British Mysteries

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.

Commander Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard has just published a new book of poems and has taken a brief respite from publicity on the remote Larksoken headland on the Norfolk coast. A psychotic strangler of young women is at large in Norfolk, and getting nearer to Larksoken with every killing. And when Dalgliesh discovers the murdered body of the Acting Administrative Officer on the beach, he finds himself caught up in one of the most baffling murder cases of his career.

Summer 1911. A scorching heatwave engulfs the quiet town of Littleton Cotterell and brings about an unusually early harvest. The villagers are thrilled, but events quickly turn sour when one of them turns up dead in an apple orchard, stabbed through the heart. Amateur sleuth Lady Hardcastle and her trusty lady’s maid, Flo, suddenly have a juicy case on their hands. Might the mysterious stranger they recently met in the village be to blame?

When prison inmate and former police officer John Brace says he’s willing to give up information about the location of a dead body in return for protection for his family, Vera knows that she has to look into his claims. But opening up this cold case strikes much closer to home than Vera anticipates as her investigation takes her back in time to The Seagull, a once-decadent and now-derelict nightclub where her deceased father and his friends used to congregate.

Inspector Witherspoon always triumphs...but how does he do it? Even the inspector himself doesn't know - because his secret weapon is as ladylike as she is clever. She's Mrs. Jeffries: the determined, delightful detective who is also Inspector Witherspoon's housekeeper.

In 1950s Dublin, Rosa Jacobs, a young history scholar, is found dead in her car. Renowned pathologist Dr. Quirke and DI St. John Strafford begin to investigate the death as a murder, but it’s the victim’s older sister Molly, an established journalist, who discovers a lead that could crack open the case. One of Rosa’s friends, it turns out, is from a powerful German family that arrived in Ireland under mysterious circumstances shortly after World War II. But as Quirke and Strafford close in, their personal lives may put the case—and everyone involved—in peril, including Quirke’s own daughter.

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....

Robbie Parsons is one of London's finest, a black cab driver who knows the city by heart. In his backseat is a man with a gun in his hand - a man who brazenly committed a crime in front of the Artemis Club then jumped in and ordered Parsons to drive. As the criminal eventually escapes to Nairobi, Detective Superintendent Richard Jury comes across the case. He knew one of the victims, a professor of astrophysics and an expert gambler. Feeling personally affronted, Jury enlists his whole gang of merry characters to contend with a case that involves Tanzanian gem mines, a closed Reno casino, and a hidden pub.

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.

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 February, 1806, the frigate carrying Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho drops anchor off the shores of southern Africa. Bolitho's instructions are to assist in hastening the campaign in Africa where an expeditionary force is attempting to recapture Cape Town from the Dutch. Bolitho is still brooding over the loss of his flagship, and hi socntinuing personal troubles are only brightened by his love for Catherine, Lady Somervell.

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.

Virtual romance becomes a terrifying obsession in Peter James' tenth Roy Grace novel, Want You Dead.... Single girl, 29, smouldering redhead, love life that's crashed and burned. Seeks new flame to rekindle her fire. Fun, friendship and - who knows - maybe more? When Red Westwood meets handsome, charming and rich Bryce Laurent through an online dating agency, there is an instant attraction. But as their love blossoms, the truth about his past, and his dark side, begins to emerge.

It was supposed to be the perfect reunion: six university friends together again after twenty years. Host Ali finally has the life she always wanted, a career she can be proud of and a wonderful family with her college boyfriend, now husband. But that night her best friend makes an accusation so shocking that nothing will ever be the same again.

What Bernard Sampson, protagonist of Berlin Game, Mexico Set, and London Match, is about to know may hurt him. When word gets to London Central that a cache of millions of pounds has disappeared inside the Service, Samson is determined to learn the truth. But not even that discovery will help if the Department itself wants his blood....

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.

It's 1996. Detective Sergeant Tom Thorne is a haunted man. Haunted by the moment he ignored his instinct about a suspect, by the horrific crime that followed and by the memories that come day and night, in sunshine and shadow. So when seven-year-old Kieron Coyne goes missing while playing in the woods with his best friend, Thorne vows he will not make the same mistake again. Cannot. The solitary witness. The strange neighbour. The friendly teacher. All are in Thorne's sights. This case will be the making of him...or the breaking.

Between her work in Cornwall’s oldest library and catching up with old friends over tea and chocolate biscuits, Jemima Jago is spending the season the only way she knows how: sunbathing, swimming, and sailing. But her postcard-perfect summer is turned upside down when the body of well-to-do businessman Hermie Castleberry is found on the sweeping white sands at the foot of Candlewick Castle.

In spite of being ejected from Miss Bodycote's Female Academy in Canada, 12-year-old Flavia de Luce is excited to be sailing home to England. But instead of a joyous homecoming, she is greeted on the docks with unfortunate news: Her father has fallen ill, and a hospital visit will have to wait while he rests. But with Flavia's blasted sisters and insufferable cousin underfoot, Buckshaw now seems both too empty - and not empty enough.

The career of playwright Joy Sinclair comes to an abrupt end on an isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands when someone drives an 18-inch dirk through her neck. Called upon to investigate the case in a country where they have virtually no authority, aristocratic Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers grapple for both a motive and a murderer. Emotions run deep in this highly charged drama, for the list of suspects soon includes Britain’s foremost actress, its most successful theatrical producer, and the woman Lynley loves.