Crime Fiction 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.

On the edge of Cherringham lies St. Francis' Convent, home of the Sisters of St. Francis, a small Catholic teaching order. Here a handful of nuns worship, contemplate, and pray. And here one Easter the beloved local priest Father Byrne meets his unexpected demise. The circumstances of the death are suspicious, and soon Jack and Sarah are on the case: what secrets did Father Byrne take to the grave? Who wanted him dead? And is religious faith ever a guarantee of innocence?

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.

On the day he retires, Inspector Ashwin Chopra inherits two unexpected mysteries. The first is the case of a drowned boy, whose suspicious death no one seems to want solved. And the second is a baby elephant. As his search for clues takes him across the teeming city of Mumbai, from its grand high rises to its sprawling slums and deep into its murky underworld, Chopra begins to suspect that there may be a great deal more to both his last case and his new ward than he thought.

A murder has been committed - but as the victim was a rapist, recently released from prison, no one is too concerned about the crime. That is, until Detective Inspector John Rebus and DS Siobhan Clarke uncover evidence that a serial killer is on the loose...When Rebus also starts looking into the apparent suicide of an MP, he is abruptly warned off the case, not least because the G8 leaders have gathered in Scotland, and Rebus's bosses want him well out of the way.

A shooting incident at a private school just north of Edinburgh. Two 17-year olds killed by an ex-Army loner who has gone off the rails. As Detective Inspector John Rebus puts it, 'there's no mystery'... exceptthe why. This question takes Rebus into the heart of a shattered community. Ex-Army himself, Rebus becomes fascinated by the killer, andfinds he is not alone. Army investigators are on the scene, and won't be shaken off. The killer had friends and enemies to spare - ranging from civic leaders to the local Goths - leaving behind a legacy of secrets and lies.

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.

Liverpool is in the midst of an emergency. Several people have been poisoned. But DI Tara Grogan is not on the case. Instead, she has an in-tray full of mundane tasks and jealously watches from the sidelines as the high-profile investigation unfolds. One such task is looking into the suicide of a company executive. Probing a little deeper, Grogan begins to smell a rat. All is not well at Harbinson Fine Foods, and with the city on high alert and its people on edge, the detective begins to suspect a connection to the main investigation.

When Detective Amanda Steele unexpectedly reconnects with an old boyfriend, the last thing she expects to see lying on his bed is the dead body of his wife, Claire, who walked out on him four years ago. Logan begs Amanda to believe he’s innocent. But she doesn’t miss the gun on a nearby table, and she’s torn when forensics reveal that not only was this the murder weapon, but Logan’s fingerprints are all over it.... Could he have been framed? Or is he using his connection to Amanda to get away with murder?

As snow falls on the small town of Lost Creek, Colorado, a three-year-old boy is found playing quietly in his car seat, his mother, cold as ice, slumped against the steering wheel in front. Tearing herself away from reconnecting with her special-agent father who abandoned her for his career, Detective Madison Harper is haunted by the fear in the boy’s sky blue eyes and vows to find justice for this innocent child, left motherless just days before Christmas.

NYPD master homicide investigator Michael Bennett and top FBI abduction specialist Emily Parker have a history. Working case after case, each can predict the other’s next move. So when she fails to show at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, Bennett risks venturing far outside his jurisdiction. The investigation he undertakes is the most brilliant detective work of his career…and the most intensely personal.

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.

A lump of concrete dropped deliberately from a little stone bridge kills the wrong person. The young woman in the car behind is spared. But only for a while... A few weeks later, George Marshalson lives every father's worst nightmare: he discovers the murdered body of his eighteen-year-old daughter on the side of the road. Wexford steps into the case but soon a second teenage girl is murdered - a victim unquestionably linked to the first - and another family is shattered...

The streets of San Francisco aren’t as sunny as the city pretends they are. Detective Lennon Gray has learned this the hard way, and it’s starting to wear on her. When a new case plunges her into the depths of the transient community, Lennon must once again face ugly truths about humanity. Her new partner makes things a little easier, though. Agent Ambrose Mars is charming—innocent, somehow, despite his own hard years in the field. The combination leaves Lennon fascinated and disturbed at the same time, and she’s even more drawn to him for it.

When a body is found stuffed into a barrel at a garbage dump, covered in long red lacerations, Detective Jenna Alton and her new deputy, David Kane, rush to the scene. Nothing ever happens in the small American town of Black Rock Falls, so Jenna believes the victim must be one of two recent missing persons, and she fears for the life of the other. Both were strangers to the town, but there's nothing else to link them. Jenna knows someone must have seen something, but no one's talking.

Jude has never been averse to a bit of a flutter; her friend Carole, on the other hand, thinks that the local betting shop is a den of iniquity. But when Jude stumbles upon the body of a Polish immigrant, Tadeusz Jankowski, the race is on to find his killer. The odds aren’t looking good. No one seems to know anything about the mysterious Tadeusz - even his sister can’t shed any light on what he was doing in Fethering.

Mr Goon is on holiday, and there's a new policeman in town. While the Find-Outers are up to their usual games, he stumbles upon a puzzling mystery: the theatre safe has been robbed! The top suspect is Boysie, the pantomime cat, but Fatty, Larry, Daisy, Pip and Bets aren't convinced. Who could the real thief be?

The April Fool’s Day had been a roaring success for all, it seemed - except for poor Mr. Cartell, who had ended up in the ditch - forever. Then there was the case of Mr. Percival Pyke Period’s letter of condolence, sent before the body was found - not to mention the family squabbles. It was a puzzling crime for Superintendent Alleyn.

Kay Willingham led a life as glamorous as it was public - she was a gorgeous Georgetown socialite, philanthropist, and the ex-wife of the vice president. So why was she parked in a Bentley convertible idling behind a DC private school, in the middle of the night, with the man who was the head of that school? Who shot them both, point blank, and why? The shocking double homicide is blazed across the internet, TV, newspapers - and across Alex Cross's mind. Kay had been his patient once. And maybe more.

When Detective Kim Stone and her team are sent to Westerley, a forensic research facility, they discover the body of a young woman, her mouth filled with soil. But she doesn’t belong there. It seems a killer has discovered the perfect cover for their crime. Kim breaks the devastating news of Jemima’s murder to her parents, who speak of a gentle soul with no enemies. Yet when Jemima’s sister confides in Kim that she was afraid to leave the house, Kim is certain that Jemima knew her killer, and is determined to find this brutal murderer before he strikes again.