Новинки Дуга Джонстона

Drei Generationen von Frauen übernehmen das Familienunternehmen der Skelfs in Edinburgh. Ein Bestattungsinstitut mit angeschlossener Privatdetektei.

Die Leiche des ehemaligen Familienoberhaupts äschern sie auf seinen Wunsch hin illegal in ihrem Garten ein. Bald darauf entdecken seine Frau Dorothy, seine Tochter Jenny und seine Enkelin Hannah mysteriöse Zahlungen an eine andere Frau, die darauf hindeuten, dass Jim nicht der Ehemann war, für den sie ihn gehalten haben.

Damit nicht genug, verschwindet eine Freundin der Enkelin spurlos von der Universität. Die Polizei ist nicht an Ermittlungen interessiert, also beschließt Hannah, das selbst in die Hand zu nehmen, um festzustellen, dass sie ihre beste Freundin eigentlich gar nicht kannte.

Jenny, die Tochter und Journalistin, vervollständigt das Chaos, als sie bei einer Totenwache einen Fall übernimmt. Ein Ehebruch, aber wie bei allem anderen trügt auch hier der Schein.

Meet the Skelfs: well-known Edinburgh family, proprietors of a long-established funeral-home business, and private investigators. When patriarch Jim dies, it’s left to his wife Dorothy, daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah to take charge of both businesses, kicking off an unexpected series of events. Dorothy discovers mysterious payments to another woman, suggesting that Jim wasn’t the husband she thought he was. Hannah’s best friend Mel has vanished from university, and the simple adultery case that Jenny takes on leads to something stranger and far darker than any of them could have imagined. As the women struggle to come to terms with their grief, and the demands of the business threaten to overwhelm them, secrets from the past emerge, which change everything. A compelling, tense and shocking thriller and a darkly funny and warm portrait of a family in turmoil, A Dark Matter introduces a cast of unforgettable characters, marking the start of an addictive new series.

A pulsatingly tense, deeply moving and devastatingly dark psychological thriller from the Number One bestselling author of Fault Lines

‘A cracking story, great characters … it’s also about something and really addresses the “whys” of crime’ Mark Billingham

‘This may be Doug Johnstone’s best book yet. An unsparing yet sympathetic depiction of Edinburgh’s ignored underclass, with terrific characterisation. Tense, pacey, filmic’ Ian Rankin

’Breakers again shows that Doug Johnstone is a noir heavyweight and a master of gritty realism. This may be his finest novel yet’ Willy Vlautin

A toxic family … a fight for survival…

Seventeen-year-old Tyler lives in one of Edinburgh’s most deprived areas. Coerced into robbing rich people’s homes by his bullying older siblings, he’s also trying to care for his little sister and his drug-addict mum.

On a job, his brother Barry stabs a homeowner and leaves her for dead, but that’s just the beginning of their nightmare, because the woman is the wife of Edinburgh’s biggest crime lord, Deke Holt.

With the police and the Holts closing in, and his shattered family in devastating danger, Tyler meets posh girl Flick in another stranger’s house, and he thinks she may just be his salvation … unless he drags her down too.

A pulsatingly tense psychological thriller, Breakers is also a breathtakingly brutal, beautiful and deeply moving story of a good kid in the wrong family, from one of Scotland’s finest crime writers.

’It’s as psychologically rich as it is harrowing. I’ve come to expect nothing less from Doug Johnstone, one of the genre’s premiere writers’ Megan Abbott

‘Doug Johnstone is for me the perfect free-range writer, respectful of conventions but never bound by them, never hemmed-in. Each book is a different world, each book something new in this world’ James Sallis

‘Breakers is bloody brilliant. Gut punch after gut punch after gut punch and you can’t put it down. But it’s the final, huge punch to the heart that blows you away. Pages you can’t stop turning, characters that linger long after you’ve finished the book. This is premier league crime writing’ Martyn Waites

‘Doug Johnstone’s books are what the phrase “no filler, all thriller” was invented for. His no-nonsense style is tight and taut but still carries emotional depth. A tough, gritty and effective ride into the dark side of Edinburgh’ Douglas Skelton

‘Pacy, harrowing and occasionally brutal, it’s a stunning thriller about poisonous families and one decent kid’s desperate attempt to do the right thing. Had me in tears at the end. Couldn’t recommend more. Oh god’ Paddy Magrane

‘Loved this one. Think it may be Doug Johnstone’s best, in fact — unusual perspective on Scottish crime that just knocks it out the park. Go read, folks’
Russel McLean

‘The tale is both horrifying and uplifting, and one of those books I looked forward to picking up each time I had a moment to read … I hope it does as well as it deserves to’ James Oswald

‘I thought Fault Lines was good, but Breakers is off the scale amazing! Stayed up almost all night to finish it. Absolutely brilliant’ Louise Voss

‘Oh. My. God. This was sooo good. Read it in two days. Gripping, dark, fast, but still somehow full of heart’ Louise Beech

YOU CAN DO ANYTHING, IF YOU HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE

Struggling to come to terms with the suicide of her teenage son, Ellie lives in the shadows of the Forth Road Bridge, lingering on its footpaths and swimming in the waters below. One day she talks down another suicidal teenager, Sam, and sees for herself a shot at redemption, the chance to atone for her son's death.

But even with the best intentions, she can't foresee the situation she's falling headlong into - a troubled family, with some very dark secrets of their own.

Meet Martha. It's the first day of her new job as intern at Edinburgh'sThe Standard. But all's not well at the ailing newspaper, and Martha is carrying some serious baggage of her own.

Put straight onto the obituary page, she takes a call from a former employee who seems to commit suicide while on the phone, something which echoes with her own troubled past.

Setting in motion a frantic race around modern-day Edinburgh,The Dead Beat traces Martha's desperate search for answers to the dark mystery of her parents' past. Soundtracked by and interspersed with a series of gigs from the alternative music scene of her parents' generation in the early '90s, Doug Johnstone's latest page-turner is a wild ride of a thriller, and a perfect follow-on to his #1 Kindle bestseller, Hit & Run.

'It's just to say that no-one has come to pick Nathan up from school, and we were wondering if there was a problem of some kind?'
As Mark Douglas photographs a pod of whales stranded in the waters off Edinburgh's Portobello Beach, he is called by his son's school: his wife, Lauren, hasn't turned up to collect their son. Calm at first, Mark collects Nathan and takes him home but as the hours slowly crawl by he increasingly starts to worry.
With brilliantly controlled reveals, we learn some of the painful secrets of the couple's shared past, not least that it isn't the first time Lauren has disappeared. And as Mark struggles to care for his son and shield him from the truth of what's going on, the police seem dangerously short of leads. That is, until a shocking discovery...