Showing results by author "Stephen Leather" in All Categories

The Wentworth Asylum, once used to house thousands of people, now lies abandoned. People insist it is inhabited by an ex-inmate who now chops down those who enter with her ax. After two teenagers turn up dead in the asylum, a television crew head to the asylum in the hopes of catching footage of the haunting. And to ensure their safety, Jack Nightingale is sent with them. But is it merely an ax-wielding murderer which awaits them?

Business has been slow for Jack Nightingale, but an appointment with a Catholic priest leads to an interesting new case. Eleven-year-old Christine Warren has been showing worrying signs of developing an alternate personality, who goes by the name of Lydia. It's up to Nightingale to find out whether she's been possessed, or if there's something more to Lydia....

South London gangster Perry Smith doesn’t scare easily, but when four of his associates are brutally ripped apart by a demon called Amy, he calls in Jack Nightingale. Nightingale thinks it’s a wind-up - the gang contacted the demon via an iPad app whilst on holiday. But before he knows it, he’s on his way to Fuengirola, with his assistant, Jenny McLean, to send Amy back to where she came from.

Tarot cards predict the future, right? Trust Jack Nightingale to find a pack that can change that future...and of course he 'borrows' a card and signs a Latin contract he can’t read in his own blood. Can Jack and his longtime assistant Jenny McLean thwart the cards and destroy his and dozens of other contracts? Would anyone put money on a demon triumphing when Nightingale is on a mission?

Vicky Lewis is a force to be reckoned with: not yet 30 and already Crew Manager in the London Fire Brigade, she's destined for great things. But when she enters a burning building to save a man's life and leaves it with catastrophic injuries, all that changes. She's shunted over to the Fire Investigation Unit, where she's forced to team up with cantankerous veteran Des Farmer, aka the Grouch.

Carolyn Castle is one of the most famous faces in the UK - a soap opera star known to millions. But when she witnesses a gangland killing, she has to ask herself if her fame could be the death of her. The killer is charismatic gangster Warwick Richards. A man more than capable of killing again to protect his secret. But does he know that Carolyn saw him commit murder?

"Spider Shepherd squatted on his heels outside his tent, drinking his first brew of the day from a battered mug as he watch the wind stirring dust devils from the dirt floor of the compound." When an inexperienced officer sends out innocent paratroopers to be betrayed by a surrendered Taliban sniper, Spider Shepherd is the man chosen to clean up the mess. With his old friends Jock and Geordie to help, along with SAS hopeful Lex, can they take their revenge? Or are they just putting themselves in the kill zone?

"The bosun explained that E & E was so important to the regiment that every badged soldier and officer must do an E & E every couple of years.... It was the ultimate test: You were good, or you were caught." The final hurdle in the SAS selection process - the E & E exercise. The aim is to evade capture and to resist interrogation when finally caught. So when Spider Shepherd is captured, he doesn’t immediately think anything is wrong.

Detective Jack Nightingale fights his battles in the shadows, in the grey areas where demons and monsters seek their prey. In this collection of nine short stories, Nightingale matches wits against demons from Hell, monsters created by humans, and Satanists who have done their own private deals with the devil.

As a psychologist for the Los Angeles police department, Jamie Beaverbrook has seen it all. Or so he thinks until the night a full moon brings out the crazies, including Terry Ferriman. Trouble is, Terry isn’t exactly crazy. But how else can the police explain finding the girl in an alley off Sunset, crouched over a man’s lifeless body, her mouth smeared with blood? After an interview that is unsettling at best, the good doctor decides to dig deeper into Terry’s story. What he discovers is that a world he previously imagined to exist only in horror movies is actually flourishing in the shadows of L.A. Vampires are real....

Somewhere along Route 74, Jack Nightingale takes a wrong turn, ending up at a nightmarish convention for serial killers. When things start getting out of hand, Nightingale has to step in to stop more blood being shed.

"Dan 'Spider' Shepherd shifted position slightly, trying to ease the pressure from the rocks beneath him and the ammo belt pressing into his chest. He lay prone, scanning the terrain through his sniper scope." After the Taliban unleash an attack on a military checkpoint, Spider Shepherd suspects foul play. He was too late to stop the attack, but he’s determined to find out how they knew where to strike. With the help of a local boy named Karim, he decides to investigate.

"We’re professional soldiers,” said Shepherd. “We fight for queen and country. There’s a hell of a difference between us and mercenaries.” Spider Shepherd and the rest of his men are called upon to stop a bunch of South African mercenaries who have disobeyed orders and plundered diamond fields in Sierra Leone from reaching the Liberian border.

A dead body in the prayer hall of a mosque isn't the best start to the day for anyone. But for Detective Inspector Harold Porter it's all in a day's work. The problem is that DI Porter has been given a new partner - a young Muslim detective by the name of Mohammed Salim Nasri. Nasri and Porter are both British and both cops, but they look at the world - and the case - from completely different viewpoints. And when that case includes Islamic terrorists and knife-wielding fanatics that can only mean problems.

"So if you can’t find a helicopter anywhere in Sierra Leone for a lift-out, you’d better order up four body bags instead.” Spider Shepherd and his SAS mates are stranded, low on rations and ammunition, waiting for a ride to Freetown before they are overrun by rebels. Upon their return to the capital, they are pressed into service by MI6, tasked with destroying a rebel arms dump. But to do this, they must wade through infested swamps and face rebel soldiers. Many of the soldiers are boys.

"So the men you will train as my bodyguards will be selected not on the basis of their physical fitness but purely on their loyalty to me. The men outside are all Bedu, of my own tribe. Their loyalty to me is absolute and unquestioning.” Spider Shepherd and his team are sent to the Middle East to train tribesmen as bodyguards for the ruling sheikh. He is slowly trying to modernise, but his rule is being threatened by his cousin, whose father was deposed in a bloodless coup.

Supernatural detective Jack Nightingale is called in to investigate when an old man appears to have been hit by a train on an abandoned railway line. But there hasn't been a train there in more than 50 years. So what killed the old man? As Nightingale investigates, he realises that there are dark forces at work and his own life is on the line.

Hong Kong: The British administration is preparing to hand the capitalist colony back to communist China with the minimum of fuss. But Colonel Joel Tyler has other plans for the British Colony, plans which involve four Vietnam War veterans and a spectacular mission, making use of their unique skills. Vietnam was the one thing the four men had in common before Tyler moulded them into a team capable of pulling off a sensational robbery. But while the vets are preparing to take Hong Kong by storm, their paymaster, Anthony Chung, puts the final touches on an audacious betrayal.

Premier League footballer Gabe Savage is on the way to one of the most important matches of his life when he gets a phone call from his wife. She has been kidnapped along with their young son. And the message from her captors is brutal: 'If your team wins, your family dies.' With the kickoff only hours away, there is only one person Gabe can turn to - his brother, Ray, a vicious London gangster. But a dark family secret means that he hasn't spoken to Ray for years. Can Ray help? And will he?

From best-selling writer Stephen Leather comes an utterly addictive all-action thriller in which a huge terrorist threat to the capital can only be stopped by one man. From the best-selling author of the Spider Shepherd and Jack Nightingale series comes First Response, the utterly addictive new thriller by Stephen Leather. London is under siege. Nine men in suicide vests primed to explode hold hostages in nine different locations around the city, and are ready to die for their cause.