British Police

Melissa Craig is struggling with her new novel, so when the invitation arrives to visit a nearby country house for some writing time, she decides a bit of peace and quiet is just what she needs. The house is everything she could have hoped for, even if the staff do seem rather unsettled. She has barely unpacked when the owner of the house persuades Melissa to investigate some threatening notes he has received. But before she can do any digging, he is found murdered in his own orchard.

When new victims of the still-at-large serial killer known as the Red Reaper start to appear in London, DCI Declan Walsh and his team are placed back on the case—but everything isn't what it seems. For a start, the deaths are different, and the calling card is new. It could be a copycat, apart from one thing... They know what Declan did to the real Red Reaper a year earlier. Something only Declan and the closest members of his team keep secret. Is this the real Reaper, back to gain revenge on Declan and his family—or is this a protégé, staking his own claim to the serial killer name?

It's only 10 days since Douglas Remfry's release from prison, having served seven years for rape, and now he's dead: naked on a bare mattress in a grubby north London hotel room, his head hooded and his hands tied with a brown leather belt. Someone knew he was coming out. Someone wanted to mete out some punishment of his own. And when a second sex offender is found dead, DI Tom Thorne knows he has a vicious, calculating vigilante on his hands.

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.

When East-End gangster and 'frenemy' to the Last Chance Saloon, Johnny Lucas, is accused of murdering a London gangland rival in his boxing club, he claims his brother was the killer. The only problem though is that his brother, Jackie, is actually Johnny's multiple personality. Pulled in to prove the case, DI Declan Walsh and his team soon realize that Johnny might be as innocent as he claims, as a new player is in town, claiming to be Johnny's brother Jackie in the flesh, a man who shouldn't exist yet can prove he does, is starting to carve out his own empire.

When a long-serving Master at one of England's most prestigious public schools drowns in Bassenthwaite Lake, Detective Inspector Skelgill is summoned to investigate his apparent suicide. It soon becomes clear that senior members of staff are not all that they seem. As the school closes ranks, Skelgill realizes he is pitted against a sinister power struggle for control of its highly lucrative operation.

Former Detective Hillary Greene and her cold case team are handed an impossible case. Thirty years ago, two days before Christmas, the much-loved Reverend Keith Coltrane was hit over the head and left to die inside his own church. The killer was never caught. This shocking crime took place in the pretty Oxfordshire village of Lower Barton. Everyone knows everyone else in this peaceful little community. The young reverend was handsome and popular, especially with the ladies of the village. Who would have wanted to harm him?

Who killed Danute Zukas, a twenty-three-year-old Lithuanian woman, in July, 2014? In Wiltshire, England, the Crime Review Team investigates cold cases and has successfully resolved more than a dozen. Headed by former police detective Gus Freeman, the team uses old witness statements plus fresh clues to start the hunt again. Danute Zukas arrived in Bath, England, in March, 2011, worked in a late-night bar, and was well liked and happy. Then in April, 2012, she quit her job and disappeared.

Billie-Rose's bloodstained body is found in the kitchen of her ground-floor flat. She's been strangled to death, there's a deep laceration to her upper thigh, and a wooden chess-piece grasped tightly in her hand. Daubed on the wall in Billie-Rose's own blood is a strange symbol: a bishop's mitre. All Detective Jack MacIntosh can think is: He's back. Four years earlier, four young women were also strangled to death in their own homes, the same deep wound to the thigh, the same weird symbol scrawled on the wall. The work of the killer they call the Bishop. Is he back to kill again?

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.

When a woman is abducted from a quiet suburban street and bundled into the back of a white van, the only witness to the crime is a child with a reputation for telling tall tales. The police doubt the girl’s story, except for Detective Karen Hart, who is determined to follow her instincts—perhaps because the shy little girl reminds her of the daughter she’s still grieving. When a playing card is found at the scene, Karen finds her first clue. And when a second card is found at the home of a missing woman, Tamara, Karen finds her victim.

Early one morning, DS Robin Butler is summoned to a crime scene. Not as a policeman, but as best friend to renowned meteorologist, Dr Finn Mason. The morning after studying an enormous storm, Finn has locked himself in a van. Bloodied, confused, and with no memory of how he came to be there. And alongside him - a dead body.

In the bleak countryside around Blithfield Reservoir, a serial murderer and rapist is leaving a trail of bloodshed. His savage calling card: the word ‘MINE’ carved into each of his victims. DI Kate Young struggles to get the case moving - even when one of the team’s own investigators is found dead in a dumpster. But Kate is battling her own demons. Obsessed with exposing Superintendent John Dickson and convinced there’s a conspiracy running deep in the force, she no longer knows who to trust.

She looked like she’d drifted off to sleep, curled up in her white dress, blonde hair floating in the breeze. They called it the Angel Murder. Eighteen-year-old Angelica Brock is found dead at a local beauty spot, dressed in a pure white nightgown, her white-blonde hair arranged around her. For years her death is a mystery, her killer the one who got away for a whole generation of police.

CASE FILE #18–June 2008. Katherine Alford was found dead in her car at a local beauty spot. The devoted mother had received an urgent phone call late in the evening, and asked a neighbor to babysit for ten minutes. She never returned. Gus Freeman and his team uncover failings in the initial police investigation, but every eyewitness they re-interview can’t offer fresh clues, they only add to the mystery. Who did Katherine dash out of the house to meet?

When 21-year-old Gwendoline Crockford signed up to join the Berkshire Constabulary in 1951, she had little idea of what she was getting herself into. Whether carrying a human skeleton out of the woods, finding a missing child, investigating thefts, or chasing an escaped zebra, every day brought fresh adventures. In this nostalgic, tender and honest account of post-war British society, we follow a bright, determined woman navigating a man's world, serving as many people as she can.

TV presenter and all-round car nut Ant Anstead takes the listener on a journey that mirrors the development of the motor car itself from a stuttering 20mph annoyance that scared everyone's horses to 150mph pursuits with aerial support and sophisticated electronic tracking. The British Police Force's relationship with the car started with the chasing of pioneer speeding motorists, who were often caught by policemen on bicycles.

The table is set for family dinner; roast chicken, wine for them and juice for their darling boy, a vase of fresh daisies from the garden for decoration. But the food is cold, and the flowers are wilting. You might think they were sleeping in the next room, if it wasn’t for the blood dripping crimson onto the carpet.

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.

A young woman is found dead in the village church. Shot through the heart with a crossbow. She thought she was safe there, but they found her in the end. DI Jemima Huxley thought Leighton Meadow was a safe place to raise her adopted ten-year-old son. But this is a village with many hidden secrets. And this case is hitting really close to home. The victim turns out to be a Czech student who went missing on a night out in Prague. How did she end up dead in a Welsh church?