Jonah Sheens Detective Series

A woman uploads her DNA online, searching for her father—but the man who contacts her is Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens. From the acclaimed author of Little Sister, this endlessly twisty crime novel asks: What might a family do to protect or expose a serial killer in its midst?

When the police found the first body, left on a bonfire in the forest, they worried it had the hallmarks of a serial killer.

Now, as they find the second, they know for sure.

Panic about the “Bonfire Killer” quickly spreads through the  sedate suburban area of Southampton. Women are urged not to travel alone at night, and constant vigilance is encouraged among the local residents. But single mom Aisling Cooley has a lot to distract her: two beloved teenage sons and a quest to find her long-lost father, whom she hasn’t seen since she was a teenager.

After much debate, she decides to upload her DNA to an ancestry website. When she gets a match she is filled with an anxious excitement that her questions about her father’s disappearance from her life might finally be answered.

But to her horror, it’s not her father who’s found her. It’s a detective.

And they say her DNA is a close match for the Bonfire Killer. . . .

Two girls went into the woods. Only one came back. . . .

Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens is on the trail in this “riveting” (Publishers Weekly) crime novel from the acclaimed author of She Lies in Wait, Watching from the Dark, and Lie Beside Me

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: BookPage

Jonah Sheens is enjoying a moment of peace in a pub garden on his day off when a teenage girl wanders out of the woods. She’s striking, with flame-red hair and a pale complexion. She’s also covered in blood.
 
When Jonah races to help, the girl insists she’s fine. Then she smiles. It’s her sister he needs to worry about. Keely and her sister, Nina, disappeared from a children’s home a week ago. Now Keely is here—but Nina’s still missing. Jonah is sure Keely knows where her sister is—but before she tells him anything, she insists, he has to listen to her story from the beginning.
 
Is she witness, victim, or killer? And if Jonah follows the trail of clues in her story, will they lead him to the missing girl—or distract him until it’s too late?

He’s lying next to you. He’s not breathing. . . . And the killer might have been you.

Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens is on the trail in this explosive crime novel from the acclaimed author of She Lies in Wait and Watching from the Dark.

“Secrets and self-sabotage abound in this gripping psychological thriller.”—The Guardian

Louise wakes up. Her head aches, her mouth is dry, her memory is fuzzy—but she suspects she’s done something bad.

She rolls over toward her husband, Niall. The man who, until recently, made her feel loved.

But it’s not Niall lying beside her. In fact, she’s never seen this man before.

And he’s not breathing. . . .

As Louise desperately struggles to piece her memories back together, it’s clear to Jonah Sheens and his team that she is their prime suspect—though they soon find she’s not the only one with something to hide.

Did she do it? And, if not, can they catch the real killer before they strike again?

In this gripping novel, a young woman finds that trying to make sense of her life’s bad choices might prove the most dangerous reckoning there is.

You never saw him. But he saw it all.

When a vibrant young woman is murdered while on a video chat, a small-town detective wades into a circle of friends and lovers with dangerous secrets—from the acclaimed author of the “enjoyably chilling” (The New York Times Book Review) She Lies in Wait.

Aidan Poole logs on to his laptop late at night to Skype his girlfriend, Zoe. To his horror, he realizes that there is someone else in her flat. Aidan can only listen to the sounds of a violent struggle taking place in the bathroom—and then the sound of silence. He is desperate to find out if Zoe is okay. But then why is he so hesitant to call the police?

When Aidan’s cryptic messages finally reach them, Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens and his team take the case—and discover the body. They soon find that no one has a bad word to say about Zoe, a big hearted young artist at the center of a curious web of waifs and strays, each relying on her for support, each hiding dark secrets and buried resentments. Has one of her so-called “friends” been driven to murder? Or does Aidan have the biggest secret of them all?

Six friends. One killer. Who do you trust? A teen girl is missing after a night of partying; thirty years later, the discovery of her body reopens a cold case in “a scorching portrait of friendship and its betrayal.” (Nicci French).
 
“This enjoyably chilling suspense tale . . . conveys both the thrills and the dangers of being a teenager on the brink of adult independence.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
On a scorching July night in 1983, a group of teenagers goes camping in the forest. When they wake in the morning the youngest of their group, Aurora Jackson, has disappeared. An exhaustive investigation is launched, but no trace of the teenager is ever found.
 
Thirty years later, Aurora’s body is unearthed in a hideaway that only the six friends knew about, and Jonah Sheens is put in charge of solving the long-cold case. Back in 1983, as a young cop in their small town, he had known the teenagers—including Aurora—personally, even before taking part in the search. Now he’s determined to finally get to the truth of what happened that night. Sheens’s investigation brings the members of the camping party back to the forest, where they will be confronted once again with the events that left one of them dead and all of them profoundly changed forever.
 
This searing, psychologically captivating novel marks the arrival of a dazzling new talent, and the start of a new series featuring Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens.
 
Praise for She Lies in Wait

“A novel that literally makes you hold your breath then gasp out loud.”—Val McDermid

“She Lies in Wait is an atmospheric, deeply satisfying, well-written mystery whose resolution rings true after lots of false leads and blind alleys. A remarkably adept first novel. One hopes there will be many more to come.”—Daily Herald

“The mystery intrigues and twists, offering enough red herrings and moments of police procedural to please fans of the genre.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“What a marvel! A corkscrew-twisty, knife-sharp thriller—yet it doubles as a tender ode to loss and longing. Prepare to be haunted.”—A. J. Finn, author of the New York Times bestseller The Woman in the Window