children in Broad Campden. But in the course of an attempt to make friends locally, she finds the body of a close neighbour and suddenly feels much less settled and secure. No longer a house-sitter, she has no choice but to stay in the village and deal with whatever happens next. And doing this risks damage to her marriage.

Crime

Family

There are some things which even the closest friendship cannot survive . . . Welcome Home is an enthralling and moving drama from bestselling author Margaret Dickinson, set during the Second World War. Neighbours Edie Kelsey and Lil Horton have been friends for over twenty years, sharing the joys and sorrows of a tough life as the wives of fishermen in Grimsby. So it was no surprise that their children were close and that Edie's son, Frank, and Lil's daughter, Irene, would fall in love and marry at a young age. But the declaration of war in 1939 changed everything. Frank went off to fight, and Irene and baby, Tommy, along with Edie's youngest son are sent to the countryside for safety. With Edie's husband, Archie, fishing the dangerous waters in the North Sea and daughter Beth in London doing 'important war work', Edie's family is torn apart. Friendship sustains Edie and Lil, but tragedy follows and there's also concern that Beth seems to have disappeared. But it is Irene's return, during the VE day celebrations, that sends shock waves through the family and threatens to tear Edie and Lil's friendship apart forever.

It is 1936. Polly's guardian angel has to work overtime when her large family is forced to move from the countryside they love into central Liverpool. Money is desperately short and with her mother working and her father sick, Polly is easily led astray by a new pal, the handsome, idly Sunny Anderson. But soon war looms, and Sunny joins the navy to train as a signaller. After the horrors of the May vlitz, Polly too decides she wants to help her country and goes into the WRNS. She hears that an old pal, Tad Donoghue from the Dublin slums, is now in the Royal Air Force. Tad hopes to be reunited with his Polly, but she is in love with Sunny...isn't she?

JACK REACHER NEVER LOOKS BACK . . . UNTIL NOW. The most hotly anticipated paperback thriller of the year follows our hero Jack Reacher on a quest into his father's past, and climaxes in the most blood-curdling ticking time bomb of an adventure yet. The present can be tense . . . A young couple trying to get to New York City are stranded at a lonely motel in the middle of nowhere. Before long they're trapped in an ominous game of life and death. But the past can be worse . . . Meanwhile, Jack Reacher sets out on an epic road trip across America. He doesn't get far. Deep in the New England woods, he sees a sign to a place he has never been - the town where his father was born. But when he arrives he is told no one named Reacher ever lived there. Now he wonders: who's lying? As the tension ratchets up and these two stories begin to entwine, the stakes have never been higher for Reacher. That's for damn sure.

It’s 1915 and sixteen-year-old Australian, Flora Wentworth, is visiting Cairo with her archaeologist father. She watches with growing alarm as first a trickle and then a flood of wounded soldiers are shipped into the city from Gallipoli. Flora’s comfortable life is turned upside down when a hospital visit thrusts her into the realities of World War 1. She is soon transporting injured soldiers and helping out exhausted nurses – managing to fall in love along the way. As Flora battles to save lives and find her own, a tragic misunderstanding changes everything . . .