Lesley Thomson

THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER. Detective Darnell died before he closed the case. Can his daughter solve it thirty years later? It was the murder that shocked the nation. Kate Rokesmith, a young mother, went to the river 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, a cleaner who loves restoring order, starts to clear out her father's house after his death... THE DETECTIVE'S DAUGHTER SERIES: The Detective's Daughter. Ghost Girl. The Detective's Secret. The House With No Rooms. The Dog Walker.

The Detective's Daughter

Companion

Playground Murders

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... THE DETECTIVE'S DAUGHTER SERIES: The Detective's Daughter. Ghost Girl. The Detective's Secret. The House With No Rooms. The Dog Walker. What people are saying about THE HOUSE WITH NO ROOMS: 'I'd give it 6 stars if it were possible' 'An unsettling, accomplished book by a writer at the top of her game' 'There is a sense of menace, suspense and sadness all interspersed with pockets of humour. So cleverly written' 'Can't put it down, the perfect present'

The House With No Rooms

Cleaner-turned-detective Stella Darnell connects a murder in Tewkesbury Abbey to a decades-old mystery in wartime London.

The Distant Dead

Freddy left her childhood home 22 years ago and swore never to return. But now her parents are dead, and she's back in her hometown to help her brothers manage the family fishmonger. Then one of her old school friends goes missing.

a page-turning and evocative thriller set on the coast

Death of a Mermaid

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 'Lesley Thomson at her considerable best - you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll never guess.' ELLY GRIFFITHS 'Always a treat reading Lesley Thomson.' IAN RANKIN EIGHTY YEARS OF SECRETS. 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. A BODY THAT REVEALS THEM ALL. 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. 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... A unique take on the traditional murder mystery from critically acclaimed author, Lesley Thomson, for fans of Elly Griffiths, Val McDermid and Mari Hannah. 'Fiercely unique, it's a whodunnit on an epic scale.' SUN 'Thomson has created a complex mystery full of psychological suspense, worthy of Barbara Vine. She makes you feel the presence of evil.' THE TIMES 'Elegant and spooky... A gripping demonstration that the past is never really the past.' MAIL ON SUNDAY Praise for The Detective's Daughter series: 'Cunningly plotted.' Mick Herron 'One of the most original characters in British crime fiction.' Sunday Times

The gripping, must-read psychological procedural set during WWII for fans of Elly Griffiths

The Mystery of Yew Tree House

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.

Kind of Vanishing

The crimes of the past echo in the present in a chilling new case for the Detective’s Daughter. The summer of 1976 was the hottest in living memory. In the Botanical Gardens at Kew, a lost little girl stumbled upon a deserted gallery. Dizzied by the heat, she thought she saw a woman lying dead on the ground. But when she opened her eyes, the woman had gone. Forty years later, Stella Darnell, the detective’s daughter, is investigating a chilling new case. What she uncovers will draw her into the obsessive world of botany, and towards an unsolved murder that has lain dormant for decades...

The summer of 1976 was the hottest in living memory. In the Botanical Gardens at Kew, a lost little girl stumbled upon a deserted gallery. Dizzied by the heat, she thought she saw a woman lying dead on the ground. But when she opened her eyes, the woman had gone. Forty years later, Stella Darnell, the detective's daughter, is investigating a chilling new case. What she uncovers will draw her into the obsessive world of botany, and towards an unsolved murder that has lain dormant for decades.

The House with No Rooms

The Death Chamber

A child disappears. A woman grows up harbouring a terrible secret. Her daughter wants to know the truth. It's the summer of 1968, the day Senator Robert Kennedy is shot. Two nine-year-old girls, Eleanor Ramsey and Alice Howland, are playing hide and seek in the ruins of The Mills, a deserted village on the Sussex coast. When it is Eleanor's turn to hide, Alice disappears. This is a spellbinding mystery of obsession and guilt. It is also the poignant story of what happens to those left behind when a child vanishes without trace.

A Kind of Vanishing

Stella Darnell, the Detective's Daughter, investigates a twenty-year-old unsolved murder.

The Detective's Secret

Distant Dead

Detective Darnell died before he closed the case. Can his daughter solve it thirty years later? It was the murder that shocked the nation. Kate Rokesmith, a young mother, went to the river 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, a cleaner who loves restoring order, starts to clear out her father's house after his death... THE DETECTIVE'S DAUGHTER SERIES: The Detective's Daughter. Ghost Girl. The Detective's Secret. The House With No Rooms. The Dog Walker.

Kate Rokesmith's decision to go to the river, that hot July morning of 1981, changed the lives of many. Her murder shocked the nation. Her husband, never charged, moved abroad under a cloud of suspicion. Her son, just four years old, grew up in a loveless boarding school. And Detective Inspector Darnell, working constantly to solve a case that was growing colder by the day, vowed to leave no stone unturned in the search for her killer.

The detective's daughter

Ghost Girl

Brand new from the #1 bestselling author of The Detective's Daughter. Stella and Jack must reawaken the secrets of the past in order to solve the mysteries of the present. January, 1987. In the depths of winter, only joggers and dog walkers brave the Thames towpath after dark. Helen Honeysett, a young newlywed, sets off for an evening run from her riverside cottage and disappears. Twenty-nine years later, Helen's body has never been found. Her husband has asked Stella Darnell, a private detective, and her side-kick Jack Harmon, to find out what happened all those years ago. But when the five households on that desolate stretch of towpath refuse to give up their secrets, Stella and Jack find themselves hunting a killer whose trail has long gone cold.

The Dog Walker

A complete e-Book boxset of the novels in Lesley Thomson's Detective's Daughter series. Stella Darnell, a cleaner, is the detective's daughter – she devotes herself to solving crimes that were once thought unsolvable, assisted by her friend Jack, a tube driver.

Lesley Thomson

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