Blood Oath

Richard Knox has served his time, so why shouldn’t he be allowed to live wherever he wants? Yes, in the past he was a violent rapist, but he has seen the error of his ways, found God, and wants to leave his dark past in Newcastle behind him and make a new start?or so he says. Detective Sergeant Logan McRae isn’t exactly thrilled to be part of the team helping Knox settle into his new Aberdeen home, and he’s even less thrilled to be stuck with DSI Danby, the man who put Knox behind bars for 10 years, supposedly here to “keep an eye on things.” Only things are about to go very, very wrong. Edinburgh gangster Malk the Knife wants a slice of the development boom Donald Trump’s golf course is bringing to the Granite City, whether local crime lord Wee Hamish Mowat likes it or not, while three heavies from Newcastle want a “quiet word” with DSI Danby about a missing mob accountant, and Richard Knox’s dark past isn’t done with him yet.

‘Safety and security are commodities you can sell in return for excitement, but you can never buy them back.’
Yvonne Carmichael is a geneticist, a scientist renowned in her field but one day, she makes the most irrational of decisions. While she is giving evidence to a Select Committee at the Houses of Parliament, she meets a man and has sex with him in the secluded Chapel in the Crypt beneath the Great Hall of Westminster. It’s the beginning of a reckless liaison, but there is more to her lover than is at first apparent – as Yvonne discovers when the affair spins out of control and leads inexorably to violence.

Apple Tree Yard is about a woman who makes one rash choice that ends up putting her on trial at the Old Bailey for the most serious of crimes. Like the highly acclaimed Whatever You Love, it is part literary investigation of personal morality, part psychological thriller. Both a courtroom drama and an exploration of the values we live by, it is the gripping seventh novel from an author who has been acclaimed as a ‘courageous writer, willing to explore deeper territory with each book’ (Independent) and ‘terrifically compelling’ (Daily Mail)

Matthew Mercer and Harris Sandler are best friends who have plum jobs as senior staffers to well-respected congressmen. But after a decade in Washington, idealism has faded to disillusionment, and they’re bored. Then one of them finds out about the clandestine Zero Game. It starts out as good fun-a simple wager between friends. But when someone close to them ends up dead, Harris and Matthew realize the game is far more sinister than they ever imagined-and that they’re about to be the game’s next victims. On the run, they turn to the only person they can trust: a 16-year-old Senate page who can move around the Capitol undetected. As a ruthless killer creeps closer, this idealistic page not only holds the key to saving their lives, but is also determined to redeem them in the process. Come play The Zero Game-you can bet your life on it.