Crime Detective

In the black days of a Shetland winter, torrential rain triggers a landslide that crosses the main road and sweeps down to the sea. At the burial of his old friend Magnus Tait, Jimmy Perez watches the flood of peaty water and mud smash through a croft house in its path. Everyone thinks the croft is uninhabited, but in the wreckage he finds the body of a dark-haired woman wearing a red silk dress. Perez becomes obsessed with finding out her identity and what she was doing there.

Unexpectedly put in charge of the investigation when her lieutenant is found dead, Emilia Cruz uncovers the lieutenant's sordid sexual past as well as his involvement in a kidnapping and counterfeit money scheme. Reputations are threatened by her discoveries, and truth is for sale. Emilia becomes a pawn in an ugly game of checkmate and corruption played by Acapulco's ambitious mayor and the powerful police union.

This collection by crime fiction master Raymond Chandler features four long stories in which private eye Philip Marlowe is hired to protect a rich old guy from a gold digger, runs afoul of crooked politicos, gets a line on some stolen jewels with a reward attached, and stumbles across a murder victim who may have been an extortionist.

When the bonds of brotherhood are strained, who do you turn to? The celebration of the Viking Festival of Scira ensures that thousands descend annually on the small coastal town of Sheringham, but when one man dies amidst the grand finale, it falls to DI Tom Janssen and his team to identify who the victim was and how he met such a grisly end. The victim was a local man, successful, hard working, and well respected. A motive proves to be elusive. As the case progresses it becomes evident that not all is at it seems.

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.

When Cherringham Drama Society invite a local TV celebrity to direct their Christmas show, they get more publicity than they bargained for. Someone's out to sabotage the event, and rehearsals spin into chaos. Jack and Sarah are asked to investigate and soon discover that there's a darker mystery taking place behind the scenes. Cherringham is a serial novel à la Charles Dickens, with a new audio episode released every two weeks.

When teenager Sadie Winter jumps from the roof of her school, her death is ruled as suicide - a final devastating act from a troubled girl. But then the broken body of a young boy is discovered at the same school and it’s clear to Detective Kim Stone that these deaths are not tragic accidents. As Kim and her team begin to unravel a dark web of secrets, one of the teachers could hold the key to the truth. Yet just as she is about to break her silence, she is found dead.

Claudia Lin—mystery novel superfan and, until recently, clichéd underemployed English major—has scored her dream job: co-running Veracity, a dating detective agency for chronically online New Yorkers who want to know if their prospective partners are telling the truth. Unfortunately, along the way, she and her colleagues—tech savant Squirrel, and the elegant and intimidating Becks—have uncovered a far-reaching AI conspiracy. And the corporate matchmakers may be resorting to murder to protect their secrets.

After getting canned from the Seattle PD, brilliant, wisecracking Thomas Prescott follows his sister Lacy to Philadelphia, where she swims on the Drexel University team. While Thomas’s slapstick antics mask a keen analytic mind, it’s his nose for trouble that leads him again and again into dicey situations. The ex–homicide detective is not long in Philly before getting caught up in two high-powered criminal cases. Thomas stumbles into a crime scene amid the Occupy Philadelphia protests. Activist Brooke Wexley has been strangled within sight of city hall.

Maurice Seton was a famous mystery writer - but no murder from his imagination could equal the ghastliness of his own death. When his grotesquely mutilated corpse is found in a drifting dinghy, ripples of horror spread among his bizarre neighbors: the cruel and cynical drama critic, the celebrated recluse, and the rakish young heir. It is up to Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh and his extraordinary aunt to discover the shocking truth about Seton's past - before the plot takes another murderous turn.

When the body of a man is found dead in his remote, isolated home, DI Tom Janssen and his team struggle to understand what motive there could be to murder such an inoffensive, seemingly placid local character. The man lived alone and was well known in the community, but kept his distance from others, leading a haphazard way of life almost entirely off the grid. What secrets did he hide in his private life that might be worth killing for? As the team are about to understand, even the most nondescript of people can exist in a world darker than most of us will ever see....

The many tenants in the building, along with the endless possibilities of adventures in the city itself, are the perfect setting for the young detective as he sets out to solve every case he can get his hands on. RJ and Joey look forward to pizza night at Tony's every week. Imagine their disappointment when pizza service is halted due to a cheese thief in the neighborhood. Who would steal cheese? RJ and Joey are on the case and it's lookin to be one of the most dangerous off all the mysteries that they've ever solved.

When champion figure skater Michaela Glover returns to her hometown of Woodbridge for a special performance, Detective Amanda Steele is part of the cheering crowds. But when Michaela is discovered dead in her dressing room after the show, Amanda is the first to investigate the shocking scene. There is no sign of foul play, and the room is overflowing with flowers from Michaela’s adoring fans. But Amanda’s heart stops at the sight of a few roses tied with black ribbon and a note that reads “You’ll be sorry”.

Detective Josie Quinn hasn’t heard from her sister since Trinity stormed out of the house in the heat of an argument three weeks ago. So, when human remains are found at the remote hunting cabin where Trinity was last seen, Josie can only assume the worst. Gathering her team, Josie feels a surge of relief when the dental records match a different body - that of a missing single mother from a neighboring town. But now Josie’s is not the only broken family desperate for answers.

A routine weekend visit by the Gillibry Bird Observatory Trust is made memorable by the owner’s announcement that he is going to sell the island. A sale would mean the end of the Observatory, which for some of the birders made life worth living. A fire in Charlie Todd’s cottage added to their distress. And when, next morning, after a fierce storm, they found Charlie dead in a bird hide, their pleasant September weekend assumed a dangerous new face.

He was the billionaire financier and close confidant of presidents, prime ministers, movie stars, and British royalty, the mysterious self-made man who rose from blue-collar Brooklyn to the heights of luxury. But while he was flying around the world on his private jet and hosting lavish parties at his private island in the Caribbean, he also was secretly masterminding an international child sex ring-one that may have involved the richest and most influential men in the world.

One of the worst blizzards in years hits Cherringham, cutting off the village from the rest of the world. Just outside of town, Broadmead Grange is a struggling retirement home, housed in a gothic mansion behind towering walls. One of the home's residents, poor old Archy, becomes Cherringham's latest victim after he loses himself amongst the snow drifts. Did Archy really just fall victim to the elements, or was there foul play involved? Jack and Sarah take on the case to dig up the truth.

After a teenage boy is found dead on a Lenchester train, Detective Chief Inspector Whitney Walker believes they’re being targeted by the notorious Carriage Killer, who chooses a local rail network, commits four murders, and moves on. Against her wishes, Walker’s boss brings in officers from another force to help the investigation and prevent more deaths, but she’s forced to defend her team against this outside interference.

A killer plays cat and mouse with a young widow against the snowy backdrop of an Alaskan winter. Branded a black widow after the suspicious death of her millionaire husband, Sarah Palmer flees Seattle for Anchorage. But the peace and quiet she hoped to enjoy in her hometown is soon shattered: The killer is murdering Sarah look-alikes on the 14th of each month, taunting Sarah with a valentine of evidence. After her experiences in Seattle, Sarah is slow to go to the police.

Christmastime in an isolated country house and, following a flaming row in the kitchen, there’s murder inside. When a much disliked visiting servant disappears without trace after playing Santa Claus, foul play is at once suspected - and foul play it proves to be. Only suspicion falls not on the staff but on the guests, all so unimpeachably respectable that the very thought of murder in connection with any of them seems almost heresy.