British Detectives Thrillers

Ella has discovered a secret room in the Yellow Cottage, but with it comes a ghost. Who was she? And how did she die? Ella needs to find the answers before either of them can find peace. But suddenly, things take a nasty turn for the worse.

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.

When a film shoot on Wharfedale’s vintage railway turns into a grisly crime scene, DCI Oldroyd’s idyllic visit to the countryside with his partner Deborah is well and truly stopped in its tracks. One of the film’s stars has been shot dead in a train carriage while the cameras rolled outside. But nobody else went in—or came out. Has the killer really pulled off the perfect, impossible crime?

Thomas Pitt, mainstay of Her Majesty’s Special Branch, is summoned to Connaught Square mansion, where the body of a junior diplomat lies huddled in a wheelbarrow. Nearby stands the tenant of the house, the beautiful, notorious Egyptian woman Ayesha Zakhari, who falls under the shadow of suspicion. Pitt’s orders are to protect—at all costs—the good name of the third person in the garden: senior cabinet minister Saville Ryerson. The distinguished public servant, whispered to be Ayesha’s lover, insists that she is as innocent as Pitt himself.

What happened while they were sleeping? A school for the deaf takes an overnight trip to the snowy woods. Five teenagers go to sleep, but only four wake up. Leon is missing, and a teacher’s body is found in the forest. Sign-Language Interpreter Paige Northwood is brought in to help with interrogations. Everyone at the school has a motive for murder - but they all have an alibi. As Paige becomes increasingly involved, she suspects there’s something sinister going on.

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.

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.

Spiritualism has captured the public’s imagination. Séances are all the rage, and Detective Ian Hamilton’s otherwise sensible aunt Lillian is not immune to their allure. But for Ian, indulging her superstitions has its limits. When members of Lillian’s circle of séance friends begin turning up dead, Ian doesn’t need a medium to tell him these aren’t freak accidents.

When human remains are discovered under Bradford’s derelict Odeon car park, DS Nikita Parekh and her team are immediately called to the scene. Distracted by keeping her young nephew out of trouble, Nikki is relieved when the investigation is transferred to the Cold Case Unit, and she can finally focus on her family. But after the identity of the victim is revealed, she’s soon drawn back into the case. The dead man is a direct link to her painful past. As the body count begins to rise, Nikki must do everything she can to stop the killer in their tracks before anyone else gets hurt.

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.

With London's streets deserted, a young flower girl is murdered. But why was she out so late on the foggiest night of the year? Inspector Witherspoon of Scotland Yard has nowhere to even begin looking for a suspect. However, Mrs. Jeffries, his housekeeper, is even more accomplished at detection than she is at household management. A policeman's widow herself, her quick wits allow her to nudge the inspector in the right direction to solve the mystery.

A summer wedding.... An eccentric aunt.... What can possibly go wrong? Libby's instincts tell her there's something amiss in the picturesque villages, small towns, and rural farms of Exmoor. Then, people begin to disappear.... She's joined forces with on-off partner Max in a private investigation business, but she's getting cold feet about the idea of marriage. After all, it's taken plenty of hard work to regain her independence after her husband's death. Meanwhile, a sinister new acquaintance sends shivers down her spine....

It's not always a question of "whodunit?" Sometimes there's more mystery in the why or how. And although we usually know the unhealthy fates of both victim and perpetrator, what of those clever few who plan and carry out the perfect crime? The ones who aren't brought down even though they're found out? And what about those who do the finding out who witness a murder or who identify the murderer but keep the information to themselves? These are some of the mysteries that we follow through those six stories.

Two skeletons are discovered in the grounds of St Mary's Choir School. This was not a centuries-old Christian burial. They are wearing modern-day clothes, and there is evidence of foul play. Consecrated land has been sadistically violated.

Detective Inspector Gilbert Markham is a rising talent of the Bromgrove police force. He is on the trail of the murderer when another life is brutally claimed. Who is the savage killer lurking in this innocent place?

It’s Christmastime in London, and Sherlock Holmes takes on two cases. The angelic three-year-old child of a wealthy couple is the target of a vicious kidnapper, and a country aristocrat worries that his handsome, favourite son has mysteriously vanished from his London pied à terre. Holmes and Watson, aided by the colourful Heffie O’Malley, slip slide in the ice to ensure a merry Christmas is had by nearly everybody.

Margaret Starling wasn't the sort of woman anyone expected to be murdered. She was a wealthy upper-class widow. But money alone won't protect you when someone decides it's high time you met your maker. Margaret wasn't as well-regarded as she'd always thought she was. But Mrs. Jeffries and Inspector Witherspoon know that justice isn't a popularity contest, and they won't rest until they sift through the suspects to catch a sinister scrooge.

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.

With his partner away on a honeymoon, Yorkshire detective Andrew Dalziel tries to beat the blues by taking a vacation of his own. But after getting caught in a torrential rain and running into a funeral procession, he winds up accompanying a crowd of upper-class mourners to a crumbling country house. Dalziel isn't known for his elegant manners, but he has bigger problems than not fitting in: The owner of the home has died under unusual circumstances, and soon more bodies are turning up.

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.

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…