British Thrillers Mysteries

When Dorothy Martin goes to France—alone because Alan is stuck back home in Sherebury with a broken ankle—she worries about her ability to get along in a language she barely speaks, and in a country she hasn’t seen for over fifty years. But by the time Alan joins her a week later, Dorothy has found herself embroiled in one mystery after another: a woman drowning in quicksand; a man suffering a near-fatal fall in the abbey at Mont Saint Michel; and a missing American archaeologist—all seemingly connected to a monk named Abelard who has been dead for almost nine hundred years.

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.

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.

May 1940. With Nazi forces sweeping across France, invasion seems imminent. The English Channel has never felt so narrow. In rural Sussex, war veteran John Cook has been tasked with preparing the resistance effort, should the worst happen. But even as the foreign threat looms, it's rumours of a missing child that are troubling Cook. A 12-year-old girl was evacuated from London and never seen again, and she's just the tip of the iceberg - countless evacuees haven't made it to their host families. As Cook investigates, he uncovers a dark conspiracy that reaches to the highest ranks of society.

For years, the Duchess of Fournier has buried a shameful secret connected to her remarkable, if bizarre, ability. While Audrey's gift has helped her solve cases alongside the captivating Bow Street officer Hugh Marsden, she longs to forget her previous committal to an insane asylum. But now, a blackmailer with a taste for violence is threatening former patients of Shadewell Sanatorium, and it appears the ghosts of Audrey's past have finally found her.

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....

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.

As a powerful insurgent army closes on Liberia's capital, London is forced to act, and HMS Beaufort is dispatched to West Africa to pull British nationals from the teeth of encroaching danger. But when the volatile situation ashore unravels, the frigate's crew must draw deep on reserves of skill, ingenuity and sheer bloody-mindedness to save it. And with time running out, Beaufort's Captain makes the decision to take his ship upriver....

Thomas Mundy checks in to London's Wrexley Hotel, but he never checks out. The maid finds him on the floor of his room, bludgeoned to death by his own walking stick. Inspector Witherspoon is soon on the case and learns Mundy was an unlikely victim for such a violent crime. But Mrs. Jeffries and the household staff uncover that Mundy was less an amiable businessman and more a duplicitous con man with enemies on both sides of the Atlantic. Now Witherspoon and his staff must determine who on their lengthy list of suspects had the motive to put Mundy in the red.

He will find the truth. Even if it kills him. Five months ago, DCI Robert Kett’s wife Billie was snatched from a London street. Five months of no leads, no evidence, and no suspects. Until now. When a routine police search uncovers a chamber of horrors beneath one of the city’s most expensive houses, detectives find a clue that points to Billie’s fate, and to the identity of her kidnapper - an enigmatic killer known as the Pig Man.

When three wife beaters are themselves found beaten to death, DC Maggie Jamieson knows she is facing her toughest case yet. The police suspect that Probation Officer Lucy Sherwood - who is connected to all three victims - is hiding a dark secret. Then a fourth domestic abuser is brutally murdered. And he is Lucy’s husband. Now the police are running out of time, but can Maggie really believe her friend Lucy is a cold-blooded killer?

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.

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.

A routine missing person enquiry takes a grisly turn when a young couple drag a box containing human remains out of a Somerset river. The victim was a surveillance expert investigating an exaggerated injury claim—a murder with an obvious motive, until a police officer is implicated and suspended. Still brooding after his recent brush with police Professional Standards, Detective Chief Inspector Nick Dixon is on extended leave, helping his pregnant fiancée, Detective Sergeant Jane Winter, fight for her place on the major investigation team.

Determined to make the First Edition Library a success, Hayley Burke wasn’t expecting to have to solve an old friend’s murder in this all-new mystery from USA Today best-selling author Marty Wingate.

When a high-flying adman is stabbed to death on a company weekend in the English Lake District, local detective Daniel Skelgill finds himself wrenched from his rural Cumbrian comfort zone. As the investigation unfolds, DI Skelgill is led a merry dance between London and Edinburgh, at every turn confronted by uncooperative suspects—colleagues, wife and lovers of the deceased—each of whom is possessed of motive and opportunity. Is this a crime of passion, a professional hit, or a cleverly calculated killing borne out of greed and jealousy?

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?

When a group of missionaries get caught up in bloody African civil war, London is forced to act. For the men of 40 Commando, Royal Marines, it should be a quick in and out. A nice clean operation. But what awaits them will test them like never before. And, facing overwhelming odds, this time the skill and raw courage of these legendary fighting men may not be enough....

When Belize is invaded by a powerful neighbour, it's Britain that must spring to the defence of this old outpost of empire. But intervening in distant Central America will test the limits of the former colonial power. And in the end the outcome will turn on the skill, boldness and heart-bursting bravery of a handful of British forces already in country....