A Kill Line

Single mother Kelly O'Connor has come to New Orleans in search of a fresh start for herself and her twelve-year-old son, Brandon. But trouble is brewing behind the scenes for this dark-eyed beauty-for unbeknownst to Kelly, her new boss is none other than Saul Clubman, a notorious gangster who controls the city's massive drug trade. Oil tycoon Reid Matthews is also looking for a new start. Tired of the ugliness of the world, he wants nothing more than to retire to the peacefulness of the Comanchería, his ranch in the Texas Hill Country. But when Reid discovers that his company, Tidal Wave Drilling, has ties to Clubman and his illegal operations, he finds himself drawn into a mystery with violent consequences. When Reid saves Kelley and her son from Clubman's hitman and takes them to the Comanchería, Clubman follows with an army of thugs and killers. Will Reid be able to protect his home and loved ones from the violent Clubman?

The New York Times bestselling author of the brilliantly inventive The Word Is Murder and The Sentence Is Death returns with his third literary whodunit featuring intrepid detectives Hawthorne and Horowitz. When Ex-Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, author Anthony Horowitz, are invited to an exclusive literary festival on Alderney, an idyllic island off the south coast of England, they don’t expect to find themselves in the middle of murder investigation—or to be trapped with a cold-blooded killer in a remote place with a murky, haunted past. Arriving on Alderney, Hawthorne and Horowitz soon meet the festival’s other guests—an eccentric gathering that includes a bestselling children’s author, a French poet, a TV chef turned cookbook author, a blind psychic, and a war historian—along with a group of ornery locals embroiled in an escalating feud over a disruptive power line. When a local grandee is found dead under mysterious circumstances, Hawthorne and Horowitz become embroiled in the case. The island is locked down, no one is allowed on or off, and it soon becomes horribly clear that a murderer lurks in their midst. But who? Both a brilliant satire on the world of books and writers and an immensely enjoyable locked-room mystery, A Line to Kill is a triumph—a riddle of a story full of brilliant misdirection, beautifully set-out clues, and diabolically clever denouements.

The present book brings together perspectives from different disciplinary fields to examine the significant legal, moral and political issues which arise in relation to the use of lethal force in both domestic and international law. These issues have particular salience in the counter terrorism context following 9/11 (which brought with it the spectre of shooting down hijacked airplanes) and the use of force in Operation Kratos that led to the tragic shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. Concerns about the use of excessive force, however, are not confined to the terrorist situation. The essays in this collection examine how the state sanctions the use of lethal force in varied ways: through the doctrines of public and private self-defence and the development of legislation and case law that excuses or justifies the use of lethal force in the course of executing an arrest, preventing crime or disorder or protecting private property. An important theme is how the domestic and international legal orders intersect and continually influence one another. While legal approaches to the use of lethal force share common features, the context within which force is deployed varies greatly. Key issues explored in this volume are the extent to which domestic and international law authorise pre-emptive use of force, and how necessity and reasonableness are legally constructed in this context.

New York Times–bestselling author Anthony Horowitz and eccentric detective Daniel Hawthorne team up again in a new mystery—the sequel to the brilliantly inventive The Word Is Murder—to delve deep into the killing of a high-profile divorce lawyer and the death, only a day earlier, of his one-time friend “You shouldn’t be here. It’s too late . . . ” Heard over the phone, these are the last recorded words of successful celebrity-divorce lawyer Richard Pryce, found bludgeoned to death with a bottle of wine—a 1982 Château Lafite worth £2,000, to be precise—in his bachelor pad. Odd, considering Pryce didn’t drink. Why this bottle? And why those words? And why was a three-digit number painted on his wall? And, most important, which of the victim’s many, many enemies did the deed? Baffled, the police are forced to bring in private investigator Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, the author Anthony, who’s getting rather good at this murder investigation business. But as Hawthorne takes on the case with characteristic relish, it becomes clear that he, too, has secrets to hide. As our reluctant narrator becomes ever more embroiled in the case, he realizes that these secrets must be exposed—even at the risk of death . . .

‘I don’t like killing, but I’m good at it. Murder isn’t so bad from a distance, just shapes popping up in my scope. Close-up work though – a garrotte around a target’s neck or a knife in their heart – it’s not for me. Too much empathy, that’s my problem. Usually. But not today. Today is different . . . ‘ The year is 1955 and something is very wrong with the world. It is fourteen years since Churchill died and the Second World War ended. In occupied Europe, Britain fights a cold war against a nuclear-armed Nazi Germany. In Berlin the Gestapo is on the trail of a beautiful young resistance fighter, and the head of the SS is plotting to dispose of an ailing Adolf Hitler and restart the war against Britain and her empire. Meanwhile, in a secret bunker hidden deep beneath the German countryside, scientists are experimenting with a force far beyond their understanding. Into this arena steps a nameless British assassin, on the run from a sinister cabal within his own government, and planning a private war against the Nazis. And now the fate of the world rests on a single kill in the morning . . .

Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

**A Guardian 'Best Thriller of the Year!'** The New York Times bestselling author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty brilliantly reinvents the classic crime novel once again with this clever and inventive mystery starring a fictional version of the author himself as the Watson to a modern-day Holmes, investigating a case involving buried secrets, murder, and a trail of bloody clues. A woman crosses a London street. It is just after 11am on a bright spring morning, and she is going into a funeral parlor to plan her own service. Six hours later the woman is dead, strangled with a crimson curtain cord in her own home. Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric man as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. And Hawthorne has a partner, the celebrated novelist Anthony Horowitz, curious about the case and looking for new material. As brusque, impatient, and annoying as Hawthorne can be, Horowitz—a seasoned hand when it comes to crime stories—suspects the detective may be on to something, and is irresistibly drawn into the mystery. But as the case unfolds, Horowitz realizes he’s at the center of a story he can’t control . . . and that his brilliant partner may be hiding dark and mysterious secrets of his own. A masterful and tricky mystery which plays games at many levels, The Word Is Murder is Anthony Horowitz at his very best.