British Detective Fiction

Harriet Andover had no intention of dying young like her silly siblings had. She intended to outlive them and outdo them as she always had. But Harriet discovers that the best intentions can lead to murder when she is strangled inside her mansion with a house full of holiday guests. As much as Inspector Witherspoon enjoys his job delivering justice, the last thing he wanted was a complicated murder case just a week before Christmas. He soon discovers that Harriet's own husband and grown stepchildren are not overcome with grief and neither are most of her friends.

Some say the Hotel Tempesta is cursed, but its owner, Mr. Gallo, refuses to believe it. When he's brutally murdered one night, the suspicion falls on his guests. Ten suspects in total. And Penny Green is one of them. Does Mr Gallo's murder have anything to do with the criminal mastermind on the run from America? Penny and Inspector James Blakely must negotiate a world of courtesans, stolen paintings, and secret codes to prove Penny's innocence and uncover the truth.

What's playing at the Calliope Club may draw a furtive crowd, but as far as the CID's Andrew Dalziel can tell it's all perfectly legal. His partner, Peter Pascoe, begs to differ. From what he hears, an actress's violent ordeal on film looked all too real. When she turns up unharmed, it appears his suspicions were wrong . . . if Andrew and Peter can trust what they see. Because if this dirty business is well and good, why has the film in question vanished? Why has the theater been set ablaze? And why has its proprietor been beaten to death?

Mary Connon froze out her husband, Sam, long ago. She likes the attention of other men—like the fellow members of Sam's rugby club. Naturally, when she's found dead in her sitting room with a hole in her head, Sam is a suspect. If only he hadn't suffered a dizzying scrum injury that's left everything a blur. He isn't sure that he didn't kill her. But Det. Inspector Andrew Dalziel and his partner, Peter Pascoe, are looking outside the unhappy home. Because it seems everyone within spitting distance of the suburban femme fatale wanted Mary dead.

Feisty, passionate Beatrice Steele has never fit the definition of a true lady, according to the strict code of conduct that reigns in Swampshire, her small English township—she is terrible at needlework, has absolutely no musical ability, and her artwork is so bad it frightens people. Nevertheless, she lives a perfectly agreeable life with her marriage-scheming mother, prankster father, and two younger sisters— beautiful Louisa and forgettable Mary. But she harbors a dark secret: She is obsessed with the true crime cases she reads about in the newspaper.

When the body of an old man is found lying in the ruins of St Benet’s Abbey, his throat cut, a knife resting in his open hand, DI John Tanner and DC Jenny Evans are given no choice but to accept a ruling of death by misadventure. But when the body goes missing from its tomb, after a priest is found nailed to a cross, and another impaled on a stake, everything begins to point back to the murder of a teenage girl, thrown from the top of a church tower, some 43 years before.

Three friends go on a foodie road trip to the Scottish Highlands and Islands to celebrate their pending retirement, expecting stunning scenery, great food, fine wines, and a chance to reminisce about the good old days. When they somehow secure a reservation at a remote and extremely exclusive restaurant set on a private island in Loch Broom, they know they’re in for a once-in-a-lifetime dining experience.

An English bobbie returning from night patrol finds a corpse in evening dress locked in the stocks on the village green. He identifies the body immediately. Andrew Vereker was not a well-loved man, and narrowing down the suspects is not going to be an easy job. The Vereker family are corrupt and eccentric - and hardly cooperative. It's another case for the resourceful Superintendent Hannasyde, who sets off on the trail of a killer so cunning that even his consummate powers of detection are tested to their limits.

From the ashes of mass destruction.... Amid the tragic unfolding mayhem of the morning of 9/11, failed Brighton businessman and ne'er-do-well Ronnie Wilson sees the chance of a lifeline: to shed his debts, disappear and reinvent himself in another country.

From acclaimed author Quintin Jardine comes the latest gripping mystery in his bestselling Bob Skinner series, perfect for fans of Ian Rankin and Peter May.

Inspector Witherspoon has been assigned another tough case. The latest murder victim has possibly swindled his shareholders out of a huge sum of money. When the businessman is found with a bullet through is chest, all of them are suspects - but no one is telling the truth. It is up to Mrs. Jeffries and the household staff at Upper Edmonton Gardens to crack the case.

In June of 1893, the future Nicholas II travels to London for a royal wedding, bringing with him his private security force and his ballerina mistress, Mathilde Kchessinska. Rumored to be the target of a professional assassin known only as La Sylphide, and the subject of conspiracies against his life by his own family who covet his future throne, Nicholas is protected by not only private security, but the professional forces of both England and Russia.

Don't imagine for one moment that I'm not watching you.... The Metropole Hotel, Brighton. After a heady New Year's Eve ball, a woman is brutally raped as she returns to her room. A week later, another woman is attacked. Both victims' shoes are taken by the offender.... Detective Superintendent Roy Grace soon realises that these new cases bear remarkable similarities to an unsolved series of crimes in the city back in 1997.

Niall and Eden Paternoster start their Sunday the same way they always do - with a long drive, a visit to a country house and a quick stop at the local supermarket on the way home. But this Sunday ends differently - because while Niall waits and waits in the car park for Eden to pick up supplies, Eden never returns. She’s not waiting for him at home, and none of their family or friends have heard from her. Gone without a trace, Niall is arrested on suspicion of her murder.

A series of baffling murders among a group of imprisoned agents threatens the outcome of World War II in this chilling mystery from the New York Times best-selling author of Mr. Churchill’s Secretary. World War II is raging, and former spy Maggie Hope knows too much. She knows what the British government is willing to do to keep its secrets. She knows the real location of the planned invasion of France. She knows who’s lying. She knows who the double-crossers are. She knows exactly who is sending agents to their deaths.

DCI Kate Young never meant to shoot Superintendent John Dickson at the reservoir that night—even if, as a scheming corrupt cop and head of the shady syndicate, he probably had it coming. But now Kate has photographic evidence that someone else knows her terrible secret… Tormented by guilt and the voices of the dead, Kate is desperate to unmask the rest of the corrupt officers before her own sins catch up with her. When DI Harriet Khatri, awaiting trial for the murder of Kate’s mentor, claims she was framed by Dickson’s syndicate, Kate reluctantly agrees to help in the hope of finding answers.

It was just an ordinary Wednesday lunchtime when Detective Martha Munro's life changed forever. Her sergeant is speaking, but she barely hears what he's telling her. Your mother has been shot dead. Your four-year-old daughter has been taken. There are no leads. Who would want to hurt her family? Martha realizes it's time to ask herself some hard questions about her late father. He led the anti-corruption squad at Scotland Yard. It's rumored he kept a list of everyone who worked for him, from coppers to criminals. And just being on the list was a sure-fire way to lower your life expectancy.

Ending his secondment to London’s Met Police, Roy Grace gets a tip-off about a county lines drugs mastermind operating out of Brighton. On his first day back in his old job in Sussex, he is called to a seemingly senseless murder. Separately, Meg Magellan finally has her life back together, five years after the car crash that killed her husband and their son. Her daughter, Laura, now 18, is on her gap year travelling in South America with a friend, and Meg misses her badly. Laura is all she has in the world....

After being abducted and assaulted, a teenage girl somehow managed to escape from her captor. She is traumatized and needs to heal, but the police need her help to catch her assailant—information she clearly knows, but is unwilling to give. Without the girl’s assistance, DI Adam Fawley’s investigation is at a dead end. When another girl vanishes under the same circumstances, he recognizes a disturbing pattern—and a link to something long buried in his past.

The year is 1928, and after the death of a maid at a glamorous society party, fortune heir Bryan Guinness seizes life and proposes to 18-year-old Diana, the most beautiful of the six Mitford sisters. The maid's death is ruled an accident, and the newlyweds put it behind them to begin a whirlwind life. Accompanying Diana as her lady's maid is Louisa Cannon, as well as a coterie of friends, family and hangers on, from Nancy Mitford to Evelyn Waugh. When a second victim is found in Paris in 1931, Louisa begins to see links with the death of the maid two years previously.