English Detective Mysteries

Detective Sergeant Chris Waters got the call at 05.29 that July morning. This is it, said DCI Reeve, you'll be first there, it's all yours, you're the crime scene manager. Suddenly, after months of waiting and wondering, Waters finds himself in at the deep end, and alone at the scene of a puzzling murder. As the investigation proceeds, the detectives at Kings Lake Central find themselves visiting familiar places and talking to some familiar faces, while old enmities reappear in the incident room. Before this is over, Chris Waters will need to make a career-changing decision.

As a colleague of deputy coroner Mattie Winston, social worker Clothilde "Hildy" Schneider is no stranger to unsolved murders at Sorenson General Hospital. Except this time, it's up to her to crack the case.... Motivated by her own difficult past, Hildy has an unparalleled commitment to supporting troubled clients through grief and addiction in Sorenson, Wisconsin. But when a distraught group therapy member reveals disturbing details about her late son's potential murder, Hildy goes from dedicated mental health professional to in-over-her-head amateur sleuth.

Lady Katherine would rather chase clues than suitors. Her reputation as a matchmaker could give her the cover she needs to follow in her detective father's footsteps. If she catches the Pink Ribbon Killer before he strikes again, she'll win her dowry and her independence in the process. One look through the exclusive Northbrooke estate house party doubles her suspect list. With the help of her trusty maid and her precocious pug, Katherine risks it all to unmask the killer. But is winning her freedom worth putting another debutante in mortal danger?

In the peace and tranquility of the woods at Pinehills on a Saturday afternoon, a mobile phone begins to ring. The phone belongs to DC Smith, and it isn't unusual that the call is from Kings Lake Central police station; what is unusual is the fact that he seems to be the subject of an investigation rather than taking part in one. What can the links be between a prisoner's violent death in another county, the disappearance of two teenagers, and the highest profile case in Kings Lake for many years?

Journalist and occasional sleuth Sunni Taylor is working hard on restoring the Cider Ridge Inn to its former glory so she can open a bed-and-breakfast, but Edward Beckett, the resident ghost, is not exactly helpful. Still, Sunni has grown used to having the arrogant gentleman spirit hanging around. Despite her busy life, Sunni offers to help her sister, Lana, set up a bridal shower camping party in the mountains behind the inn. The festivities end in disaster when the maid of honor ends up dead.

Morgan kneels beside the fluttering crime scene tape. Their hands clasped, the couple’s embrace looks loving and warm, but an icy chill grips the air. Their lips are blue, and blood is dripping on the floor. They have been silenced forever When sweet-natured teaching assistant Rosie Waite, and her boyfriend Matt, are found dead in their quaint family home in the Lake District, Detective Morgan Brookes is horrified. Sleeping just two doors down, she heard no screams for help, no slamming doors, or alarms in the night.

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius who uses the gift of deduction and reason to solve the most vexing of crimes. Warlock Holmes, however, is an idiot. A good man, perhaps; a font of arcane power, certainly. But he’s brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn’t deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only things he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart flatmate. Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety...

What happens when an old spook loses his mind? Does the Service have a retirement home for aging spies who can no longer remember their secrets are secret? Or are senile spies taken care of in a different, more permanent fashion? These are the paranoid concerns of David Cartwright, a Cold War–era operative and one-time head of MI5 who is sliding into dementia, and questions his grandson, River, must answer now that the spy who raised him sometimes forgets to wear pants. But River, himself an agent at Slough House, MI5’s outpost for disgraced spies, has other things to worry about.

A skeleton is found in a shallow grave in the churchyard. But this was not an official burial. The victim was murdered decades ago. At the same time, Detective Nikki Galena and her team are investigating the brutal slaying of local businesswoman Madeline Prospero. She was a member of an exclusive and secretive drinking club called The Briar Patch. But they've got no suspects and no one is telling them the truth. Meanwhile, the buried skeleton leads them on a trail to the village of Quintin Eaudyke. This is a troubled place. In the late 70s and 80s a reign of terror was unleashed.

They were madly in love. The perfect couple. That was the story everyone in South River believed...until Gin Talcott and Adam Archer are found shot in their bed. Adam is dead at the scene. Gin is fighting for her life. Detectives Greta Jessup and Finn Pate are assigned to the case. Greta has a long history with Gin’s first husband, Eddie, and is determined to protect his 18-year-old twins. Piper discovered the bodies. Daniel is missing—and so is Adam’s gun.

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?

Ex-police officer Sebastian Clifford had decided to limit his work as a private investigator, until Detective Constable Bird, aka Birdie, asks for his help.

It was summer in the mountains when five small children vanished from their nursery school picnic. The heat was stifling that day, the tinkle of an ice-cream van in the air.... Three-and-a-half years later, in the dead of winter, the children are returned to their families...one by one. All except for Ivy - the granddaughter of Homicide Detective Kate Wakeland. The other four children say Ivy is dead.

Private investigator Sebastian Clifford and his partner Birdie step into the world of celebrity when a star of children's TV turns to them for help. She's being blackmailed by someone who knows about her murky past, and she's desperate to keep it hidden. But silence comes at a price, and it's one she can't afford to pay. Clifford, who knows better than anyone what it's like to be punished for one mistake, agrees to help. As they dig deeper, they discover that everyone has secrets, and some are dark enough to kill for.

At MI5 headquarters Regent's Park, First Desk Claude Whelan is learning the rule (cover your arse) the hard way. Tasked with protecting a beleaguered prime minister, he's facing attack from all directions himself. Over at Slough House, the MI5 satellite office for outcast and demoted spies, the agents are struggling with personal problems: repressed grief, various addictions, retail paralysis, and the nagging suspicion that their newest colleague is a psychopath. Plus someone is trying to kill Roddy Ho.

New York Times best-selling author Anthony Horowitz has yet again brilliantly reinvented the classic crime novel, this time writing a fictional version of himself as the Watson to a modern-day Holmes. One bright spring morning in London, Diana Cowper - the wealthy mother of a famous actor - enters a funeral parlor. She is there to plan her own service. Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home. Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator....

In the small hours of the morning one fall day in 1866, a frantic widow visits detective Charles Lenox. Lady Annabelle's problem is simple: her beloved son, George, has vanished from his room at Oxford. When Lenox visits his alma mater to investigate he discovers a series of bizarre clues, including a murdered cat and a card cryptically referring to "The September Society". Then, just as Lenox realizes that the case may be deeper than it appears, a student dies, the victim of foul play.

The annual West Uist literary festival - The Gathering - always attracts the best in the business. But with the tiny island population suddenly doubling, the local police force is stretched to breaking point. And this year they have to deal with more than just drunken fights and rowdy behavior. Ranald Buchanan, the local poet, is found dead, with his head brutally caved in, and Inspector Torquil McKinnon is brought in to investigate.

It's 1194, and Sir Faucon de Ramis, the shire's newly appointed keeper of the pleas, must do his duty and make an official declaration of the cause of a miller's death. Saddled with a clerk who names Faucon his "penance", the shire's first crowner must thread the tangled relationships between the sheriff, the village of Priors Holston, and the priory that once ruled it. As a simple task takes a turn to the political, what seems obvious isn't, and what appears safe turns out to be more dangerous than he could imagine.

When Lady Althea accompanies her sister-in-law, Jane, to a house party at Ranleigh, she hopes it will be a welcome return to peace and tranquility. Long walks and lazy days are the things Althea needs to advance her scientific studies and to decide whether or not to give up her freedom and marry the handsome and enigmatic Duke of Norwich. However, when she finds the body of a guest in the ornamental pond, she is thrown into yet another mystery. In her search for the truth, she must unmask Napoleonic spies, dig up long buried secrets, and forge new breakthroughs in forensic science.