British Mysteries

A crippled cargo ship drifts helplessly in the face of an oncoming hurricane-force storm. On board, a passenger whose presence means the world is watching. Only the skill, determination and raw courage of a lifeboat crew and the British military forces despatched to save them offer any hope of survival. But set against the savagery of the Atlantic even that might not be enough....

Spirited, beautiful, and thoroughly unconventional, Prudence Pinsent is a remarkable young woman. One fine morning she sets out for Suffolk to join her cousin Lord Wellende for a few days hunting. On the way Prudence encounters Captain Studde of the coastguard who is pursuing a quarry of his own. Studde is on the trail of a drug smuggling ring that connects Wellende Hall with the cloistered world of Cambridge.

An early-morning jogger is murdered in Hyde Park. It's the center of London, but no one saw him enter the park, no one saw him die. He carries no identification, only a water-logged phone. As the pieces unravel, it's clear that the dead man had a history of deception. Is the murderer one of those that loved him? Or was it someone with a vengeance? It's proving difficult for DCI Isaac Cook and his team at Challis Street Homicide to find the guilty person—not that they'll cease to search for the truth, not even after one suspect confesses.

When ordinary mum Frankie moves into her new seaside home, it is a dream come true. Her new neighbours - glamorous Zara, ambitious Nadine and social butterfly Geneva - soon take her under their wing. Geneva - soon take her under their wing. The four women become inseparable. Until the morning when Geneva's body is found on the beach. Suspicion is immediately cast on Geneva's husband. Everyone believes he must be guilty. But when the police don't charge him, he vanishes without trace. Now, five years later, he's back.

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.

A perfectly plotted crime is foiled by a runaway bank clerk as Inspector Littlejohn navigates impersonation, forgery, embezzlement...and a murder. It was meant to be a fool-proof scheme. The victim was a recluse, cut off from the world after the death of his wife. Nobody would think it strange when they didn't see him. Nobody would make inquiries. Yet, even the most meticulous of criminals can be caught out, especially if they don't leave room for human error.

If you see him it’s already too late.... Some secrets can’t be hidden. The Fullers are the picture-perfect family, a wealthy couple with a grand home in the middle of remote woodland. But even they have something to hide - and it will prove fatal. Some crimes can’t be forgotten. Psychologist Dr Jessie Flynn and DI Marilyn Simmons arrive at the Fullers' home to find a suburban nightmare. A crime scene more disturbing than anything they have ever encountered. Some killers can’t be stopped.

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.

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.

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.

If someone was in your house, you’d know...wouldn’t you? But the Hunter family are deaf, and don’t hear a thing when a shocking crime takes place in the middle of the night. Instead, they wake up to their worst nightmare: the murder of their daughter. The police call Paige Northwood to the scene to interpret for the witnesses. They’re in shock, but Paige senses the Hunters are hiding something. One by one, people from Paige’s community start to fall under suspicion. But who would kill a little girl? Was it an intruder? Or was the murderer closer to home?

DCI Lesley Clarke is back in Dorset, and her world has turned upside down. One of the people she's closest to is to under arrest for the murder of DCI Mackie and a body has been found in the remote lighthouse at Portland Bill. And not just any body, but the body of someone she investigated before moving to Dorset. Can Lesley win the trust of the close-knit Portland community and find the killer? And can DI Zoe Finch of the West Midlands force help her track down potential suspects?

1956: In a quiet English village, the smoldering ruins of Rosemont Abbey have set the residents’ tongues wagging, and everyone is quick to accuse troublemaker Paul Everly of the crime of arson. Paul has vanished without a trace, leaving only his plucky twin sister, Louisa, certain of his innocence. Fueling her conviction is an inexplicable connection—she felt her twin’s death an hour before the abbey went up in flames.

After a car accident ended her medical career before it even started, Cassie moved to London on a whim, expecting to see the sights and live the typical tourist backpacker lifestyle. Instead she finds herself accompanying a French private detective, Violet Despuis, as they attempt to find out who poisoned four people in the middle of London. Cassie's life soon includes this crazy detective, an ancient landlady with a curious past, a mischievous orange cat who likes going for walks on a leash, and a super hot pathologist that Cassie is sure is out of her league.

Sir Tode has finally died at the age of 93. Lady Tode wants to leave the country to spend her remaining years in Capri. Unfortunately, her three tiresome children are either unwilling, or unable (too mad, too lefty or too happy in Australia), to take on management of their large and important home, so the mantle passes to a distant relative and his glamorous wife. Not long after the new owners take over, Lady Tode is found dead in the mausoleum. Accident? Or is there more going on behind the scenes of Tode Hall than an outsider would ever guess?

Meet disgraced ex-DI Ellie Reckless, a self-proclaimed "cop for criminals", and the person the underworld calls when they can't call the police. For months now, she's built up a series of favors, all so she can set them off like dominos—proving that Nicky Simpson, YouTube sensation and wannabe gangster, was the man who destroyed her life—and killed the man she loved. And in return, Nicky has watched her carefully, waiting to see whether she's too much of a threat to keep alive. But when Nicky's life is threatened, he's forced to turn to Ellie and her team for help.

Welsh Inspector Ian Drake is back on duty, but struggles as he comes to terms with his father’s death. When a fisherman is found impaled on the sand in a small island community, Drake comes up against a wall of silence. When a young girl is killed, Drake is stumped by the motive for her death. But with lots of money at stake with the development of a nearby nuclear power station, Drake believes there are powerful forces at work.

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.

London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the British establishment.

Gabby Lane is a Senior Field Agent in British Intelligence. When she is sent on an undercover operation to kill Europe's largest arms dealer and find a British spy who has disappeared, she discovers that the two men are connected and are part of the criminal gang who are stealing western weapons.