X marks the spot - and when that spot is a corpse's naked back and the X is carved in blood, DI Tom Thorne is in no doubt that the dead man is the latest victim of a particularly vicious contract killer. It's morbid and messy - but it's a mystery with plenty of clues. This is turf warfare...Read more
A sinister link between the disappearance of a young college girl and a series of murders of vagrants poses a daunting challenge in this fourth mystery featuring Chief Inspector Morrissey and the Malminster CID. On Pel's Copse, near the college of Brindley, two foxes court - and they are...Read more
Twenty years retired, David Cartwright can still spot when the stoats are on his trail.
Radioactive secrets and unfinished business go with the territory on Spook Street: he's always known there would be an accounting. And he's not as defenceless as they might think....Read more
Faith Zanetti doesn't understand why everyone is suddenly so interested in who put the bomb on flight TAA67, the plane that blew up over the tiny Scottish village of Cairnbridge twenty-five years ago. The case has been closed for years, and for a woman whose comfort zone is a war zone it...Read more
Verity Beresford is worried about her husband. Oliver didn’t come home last night so of course Verity goes straight to Judith Potts, Marlow’s resident amateur sleuth, for help. Oliver, founder of the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society, had hired The Marlow Belle, a private pleasure cruiser,...Read more
After six grueling months back in London, Agatha Raisin returns to her beloved Cotswold village of Carsely - and to the charms of her neighbour, James Lacey. True, James is less than thrilled to see her, but Agatha is soon distracted by a sensational murder. The victim, hiker Jessica...Read more
While visiting Tommy's Aunt Ada at Sunny Ridge Nursing Home, Tuppence encounters some odd residents including Mrs. Lancaster who mystifies her with talk about "your poor child" and "something behind the fireplace".
When Aunt Ada dies a few weeks later, she leaves Tommy and...Read more
The fourth in Anabel Donald's witty and fast-paced series takes Alex Tanner, TV researcher and occasional PI, backwards and forwards across the Atlantic in search of a missing young man.
Alex Tanner jumps at the chance of a short assignment in Cicago. The only problem is that...Read more
When a high court judge holidaying in France with his family, finds a naked corpse in their Rolls Royce, Henri Castang is called to investigate. What transpires is mocking mayhem, as Castang weaves his way through deception and mystery and Freeling's wonderfully biting humour to unravel the...Read more
When one of Cassie Swann’s bridge partners, Naomi Harris, dies from an overdose, she is shocked but not suspicious. But things look rather different with the appearance of a young woman claiming to be Naomi’s daughter, given up for adoption twenty years earlier, and a secret lover who...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
Detective Inspector Jack Frost, Denton Division, is not beloved by his superiors. In fact, he's something of a pain in the unkempt and unruly, with a taste for crude humor and a tendency to cut corners. They'd like nothing better than to bounce him from the department. The only problem...Read more
'Alex, if you had a son who told you that he liked his new flat because it was built on the site of 10 Rillington Place, what would you think?'
'Hillary, I wish you'd get to the point,' I said as gently as I could manage.
She was ruffled but not distracted. 'If a...Read more
Detective Inspector Bill Slider is summoned to the BBC television studios where a celebrated music critic has apparently committed suicide before appearing on television, but Slider determines that the critic had been murdered.Read more
Elizabeth Nightingale found peace and tranquility on her nightly walks through the rich, dense forests surrounding Myfleet Manor. But the peace she treasured was shattered one night when she found death waiting in the woods. Chief Inspector Wexford and his colleague Inspector Burden find a...Read more
Helen West, Crown Prosecutor in domestic violence court, is working up a good case of burnout because justice-by-the-book seldom seems to do the women she represents much good. Helen's love affair with Police Superintendent Geoffrey Bailey also seems to be losing its fire.
Then...Read more
A massive undercover operation turns personal for DI Faraday when his son is involved. Portsmouth's major drug dealer's time is up. For years Bazza Mackenzie has made millions selling cocaine and heroin into the streets of Portsmouth. He's laundered the money and on the surface at least is...Read more
Denton is having more than its fair share of crime. A serial killer is murdering local prostitutes; a man demolishing his garden shed uncovers a long-buried skeleton; there is an armed robbery at a local minimart and a ram raid at a jewellers.
But Detective Inspector Jack Frost's...Read more
In one of the loveliest bays on the Costa Brava, Ferdy, the charismatic yet mightily unpopular host of Bar Xerxes is found dead.
Out of the many foreigners who had settled in the bay, there were some who missed his light-hearted approach to life yet most were relieved....Read more
After twelve years, the last person Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid expects to hear from is his ex-wife Victoria. But this is no social call. In her biographical research on troubled poet Lydia Brooke, Vic’s uncovered reasons to believe Lydia’s death five years ago was not...Read more
Just recovered from a grave illness, Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called to the bedside of an elderly priest. When Dalgliesh arrives, Father Baddeley is dead. Is it merely his own brush with mortality that causes Dalgliesh to sense the shadow of death about to fall once more?Read more
Everyone knew about the kind of films they showed at the Calliope Club -- once the Residents' Association and the local Women's Group had given them some free publicity. But when Peter Pascoe's dentist suggests that one film in particular is more than just good clean dirty fun, the...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
"Wickedness...such wickedness...."
The dying woman turned to Father Gorman with agony in her eyes. "Stopped....It must be stopped....You will...."
The priest spoke with reassuring authority. "I will do what is necessary. You can trust me."
...Read more
Who's got time to think about murder when there's a wedding to plan?
It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing...Read more
Framed in the doorway of Poirot’s bedroom stood an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust. The man’s gaunt face stared for a moment, then he swayed and fell. Who was he? Was he suffering from shock or just exhaustion? Above all, what was the significance of the figure 4,...Read more
As the country bakes under the relentless summer sun, a young doctor is found brutally murdered at his home in a picturesque Cambridgeshire village. Is his death connected to his private life - or his professional one? Dr Joshua Ainsworth worked at an all-female detention centre, one still...Read more
Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote the Inspector Ramsay series featuring a talented, brilliant detective—now available for the first time in the US.
News of the murder came to Inspector Stephen Ramsay early on Monday isolated farmer Ernie Bowles was...Read more
Thea Osborne and her faithful spaniel, Hepzie, have taken on a house-sitting assignment in the charming Cotswold village of Temple Guiting. But as always, an idyllic village can harbour a disquieting number of secrets and when a skeleton is discovered at the roots of an old beech tree, Thea...Read more
"There's no easy way to say this, Kubu. Your father's dead. I'm afraid he's been murdered."
Faced with the violent death of his own father, Assistant Superintendent David 'Kubu' Bengu, the smartest detective in the Botswana police, is baffled. Who would kill such a frail old man...Read more