The middle-aged woman lying on the footpath is biggish and unattractive. Yet even in death her eyes hold a defiant look. Everyone in this Kingsmarkham neighborhood knew her name was Rhoda Comfrey and that she was down from London visiting her invalid father. But when Inspector Wexford looks...Read more
A short novel from the No. 1 bestselling author of CLOSE TO THE BONE and A SONG FOR THE DYING, featuring his most popular characters, Acting DI Logan McRae and DCI Robert Steel.
CID isn’t what it used to be…
It’s a been a bad week for acting Detective Inspector Logan McRae. Every...Read more
For an instant the two trains ran together, going in the same direction side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth, riding in the one train, witnessed a murder in the other. Helplessly, she stared out her carriage window as a man remorselessly tightened his grip around a woman’s throat....Read more
Aurelio Zen was dead to the world. Under the next umbrella, a few desirable metres closer to the sea, Massimo Rutelli was just dead.
Inspector Zen is back, but nobody's supposed to know it. After months in hospital recovering from a bomb attack on his car, he is lying...Read more
On New Year’s Eve, Cal is chased down the street by a crazed man with a deadly warning: They killed your father. They’ll kill you. You must survive the next 365 days! Now everyone’s searching for Cal, the psycho kid who’s meant to have attacked his uncle and put his sister in a coma. He’s...Read more
'Shed here no tears. No Saint could die More Blessed and Comforted than I' read the epitaph composed by Jan and Morwenna Treverra before their quiet deaths centuries ago. But the pious portrait of content they conjured fragments when permission is granted for their tombs to be opened—and an...Read more
“I am in great danger … I know that murder is going to be the reward for my uncomplaining loyalty.”
This letter containing heartfelt and urgent pleas for help is received by three very eminent citizens of Flaxborough, including the Chief Constable...Read more
It was a brutal, vicious crime -- sixteen years old. A helpless old woman battered to death with an axe. Harry Painter hung for it, and Chief Inspector Wexford is certain they executed the right man. But Reverend Archery has doubts . . . because his son wants to marry the murderer's...Read more
A nameless friar turns up at Halfwell Station at the same time that Ana, the adopted daughter of the station owners, discovers a body in the desert during her midnight walk. But when Ana returns to look for it, the body is gone.
Death Leaves the Station brings the cosy...Read more
A body is discovered in a Milan apartment, and Inspector De Vincenzi investigates. The apartment happens to belong to an old university friend of his, Aurigi. When the body turns out to be that of Aurigi's banker, and a phial of prussic acid is discovered in the bathroom, suspicion falls on...Read more
It was a picture-postcard English village, but like all such villages, it had its share of secrets, scandals and tragedies. The Player murder, however, was seldom discussed: in fact, the whole unpleasant affair was as good as forgotten – or would have been if a visitor to the village hadn’t...Read more
In the remote Welsh mountain village of Gwytherin lies the grave of Saint Winifred. Now, in 1137, the ambitious head of Shrewsbury Abbey has decided to acquire the sacred remains for his Benedictine order. Native Welshman Brother Cadfael is sent on the expedition to translate and finds the...Read more
A young woman is found murdered in a small English town, while the main suspect has spent the night drinking, and denies any involvement. It looks like an easily solved case for Detective Inspector Lloyd and Sergeant Judy Hill, but it soon proves more complex than they originally thought...Read more
Meet Mrs Melita Pargeter, a vivacious widow whose mystery-solving talents come in handy when a murderer stalks a hotel for well-to-do retirees.
She checks into the Devereux Hotel on England’s sunny south coast. Where secrets hide behind every door and the sea-views are to die for...Read more
Since the referendum, supporters and volunteers have been asking for guidance as to how to continue to support Indigenous recognition. Mayo, a leader of the Yes 23 campaign and co-author of the bestselling The Voice to Parliament Handbook, has penned a new book to answer that...Read more
Every Saturday evening, travelling salesman Fernand Ravinel returns to his wife, Mireille, who waits patiently for him at home. But Ferdinand has another lover, Lucienne, an ambitious doctor, and together the adulterers have devised a murderous plan.
Drugging Mireille, the pair...Read more
June Wright wrote this lost gem in the mid-1950s, but consigned it to her bottom drawer after her publisher foolishly rejected it. Perhaps it was a little ahead of its time? Because while it’s a tour de force of the classic country-house murder mystery, it’s also a delightful romp, poking...Read more
In a bungled attempt to kidnap an ambassador's son, four revolutionaries make hostages of a hundred children rehearsing an opera.Read more
Laurence Deegan, QC, had just won his latest case. At fifty, already a distinguished and famous barrister, he seemed set to become a judge at an early age. That same evening, his triumph still fresh, he ran his bath, got into it and slit the veins in both wrists. Why had he done it? His...Read more
In the pages that follow, I have collected some of my favourite exchanges which can fairly be described as acid drops. The cruel bon mot which has its sting drawn from the laughter that ensues. It was Oscar Wilde who pointed out that no comment was in bad taste if it was amusing - and if...Read more
In a small village in the north of England, an elderly woman is brutally hanged with piano wire, and a detective’s hunt for the killer uncovers, instead, the shocking double – and triple – identify of the victim. Now, assassin and murdered imposter, connected by horrors long buried with the...Read more
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The classic play about Sir Thomas More, the Lord chancellor who refused to compromise and was executed by Henry VIII.Read more
Two men - total strangers - establish the perfect alibis by arranging to switch victims. Ned Stowe will kill Stuart Hammer's wealthy uncle for which service Hammer is to eliminate Stowe's neurotic wife, Helena. Too far-fetched? Perhaps. But the men plot and the plan - with its horrifyingly...Read more