British Fiction

In England's shadowy corners, from misty woods to ancient university halls, criminal psychologist and head of the Ritualistic Behavioural Crime unit Dr Harrison Lane, confronts the country’s most challenging crimes. A boy's body with cryptic messages. A man pinned down by horseshoes. A student etched with strange symbols. Each scene is a piece of a terrifying puzzle only Harrison can solve. As he unravels these ritualistic killings, Harrison digs up long-buried secrets that shake quiet towns to their core. But the deeper he delves, the more his own past threatens to engulf him.

Eight-year-old Leila Smith has seen and heard things that no child should ever have to. On the Hawthorn Estate, where she lives, she often stays out in the playground long after the other children have left, just so she can avoid her own home for longer. But what Leila doesn't know is that someone has been watching her. One day, she disappears without a trace. The police search start a nationwide search, but it's as if Leila has vanished into thin air. Who kidnapped her? What do they want? Will she return home safe and sound, or is she lost forever?

In the chilly depths of a Yorkshire winter, a well-liked rector is found bludgeoned to death in her own church. With no sign of a murder weapon, local superstition quickly pins the blame on the ghost of a medieval monk believed to haunt the building. Well accustomed to unusual murder investigations, DCI Jim Oldroyd takes on the case, along with his assistant, Sergeant Andy Carter, but they are hampered at every turn by the deepening snow and the threat of the supernatural.

Detective Mary Hume stares at the crime scene in confusion. She's in an empty flat. Peeling wallpaper. A bloodstained chair in the middle of the room. But no body. Her sergeant hands her a burner phone. On it is a video clip. It shows a woman. Tied to the chair in the flat, a carving knife pressed to her throat. Placed in the woman's lap is a piece of cardboard. Written on it in blood-red is one word: DEADTOWN.

Life is going pretty well for Raymond "Stick" Hart. He's happily married to the former Ponkaquogue Municipal Golf Club assistant pro, the beauteous Cajun firecracker Dannie, raising his rambunctious son, Charlie, and getting by writing smart-mouthed greeting cards for 50 bucks a pop. Then, one disaster of a day, Stick's world does a 10-car pile-up. Luckily, Stick has a solution to all his problems. He'll qualify for the British Open.

In late Victorian England, private enquiry agents Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn find themselves in the middle of the deadly chaos when powerful forces align to take over London's criminal underworld.

A woman dies in a burglary in Fitzrovia. A man is murdered in an opium den in Limehouse. Gutsy Fleet Street reporter Penny Green suspects the two deaths are connected, but how can she prove it? The answer may lie in Whitehall where the India Office reaps the benefits of Britain's opium trade. But when Inspector James Blakely of Scotland Yard begins investigating, an unforeseen danger looms. Soon Penny is forced to act alone and is put to the ultimate test when her quest becomes personal.

Trapped in a corner, my only way out was the ruthless billionaire who put me there. In the three years since, we’ve healed each other. We did things in the dark we’re not proud of, things that will forever be kept secret from the world. Those sins forged a bond as strong as the love that binds us together. King and Queen. Freedom and Salvation. Now, we have a chance at forever. And nothing—not a jewelry mystery, our friends’ hijinx, or The King himself—will steal it from us.

England 1921. Lady Elizabeth Gaskins is throwing a big party to celebrate her birthday. But when an odious guest gets killed and steals her thunder, her father, the Earl of Buxley, becomes a suspect. After all, he came to blows with the dead man in front of several witnesses. Determined to find out who murdered his childhood friend, Lord Buxley summons a detective from Scotland Yard. Not to be outdone, Lady Bess and her spunky cohorts, the oldest Dowager Countess and great aunts, embark on a hunt for the killer.

In this comprehensive anthology, former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion has gathered together exceptional poems from the 14th century through to the present day, creating an extraordinary poetic journey for the listener. From the love poems of Shelley and Keats to the grim war elegies of Owen and Sassoon, there is a poem here for every sentiment, each with something different to offer.

Driving back through Wales in a fierce winter storm, forensic anthropologist David Hunter is forced to seek shelter at a remote village in Eryri mountains. But a one-night stop-over becomes something very different after a gruesome discovery in depths of the local forest. With communications down and the only road washed out by the storm, Hunter is unsure who - if anyone - he can trust. And as long buried secrets begin to emerge, he knows that, whatever dark past the isolated community might be hiding, there's no one he can call on for help. This time he's on his own.

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!

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.

Mrs. Laetitia Rodd, aged 52, is the widow of an archdeacon who makes her living as a highly discreet private investigator. Her brother, Frederick Tyson, is a criminal barrister living in nearby Highgate with his wife and 10 children. Frederick finds the cases, and Laetitia solves them using her arch intelligence and her immaculate cover as an unsuspecting widow. When a case arises involving the son of the highly connected Sir James Calderstone, Laetitia sets off for Lincolnshire undercover as the family's new governess.

Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly abridged and remastered stories are now available to download for the first time. What was it like to love, live, and rebel in Britain during the 19th and 20th centuries? These beloved British novels offer three dramatically different but universally recognisable experiences. Read by three luminaries of the stage and screen: Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen, and Sir John Gielgud.

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.

Melissa couldn’t be happier that summer has arrived. She’s delighted to have her mother back by her side, and she is extending her beloved Hawthorn Cottage so her new family can live together. Meanwhile, Melissa’s mother, Sylvia, is back in good health and enjoying a brief stay at a stately retirement home. She loves getting to know the residents, until first a dog and then his owner are both found dead in the dining room. Like mother, like daughter, Sylvia decides to do a little investigating of her own.

In 1922 Agatha Christie set sail on a 10-month voyage around the British Empire with her husband as part of a trade mission to promote the forthcoming British Empire Exhibition. Leaving her two-year-old daughter behind with her sister, Agatha set sail at the end of January and did not return until December, but she kept up a detailed weekly correspondence with her mother, describing in detail the exotic places and people she encountered as the mission travelled through South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Canada.

Marty Wingate presents Book 7 in the Potting Shed Mysteries series.

DC Sophie Jones was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Viciously bludgeoned one night in a dark alley, she is left fighting for her life in hospital, leaving no clues as to why she was there or what might have motivated the attack. For Detective Karen Hart, fiercely protective of her young protégée, this is already deeply personal: an attack on Sophie is an attack on the whole team. When a car workshop near the crime scene is linked to local mobster Quentin Chapman, the man Hart has spent years trying to bring down, it’s hard not to jump to the most obvious conclusion.