Crime Mystery

When acclaimed mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers first began compiling anthologies of the best crime stories in the 1920s and ’30s, the genre was in the flush of its first golden age. While it is hard to imagine today - after every possible mystery plot has been told, retold, subverted, and played straight again by hundreds of writers over nearly a century - in Sayers’s day there were still twists that had never been seen, and machinations of crime that would shock even jaded Jazz Age fans.

When another resident of the Rosemary House care home is found dead in her chair one Saturday evening in December, no one is very surprised - not until the results of a routine post-mortem reveal something extraordinary. Sergeant DC Smith and his team have to tread carefully as they investigate what took place, and Smith himself has to confront some difficult memories. Others, meanwhile, seem intent on getting him to leave the force altogether.

July 1989, in a sleepy Michigan town, high school grad Nina Laramie heads out with her friends and is never seen alive again. Months later, her skeleton is found near a remote party spot in the forest. The ME determines Nina has been brutally raped and bludgeoned to death. Fear and anger ripple through this tight-knit community when the case goes cold. Thirty years later, Riley St. James, a Detroit PD assigned to Nina’s case, is determined to get her first big cold case win despite having a similar past to the victim.

Welcome to Barton Mallet, a remote village in the Midlands that has been chosen as the unlikely location for a new feature film from Hollywood producer Max Crow. Teenagers from the local drama group are encouraged to audition for a story about the trials and tribulations of growing up. Benjamin Knot, the CEO of a well-known architecture firm, discovers that his children, Lily and Nathan, have each been offered a role. But Barton Mallet has a deep wound that has never truly healed.

Mark Randall lay dead in a field near Lowacre long before Smith had done what he had to do in Belfast. By the time he went back to work, the investigation was well underway. "It's not my case," he says more than once, and he really doesn't need it to be; he has enough to think about as it is. But going around the Norfolk countryside dotting the i's and crossing the t's, speaking to the local farmers and the Brothers of St. Francis from Abbeyfields, Smith begins to suspect that the investigation might be heading in entirely the wrong direction.

Nicole Cutty and Megan McDonald are both high school seniors in the small town of Emerson Bay, North Carolina. When they disappear from a beach party one warm summer night, police launch a massive search. No clues are found, and hope is almost lost until Megan miraculously surfaces after escaping from a bunker deep in the woods. A year later the best-selling account of her ordeal has turned Megan from local hero to national celebrity.

It happens more than you might think. One second someone’s life is totally typical, the next it’s terribly tragic. Everything they had, everything they planned, everything they were, all of it vanishes in a flash. Shock and sorrow leave the victim staring into tomorrow’s void, wondering: How did it happen? Who did it? And why?

Exit Wounds is a thrilling anthology of crime stories written by masters of the genre, including Dean Koontz, Val McDermid, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, Elly Griffiths, Dennis Lehane, Joe R. Lansdale, and others.

Styvie Savard was a damn good cop - before she made a mistake that cost her everything. Now she lives in her car, works a dead-end job, and scrapes by on the fumes of a dwindling savings account. Life couldn’t get much worse, until it does. One morning on the way to work, Styvie hits a 16-year-old, Dharma, with her car. When the injured girl flees the scene, Styvie finds that she can’t leave well enough alone.

Redoutant toujours les enquêtes sur des lieux incendiés, Tempe est appelée à analyser les dépouilles des victimes d’un brasier mortel, et voit ses inquiétudes confirmées. L’immeuble dévasté se trouve dans Foggy Bottom, un quartier coloré au passé tumultueux. Pour cette enquête, Tempe s’adjoint une nouvelle alliée en la personne d’Ivy Doyle, une journaliste de la télé. Ensemble, elles apprennent que, dans les années 1930 et 1940, l’immeuble était le repaire de contrebandiers et de trafiquants connus comme le « gang de Foggy Bottom ».

Hamish Macbeth, the laid-back constable of Lochdubh, Scotland, has a new Land Rover to drive and a Highland summer to savor, but as fast as rain rolls in from the loch, his happy life goes to hell in a hand basket. The trouble begins when his beloved Priscilla Halburton-Smythe returns from London - with a fiancé on her arm. His miseries multiply when clouds of midges, the diabolical Scottish mosquito, descend on the town. Then a paragon of housewifery named Trixie Thomas moves into Lochdubh with her lapdog husband in tow.

If not for the bodies discovered in the woods behind their new home, Garrick and Olivia Lockwood couldn't have afforded to buy number 25 The Avenue. It's the fresh start they and their two children badly need. Soon, these terrible crimes will be solved, they tell themselves, and once Garrick has remodeled, he's confident they'll sell the house for a profit. But the darkest secrets can reside on quiet, ordinary streets like this - behind the doors of well-kept houses and neighbors' friendly faces....

Can you ever really know someone? When Deborah, an unpopular 17-year-old, meets the charming and handsome Larry, he sweeps her off her feet. The trouble is, Larry has a secret. Then a series of grisly murders casts a shadow over everything. As Deborah's world starts to fall apart, she begins to suspect the man she loves of a terrible betrayal. And to keep their marriage alive, sacrifices must be made.

A young woman's body is discovered on a deserted footpath. It seems like a simple crime for DCI Sophie Allen and her team to solve. But not when the victim's mother is found strangled the next morning. The case grows more complex as DCI Sophie Allen discovers that the victims had secret histories, involving violence and intimidation. There's an obvious suspect, but Detective Allen isn't convinced. Could someone else be lurking in the shadows, someone savagely violent, looking for warped revenge?

Spenser is waiting out the latest Boston snowstorm when he gets word that Rita Fiore has been shot. Rita’s always been a tricky one: flirting with Spenser for years, she’s an ever-present figure that transcends friendship in Spenser’s circle. But at the end of the day, Rita is family. And family will always be protected. Both a pit bull in the courtroom and provocateur outside it, Rita is no stranger to controversy. But as one of the city’s toughest lawyers, Spenser knows that there’s no short list of suspects who might want to enact revenge.

It's a blindingly hot summer. International visitors surge into Sydney's Darling Harbour. Two-year-old Tommy is sailing his toy boat in the park there with his mother Phoebe. Tommy vanishes into thin air. The following winter, taunting notes written as nursery rhymes begin arriving at his parents' home. Little Boy Blue, where did you go? Who led you away? Only I know.

Dieter Hess, an aged spy, is dead, and John Bachelor, his MI5 handler, is in deep, deep trouble. Death has revealed that the deceased had been keeping a secret second bank account - and there's only ever one reason a spy has a secret second bank account. The question of whether he was a double agent must be resolved, and its answer may undo an entire career's worth of spy secrets.

Mike Browne, host of the popular Canadian podcast Dark Poutine, chronicles some of his all-time favourite stories of true crime and dark history from Canada and around the world.

Bombay, 1921: Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father's law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a law degree from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women's legal rights. Mistry Law has been appointed to execute the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen is going through the paperwork, she notices something strange.

DI Nikki Galena's close friend Helen Brook is involved in a serious accident where she is trapped in a collapsed cellar. After her hard-won recovery, Helen is still getting flashbacks to a man she says was down there with her and who confessed to a murder. But no trace of this man can be found. Then Helen tells Nikki that someone is watching her. But is all this in her friend's imagination and part of her post-traumatic stress?