British Detective Fiction

A family outing to Tattershall Castle comes to a chilling end when eleven-year-old Tommy Burton disappears without a trace in broad daylight. All that remains in his place is a small blue teddy bear. DS Karen Hart and her team are called in to investigate the unusual circumstances—but for DI Morgan the crime scene is eerily familiar.

Retired policeman turned killer Jeffrey Brandt has gone underground. He is even living something like a normal life in North Wales. He killed to make society stand up and take notice. It did. His crimes are notorious. So infamous, in fact, that someone wants to emulate him. How will Brandt react to a copycat killer? Will he be flattered, or disturbed that someone wants to steal his limelight? Crucially, for investigating officer DSI Stella Johnson, the new spate of murders might offer an opportunity to finally bring Brandt to justice.

When reclusive artist Gabriel Quinn is gunned down outside a gallery on Oxford High Street, Detective Inspector Bridget Hart investigates the world of contemporary art, where paintings can change hands for millions in the auction room. Bridget is convinced that the last words spoken by the artist - a mysterious code of eight digits and a letter - are key to unraveling the mystery of his death.

In Liverpool, a woman inexplicably leaps to her death. The following morning, two bodies are found on nearby Crosby Beach: a woman tied to a statue, and a man buried up to his neck and left to drown. When a nine-month-old murder case is reopened, DI Sheridan Holler is shocked to uncover family connections between the victim, Daniel Parks, and the three unexplained deaths. With Daniel’s body still missing and the number-one suspect cleared of the crime, Holler’s cold case suddenly becomes a major murder investigation.

To find the killer, he must lose his mind...When a missing teenager is found on her parents’ doorstep, Jennifer Standing becomes the only survivor in an ongoing serial killer investigation led by Detective Inspector Matthew Myers. The case has nearly broken him. The faces of the victims haunt his every waking moment, and now, at last, he has the suspect in custody. However, when another man’s body is found with Jennifer’s DNA on his skin, and the suspect refuses to talk, Myers is forced to let him walk free - a move that will push him to the very edge of sanity.

On a deserted road, late at night, Scotland Yard's Ian Rutledge encounters a frightened woman standing over a body, launching an inquiry that leads him into the lair of a stealthy killer and the dangerous recesses of his own memories in this 20th installment of the acclaimed New York Times best-selling series.

When the broken body of a seventy-one-year-old woman is found beneath the Humber Bridge, a sign around her neck with the words ‘Pure Evil’ spray-painted in red, Detective Hollie Turner can’t help but wonder–who would want this frail elderly woman dead? As she starts to delve into the victim’s personal life, Hollie discovers that the woman, Sister Brennan, ran a local mother and baby home at the Church of St Mary and the Angels. The unit may have shut down years ago, but the pain and anguish of those who were forced to give up their babies remains.

The evidence was all there: a dead body, two dessert plates, and a gun. Could it be that Mr. Ashbury was sharing his cake with his killer? The old bloke had enemies galore - even his own daughter disliked him. Mr. Ashbury's son-in-law doesn't want Inspector Witherspoon asking questions. Of course this doesn't stop Mrs. Jeffries and her staff from snooping around.

While attending a crime scene on the outskirts of Maidstone, DI Kay Hunter makes a shocking discovery. The victim has been brutally cut to pieces, his identity unknown. When more body parts start turning up in the Kentish countryside, Kay realizes the disturbing truth–a serial killer is at large and must be stopped at all costs. With no motive for the murders and a killer who has gone undetected until now, Kay and her team of detectives must work fast to calm a terrified local population and a scornful media. When a third victim is found, her investigation grows even more complicated.

Yorkshire Dales, Summer 1997. Vicky Mott slips out the door of her remote cottage, and into the pale dawn light. She scrawls a note for her friends. Gone to see the sunrise. V xxx That's the last anyone ever hears from twenty-year-old music lover Vicky. Another victim of the Fellside Strangler? That would make Vicky the fourth young woman to lose her life this summer. Snatched by a mysterious killer who stalks the fells . . . But Vicky's body is never found.

When Dr Raymond Ferens moves to a practice at Milham in the Moor in north Devon, he and his wife are enchanted with the beautiful hilltop village lying so close to moor and sky. At first they see only its charm, but soon they begin to uncover its secrets - envy, hatred and malice. Everyone says that Sister Monica, warden of a children's home, is a saint - but is she? A few months after the Ferens' arrival her body is found drowned in the mill-race. Chief Inspector Macdonald faces one of his most difficult cases in a village determined not to betray its dark secrets to a stranger.

When Constable Evan Evans and his new fiancée decide to travel south from home in Llanfair, Wales, to visit his mother in Swansea, they're not expecting the disturbing news that greets them on their arrival: the young thug convicted of murdering Evan's father several years earlier is suspected of murder once again.

An artist's model never shows up at Neville Grant's house...or so he claims. But when one of Mr. Grant's houseguests suddenly dies, the Inspector and Mrs. Jeffries have to work double-time to find both the missing model and the killer!

You are Dead is the 11th thrilling crime novel in Peter James' Roy Grace series, narrated by Daniel Weyman. They were marked for death. The last words Jamie Ball hears from his fiancée, Logan Somerville, are in a terrified mobile phone call. She has just driven into the underground car park beneath the block of flats where they live in Brighton. Then she screams and the phone goes dead.

Nine-year-old Samuel lives alone in a once-great estate in Surrey with the family’s housekeeper, Ruth. His father is dead, and his mother has been abroad for months, purportedly tending to her late husband’s faltering business. She left one night while Samuel was sleeping. Beyond her sporadic postcards, Samuel hears nothing from his mother. Samuel’s life is otherwise regulated by Ruth, who runs the house with an iron fist. As rumors in town begin to swirl, Samuel wonders whether something more sinister is afoot. Perhaps his mother did not leave but was murdered - by Ruth.

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.

Halloween, Whitby. DCI Jim Oldroyd’s daughter Louise is in town with friends for a goth festival. But their visit to an escape room ends in bloody murder when one of the group stabs his girlfriend and flees the scene. It’s a crime with three witnesses - but Louise refuses to take what she saw at face value. Oldroyd and DS Carter are called in to solve the case, assisted from the sidelines by Louise. But the closer they investigate, the more complex the web of deceit appears. This is no straightforward crime of passion.

Ten years ago, Mary Morstan’s father, an officer in an Indian regiment, vanished. Four years later, elegant pearls began to arrive, six in total, and now she holds an invitation to meet her mysterious anonymous benefactor. As Miss Morstan shares this peculiar tale with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, she urges the detectives to accompany her. Her only clues to her father’s disappearance: a map of a fortress with the names of four strangers and an assertion that she’s been dreadfully wronged.

As bogus corruption charges loom over her, DS Kat Ballantyne finds herself deskbound and stuck with cold cases. Her hated boss, DI Carver, has given her just one week to explain how £50,000 found its way into her bank account. If she can’t, she’ll be lucky to have a desk at all. Then a close friend calls her from a murder scene, claiming to have strangled a local gangster’s wife. Kat has no choice but to disobey orders and investigate. Despite overwhelming forensic evidence supporting her friend’s confession, something still doesn’t add up…

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.