English Police Mysteries

Everyone is always telling Stone Barrington that he’s too smart to be a cop, but it’s pure luck that places him on the streets in the dead of night, just in time to witness the horrifying incident that turns his life inside out. Suddenly he is on the front page of every New York newspaper and his life is hopelessly entwined in the increasingly shocking life (and perhaps death) of Sasha Nijinsky, the country’s hottest and most beautiful television anchorwoman.

Elvie McCulloch's sister, Sophie, has been missing for 57 days. She went out for a run - and never came home. Several young women in the area have disappeared in similar circumstances, and Elvie's family fears the worst. Teaming up with retired detective Billy Hopkirk, Elvie determines to find out the truth. But as the pair alternately collaborate with and infuriate investigating police detectives Anderson and Costello, they find themselves up against a terrifying enemy. Someone they call The Night Hunter.

In 1919, Delano, Georgia, appoints its first chief of police. Honest and hardworking, the new chief is puzzled when young men start to disappear. But his investigation is ended by the fatal blast from a shotgun. Delano's second chief-of-police is no hero, yet he is also disturbed by what he sees in the missing-persons bulletins. In 1969, when Delano's third chief takes over, the unsolved disappearances still haunt the police files.

Detective Sara Hirst has moved from London to Norfolk Police's Serious Crimes Unit. She wants to know the truth about her father, who has connections to the area. Her mother won't tell her the real story. A new job. A new place. Same old problems. Sara's first call-out is to a decomposing body discovered in a ditch on a local farm. How does the murder relate to a recent spate of thefts? Who wanted the victim dead? Then the case grows very personal.

A year ago, local philanthropist and millionaire Nathan Lyon died a natural death in his sprawling mansion, a 150,000-square-foot converted mill, surrounded by his loving, attentive family. Or so it seemed at the time. Now Joe Gunther and his Vermont Bureau of Investigation team has discovered that almost nothing about that story was true. Nathan Lyon was actually Nick Bianchi from Providence, Rhode Island. His money came from Mafia-tainted sources. And his family now seems to be dying themselves, and their deaths are now revealed to be murders.

When Sergeant Mike West and his partner, Garda Andrews, are called to a suspicious death, they are shocked to find the small body of a child abandoned in a suitcase. Who is she? No child has been reported missing. Their search reaches outside Ireland but without success, and soon another dead body takes their attention. There is a surfeit of suspects this time, but as the case evolves, the two detectives are stunned where it leads.

In this powerful K-9 crime thriller, FBI Special Agent Meg Jennings and her trusted search-and-rescue Labrador, Hawk, must race against the clock before a diabolical killer strikes again. Somewhere in the Washington, DC, area, a woman lies helpless in a box. Beneath the earth. Barely breathing. Buried alive. In Quantico, the FBI receives a coded message from the woman's abductor. He wants to play a game with them: decipher the clues, find the grave, save the girl.

The harrowing call comes from the NYPD: Willy's ex-wife Mary has been found dead in her Lower East Side apartment, and Willy is asked to identify the body. Torn from his beloved Vermont, Willy returns to the city of his hard-drinking youth with misgivings that deepen when he sees Mary's sad corpse on a gurney. Because of a fresh puncture mark in her arm, the police think she overdosed. But Willy has doubts. Driven by loss and guilt, Willy searches deeper and deeper into his past, to a long-ago Vietnam where he was a merciless loner known as the Sniper.

A small girl brings Joe Gunther a bird's nest - made partially of human hair. In the search to match a body - and an identity - to the hair's owner, Joe comes across an unexplained death, a grisly murder, and a sudden disappearance. All seem to be entangled in a puzzling web of municipal corruption, blackmail, and industrial espionage. A shell-shocked World War II veteran nicknamed the Ragman may hold the key to it all - but only if Joe can get him to talk before the murderer strikes again.

St Abra's church is harboring a dark secret. Several elderly parishioners have been found dead in the church's confessions booth, all appearing to have suffered fatal heart attacks. But when another, much younger body is discovered in exactly the same way, Detective Sergeant Blake Harte must investigate how it is possible for the confessions booth to be killing off its occupants. Dark forces are at play, forcing Blake to believe it's more than just tragic coincidence.

For years, detective Harry Hole has been at the center of every major criminal investigation in Oslo. His brilliant insights and dedication to his job have saved countless lives over the years. But as the killer grows increasingly bold and the media reaction increasingly hysterical, the detective is nowhere to be found. This time, when those he loves and values most are facing terrible danger, Harry is in no position to protect anyone—least of all himself.

Cassidy Livingston's new identity has begun to feel as comfortable as her favorite sweater. She's been tucked away on Lantern Beach for weeks, waiting to testify against a deadly gang, and is settling in to a new life she wants to last forever. When she thinks she spots someone malevolent from her past, panic swells inside her. If an enemy has found her, Cassidy won't be the only one who's a target. Everyone she's come to love will also be at risk.

Wayne Castine was found brutally murdered and the murderer remains at large. Castine, a suspected child predator, was killed in Brattleboro where he was involved with a tangled network of an extended family living in a local trailer park. Any member of the clan would have had the opportunity to kill him, and, as he was involved with both the mother and her 12 year old daughter, reason to commit the murder.

A strange group of people have descended on the small island of West Uist. Camped out in the grounds of the Castle, they are preparing to celebrate the summer solstice. Museum curator Finley McNab becomes suspicious of the cult-like group, and when he challenges them it seems his investigations could be deadly....Inspector Torquil McKinnon is called in to keep an eye on the group. Are they innocent pagan worshippers? Or is something more sinister going on behind the scenes? As the day of the solstice draws ever nearer, whispers of murder are on the horizon....

Another freezing winter descends in seeming peace upon the Northern Ontario lake where realtor Belle Palmer lives genteelly with her dog, tropical fishes and classic film collection. But the snow-laden tranquility is tragically disturbed when a good friend is lost in a freak snowmobile accident on an isolated lake. Or so it seems. Belle and others suspect foul play, but a motive and a criminal prove hard to find. Resort owners, anti-environmentalists and the new local drug dealers may all have had reason to want Jim Burian quietly removed, and information isn't forthcoming.

In a Dry Season, winner of the Anthony Award, is an outstanding example of mystery fiction. Peter Robinson's Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks conjures up memories of classic detectives like Philip Marlowe and Sherlock Holmes. An insufferable drought ravages the Yorkshire countryside, depleting the Thornfield Reservoir, revealing the remnants of the flooded town of Hobb's End and the terrible secrets kept safe within its watery tomb. Amongst the ruins, the remains of a woman's body are discovered.

Police Chief Russ van Alstyne doesn't expect any gossip in the town about his carefully contained feelings for the Reverend Clare Fergusson. So he certainly doesn't expect to be the prime suspect when his wife is found murdered in their own home. To the state police, it's an open-and-shut-case of a disaffected husband, silencing first his wife, then the investigation he controls.

In the 17th installment in Peter Lovesey's timeless British detective series, Peter Diamond digs deep into Bath history to ferret out the secrets of one of its most famous (and scandalous) icons: Richard "Beau" Nash, who might have been the victim of a centuries-old murder.

On the shores of a tranquil fjord in northern Iceland, a man is brutally beaten to death on a bright summer's night. As the 24-hour light of the arctic summer is transformed into darkness by an ash cloud from a recent volcanic eruption, a young reporter leaves Reykajvik to investigate on her own, unaware that an innocent person's life hangs in the balance. Ari Thor Arason and his colleagues on the tiny police force in Siglufjordur struggle with an increasingly perplexing case, while their own serious personal problems push them to the limit.

Amy Hill, a 19-year-old student, is strangled and her body dumped on open ground in the city. New police partners, DI Jim Neal and DS Ava Merry are called in to investigate this brutal crime. The last person to see Amy alive was Simon, the son of a family friend, but before he can be properly questioned he disappears. Detectives Neal and Merry are led on a trail of shocking family secrets and crimes. Can this duo track down the murderer before anyone else dies? Stopping this tragic cycle of violence will put DS Merry’s life at risk in a thrilling and heart-stopping finale.