THE MOMENT BEFORE IMPACT
A terrible car accident - or calculated murder?
An evening out for five students ends in tragedy, with two dead and one critically injured. Nicci Waldock survives, but her life is left in tatters. Years later, a sighting of Jack Bailey, the brother of her dead friend, leaves her with a shocking realisation about the night of the accident.
Helped by former journalist Celia Henry, Nicci sets out to learn the truth about what really happened, and discovers a series of lies and dangerous secrets that have distorted everything she thinks she knows.
In uncovering the tangled truth of what happened that night three years ago, Nicci must decide who she can trust, and who is about to kill again. And she realises that everything can be saved or lost in the moment before impact.
"Alison Bruce has long been one of the most adroit crime fiction practitioners in the U.K. The Moment Before Impact is... her most accomplished outing yet."
Barry Forshaw (Financial Times)
"This will undoubtedly be in my Top 5 books of the year. Absolutely Extraordinary."
M.W. Craven (Washington Poe Series)
"Alison Bruce always delivers. Her latest is tense, twisty, terrific."
Ian Rankin (The Rebus Series)
"A powerful and absorbing story that stayed with me long after I'd finished reading. A writer at the top of her game."
Elly Griffiths (The Ruth Galloway Series, The Postscript Murders)
"Unpredictable, challenging and compelling."
Sophie Hannah (Little Face, The New Hercule Poirot Mysteries)
I DID IT FOR US
From the first time I saw them together I knew it felt wrong. I didn't like the way he touched her or the self-conscious way he played with Molly and Luke. Joanne saw none of it of course. So I did it to prove to her that she was wrong. I did it for us.
Emily's instincts tell her that best friend Joanne's new boyfriend is bad news. Emily fears for Joanne. Fears for Joanne's children. But Joanne won't listen because she's in love. So Emily watches, and waits . . . and then she makes a choice.
But Emily has a past, and secrets too. And is she really as good a friend to Joanne as she claims?
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'Unpredictable, challenging and compelling' - Sophie Hannah
THE SIREN
All it took was one small item on the regional news for Kimberly Guyver and Rachel Golinski to know that their old life was catching up with them. They wondered how they'd been naive enough to think it wouldn't. They hoped they still had a chance to leave it behind - just one more time - but within hours, Rachel's home is burning and Kimberly's young son, Riley, is missing.
DC Goodhew begins to sift through their lives, and starts to uncover an unsettling picture of deceit, murder and accelerating danger.
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‘Bruce's detailed, almost documentary prose style demonstrates her commitment to credible storytelling’ (reviewingtheevidence.com)
THE SILENCE
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Joey McCarthy is stabbed to death. Charlotte Stone's terminally ill mother dies. Within weeks, two of her teenage friends commit suicide. Her father and brother race towards self-destruction.
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With her home life disintegrating, Charlotte realises that her own personal nightmare may not be over.
When DC Gary Goodhew finds the body of another suicide victim he is forced to recall some deeply buried memories of an earlier death; memories which lead him to Charlotte Stone.
They both begin to wonder if the tragedies are linked to a bigger picture. And if so, who will be the next victim?
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"Bruce's superior prose elevates this above many other contemporary British police procedurals" Publishers Weekly
THE PROMISE
The promise seemed simple. The scars would last a lifetime.
In a single night, Kyle Phipps's relationship is over, he is denied access to his young son and everything important is at risk. His thoughts stumble between fear and revenge. Kyle Phipps has a choice to make.
Meanwhile, DC Gary Goodhew finds himself returning to work when a badly beaten body of a homeless man is found on Market Hill. Having known the homeless man for several years Goodhew feels compelled to be part of the investigation - but routine lines of enquiry soon take a dark and unexpected turn.
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'As always, Bruce produces a rewarding read' (The Times)
BILLINGTON, VICTORIAN EXECUTIONER
Billington is a non-fiction book that tells the story of the Billington family of Victorian executioners.
James Billington had been single-minded in his determination to secure the post of executioner for London and the Home Counties. But did he feel he was a benefit to society and justice, or were his reasons for wanting this position more personal?
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Three of his sons, Thomas, William and John, followed in his footsteps and together the family were responsible for 235 executions in Great Britain between 1884 and 1905.
CAMBRIDGE BLUE
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DC Gary Goodhew is the first on the scene when the body of Lorna Spence is discovered on Midsummer Common, and, for the first time in his career, he is given the chance to work on a murder investigation.
Another brutal murder and Goodhew knows it is time to use his own initiative to flush out the killer, even though it means risking his job and discovering the truth about the one person he hopes will be innocent.
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'Bruce is doing for Cambridge what Colin Dexter did for Oxford with Inspector Morse' Daily Mail
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‘An exciting debut from a very promising new talent’ Paul Johnston
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THE CALLING
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Kaye Whiting isn't dead, or physically injured. But she is alone and very scared.
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Fifty miles away in Cambridge town centre a deeply disturbed young woman is standing by a payphone. She knows she often feels compelled to do harmful things and is driven by a desire to make a call.
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DC Gary Goodhew is one of the detectives assigned to find Kaye and when her body is discovered the only clue to the potential murderer is a woman's voice on his answerphone saying, 'Kaye isn't the first and won't be the last.
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'DC Gary Goodhew could just develop into a worthy succesor to those venerables of the police procedural now drawing their pensions.' Tribune
THE BACKS
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A fresh start in a place you hate. Even tougher with a killer watching...
Jane Osborne left Cambridge and vowed she'd never return. An unexpected twist of fortune results in DC Goodhew bringing her back to the remnants of her old life and a confrontation with the man who killed her sister.
Meanwhile a burning car on the outskirts of Cambridge leads to the discovery of the body of its owner, Paul Marshall. There seems nothing to connect it to either a recent assault, or to Jane Osborne, until a shocking discovery rips Goodhew's investigation apart.
CAMBRIDGE BLACK
A cold case waits to be solved . . . and a killer waits in the wings.
Amy was seven years old when her father was arrested for murder. It cast a shadow over her life until, twenty-two years later, new evidence suggests he was innocent and Amy sets out to clear his name.
Amy is not the only one troubled by the past. DC Gary Goodhew is haunted by the day his grandfather was murdered and is determined to find his killer.
But, right now, someone is about to die. Someone who has secrets and who once kept quiet but is now living on borrowed time. Someone who will be murdered because disturbing the past has woken a killer.
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'The tension is ratcheted up to the bitter end!’ Cath Staincliffe
CAMBRIDGESHIRE MURDERS
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Cambridgeshire Murders is a non-fiction book that covers the county's most fascinating but least-known crimes, as well as famous murders that gripped not just Cambridgeshire but the whole nation.
From the mysterious barn fire at Burwell that killed seventy-six people to the murder of a fifteen-year-old drummer boy whose ghost haunted the killer and drove him to confess, this is a collection of the county's most dramatic and interesting criminal cases.