English Police Mysteries

When Deputy Ken Brody's sweetheart goes missing in the mountains outside Timber Creek, Mattie Cobb and her K-9 partner Robo are called to search. But it's mid-October and a dark snow storm is brewing over the high country. And they're already too late. By the time they find her body, the storm has broken and the snow is coming down hard.

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?

George Arrow, a good-looking, independently wealthym and single man of 36, has just been diagnosed with a weak heart. A heart so weak, his doctor tells him, he must go to extraordinary lengths to avoid putting the slightest strain upon it. On his doctor's advice, George packs up his life in Dublin and boards a train to the Bay of Galway where he intends to live quietly in a hotel and await the inevitable end. On the train, he meets John Burden, and as they chat, George realizes that his new acquaintance is an odious man.

In Midcoast Maine, Jamie Flint and her K-9 team search for the cognitively challenged son of a local animal hoarder, while recently licensed private investigator Jack Juarez looks into a murder related to the case. Unfortunately, each new clue Jack finds in the investigation seems to lead him back to a suspect police already have in their sights: Jamie's son. Meanwhile, Jamie fights to save a critically ill pit bull pulled from the hoarder's home who could hold the key to the woman's dark secrets.

A crime of passion strikes close to home when Gemma and her best friend, Hazel Cavendish, travel to Scotland, a land of mists and fine whiskey, of hidden pasts and dangerous secrets, or so Gemma discovers when an unexpected meeting with Hazel's old flame yields shocking—and mortal—consequences. Hazel is the logical suspect, but Gemma knows nothing is simple in this place of secrets and long-seething hatreds.

Emery Hazard and his partner, John-Henry Somerset, have solved their first case together. The brutal murders that rocked the quiet town of Wahredua have been put to rest. Hazard, however, finds his life has only grown more complicated as he adjusts to his new home. Living with Somers, whom he has been drawn to since high school, makes "complicated" the understatement of the year.

Former FBI agent Kendra Donovan's attempts to return to the 21st century have failed, leaving her stuck at Aldridge Castle in 1815. And her problems have just begun: in London, the Duke of Aldridge's nephew Alec - Kendra's confidante and lover - has come under suspicion for murdering his former mistress, Lady Dover, who was found viciously stabbed with a stiletto, her face carved up in a bizarre and brutal way.

Detective Max Rupert's and attorney Boady Sanden's friendship is being pushed to the breaking point. Max is convinced that Jennavieve Pruitt was killed by her husband, Ben. Boady is equally convinced that Ben, his client, is innocent. As the case unfolds, the two are forced to confront their own personal demons.

A former Medal of Valor winner, Minnesota detective Alexander Rupert is now under subpoena by a grand jury on suspicion of corruption. So when he's asked to look into the false identity of a car-accident victim named James Putnam, a man who in fact died 15 years earlier, Rupert sees a potentially big case and an opportunity to regain his respectability. But the investigation puts him in the path of "the Beast", the nom de guerre of Drago Basta, a cunning veteran of the Balkan wars.

Eric Ward thinks there is something odd about Arthur Egan’s life and death. But Ward is a former police inspector and trained to be suspicious. Egan left a large sum. But Ward makes no progress tracing the dead man’s offspring. A photograph of an unknown tombstone is his only clue. He discovers Egan served a term for manslaughter and that the evidence against him may have been planted. Why had he accepted his fate so meekly?

When 14-year-old Zoe Johnson doesn't come home on a Monday night in early December, the alarm bells in Kings Lake Central police station do not ring straight away - after all, she's from the Dockmills, one of the toughest estates in the town. But for Detective Sergeant DC Smith, due to retire in just three weeks' time, there are some strange echoes of the case that has haunted him for the past 13 years. Maybe it's simply his over-developed sense of irony, or maybe, in his final days as a police officer, Smith must look once more into the eyes of a serial killer.

Met cop DI Rob Marshall is hot on the trail of the serial killer known as the Chameleon, who has abducted, tortured and killed a series of young women in Northwest London. As they close in, the Chameleon—who switches identity to get close to his victims—shoots Marshall’s partner and escapes.

Chief Inspector Wexford finds nothing unusual in the disappearance of Rodney Williams, a husband and father who likely has run off with another woman. But when the man’s car and suitcase are discovered abandoned, can a body be far behind?

When Commissario Brunetti is summoned in the middle of the night to the hospital bed of a pediatrician, he is confronted with more questions than answers. Three men, a young carabiniere captain and two privates from out of town, burst into the doctor's apartment while the family was sleeping, attacked him, and took away his 18-month-old boy. What could have motivated an assault by the forces of the state that was so violent it has left the doctor mute?

Homicide Detective Max Rupert never fully accepted his wife's death, even when he believed that a reckless hit and run driver was the cause. But when he learns that in fact she was murdered, he devotes himself to hunting down her killers. Most of his life he had thought of himself as a decent man. But now he's so consumed with thoughts of retribution that he questions whether he will take that last step and enact the vengeance he longs for.

An edge-of-your-seat crime thriller starts with a vicious stabbing of a pretty teenage girl and her boyfriend on a local bus. She happens to be the mayor's niece. It's the final straw for the community. The police are desperate to get results and decide on a risky course of action involving undercover infiltration of the notorious Effingell Estate. Detective George Elms knows this hellish place extremely well, and his sharp investigative mind is put to work to solve the crime. The police are under immense media pressure and conveniently a local lowlife confesses to the attack.

After two London men end their business partnership, one of them is savagely murdered in a medieval tithe barn on his estate in Somerset. Investigating the killing, Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge discovers that the victim was universally despised in Cambury - even the victim's wife and the town's police inspector are suspect. And yet in London circles, the man was highly regarded. What triggered his death?

Often compared to both Ruth Rendell and P.D. James, Deborah Crombie is internationally acclaimed for her deftly written mysteries that combine suspense, with lyrical prose. Sharply etched characters further enrich this story of tangled relationships and dark secrets. Twelve years after their divorce, Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid receives a phone call from his ex-wife Victoria asking for his help.

Lt. Joe Gunther of the Brattleboro, Vermont, police force has a serious problem: in a community where a decade could pass without a single murder, the body count is suddenly mounting. Innocent citizens are being killed - and others set up - seemingly orchestrated by a mysterious ski-masked man. Signs suggest that a three-year-old murder trial might lie at the heart of things, but it's a case that many in the department would prefer remained closed. A man of quiet integrity, Lt. Gunther knows that he must pursue the case to its conclusion, wherever it leads.

When Fergus Macleod, Lochdubh's abusive, drunk dustman is put in charge of the local recycling center, Hamish Macbeth smells trouble. Sure enough, Fergus, imbued with his new powers, becomes a bullying tyrant. When his body is found stuffed in a recycling bin, no one is sorry - including his long-suffering family. But Macbeth is surprised to find that many of the despicable dustman's victims refuse to talk - and when violence strikes again, the lanky lawman must quickly unearth the culprit among a litter of suspects... before the killer makes a clean getaway!