English Police Mysteries

It’s spring and Three Pines is reemerging after the harsh winter. But not everything buried should come alive again. Not everything lying dormant should reemerge. But something has. As the villagers prepare for a special celebration, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir find themselves increasingly worried. A young man and woman have reappeared in the Sûreté du Québec investigators’ lives after many years. The two were young children when their troubled mother was murdered, leaving them damaged, shattered. Now they’ve arrived in the village of Three Pines. But to what end?

DI Rob Marshall is stuck in Gartcosh, leading the new Behavioural Sciences Unit – a staff of one and a third – where he’s executing a fruitless hunt, profiling every single murder in Scotland just in case they’re serial cases. But when a young Peebles woman’s body is discovered in Neidpath Tunnel, disused since the sixties, Marshall is called in to consult on a case on his old home turf. Paired up with his replacement, a cop who’s disinterested in the work, Marshall must tread a line between helping and not jumping to conclusions.

Ansley Park is one of Atlanta’s most desirable neighborhoods. But in one mansion, in a teenager’s lavish bedroom, a girl has been savagely murdered. In the hallway, her horrified mother stands amid shattered glass, having killed her daughter’s attacker with her bare hands. Detective Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is here only to do a political favor; the murder site belongs to the Atlanta police. But Trent soon sees something the cops are missing, something in the trail of blood, in a matrix of forensic evidence, and in the eyes of the shell-shocked mother.

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.

Renée Ballard is working the night beat again and returns to Hollywood Station in the early hours only to find a stranger rifling through old file cabinets. The intruder is retired detective Harry Bosch, working a cold case that has gotten under his skin. Ballard kicks him out but then checks into the case herself, and it brings a deep tug of empathy and anger. Bosch is investigating the death of 15-year-old Daisy Clayton, a runaway on the streets of Hollywood who was brutally murdered and her body left in a dumpster like so much trash. Now, Ballard joins forces with Bosch.

It is said a bright and clear bomber’s moon is the best asset to finding one’s target. But beware what you wish for: what you can see at night can also see you, often with dire consequences. Two young women form the heart of this tale. One is an investigative reporter, the other a private investigator. Uneasy allies from completely different walks of life, they work together - around and sometimes against Joe Gunther and his VBI cops - in an attempt to connect the murders of a small-town drug dealer; a smart thief; and the tangled, political, dark goings on at a prep school.

Recent Afghan refugee Sabera Ahmadi was last seen exiting her place of work three weeks ago. The local police have yet to open a case, while her older, domineering husband seems unconcerned. Sabera's closest friend, however, is convinced Sabera would never willingly leave her three‑year old daughter. At her insistence, missing persons expert Frankie Elkin agrees to take up the search through the broiling streets of Tucson. Just in time for a video of the young mother to surface—showing her walking away from the scene of a brutal double murder.

Bo Tully, sheriff of Blight County, Idaho, has dealt with small-town crime throughout his long, storied career. Now, contemplating retirement after years on the job, Tully is faced with perhaps his most perplexing case yet. When area bald eagles start getting picked off by a ghost-like killer, and when a prominent local rancher is murdered by an arrow with eagle fletching, things gets complicated fast. In this fast-paced whodunit, Tully has a vast array of suspects to choose from, including the rancher's gorgeous, bird-loving wife, who mysteriously leaves for a ranch in Mexico the day of the murder.

The second book in the Misty Isle series, by J M Dalgliesh.

"And see if there's any news about the missing girl." Life, as Smith used to say, is just one thing after another - as one investigation ends, a new one begins. But for reasons unknown to the rest of her team, DCI Cara Freeman will be haunted by the next case for the Kings Lake Central murder squad. They find themselves delving into the seamy side of life in the town, and one of their number will have departed before this new investigation is over. Perhaps Detective Sergeant Chris Waters should have seen it coming, but he has a lot more than work on his mind these days.

Set in rural South Carolina in 1995, a veteran detective is forced to reconcile the errors of a past case when a woman she convicted of murder is exonerated after 10 years in prison. Meanwhile, a series of grisly and ritualistic murders rock their decaying town, and our heroine is put at odds against her ambitious partner as they race to put the pieces together.

Called to the peaceful wooded churchyard of St John-at-Hampstead, Detective Chief Inspector Archie Penrose faces one of the most audacious and unusual murders of his career. The body of the church's organist is found in an opened grave, together with a photograph of a manor house and a cryptic note. The image leads Archie to Cambridge, where the crisp autumn air has brought with it bustling life to the ancient university and town.

Defense attorney Mickey Haller is back, taking the long shot cases, where the chances of winning are one in a million. He agrees to represent a woman in prison for killing her husband, a sheriff’s deputy. Despite her conviction four years earlier, she still maintains her innocence. Haller enlists his half brother, retired LAPD Detective Harry Bosch, as investigator. Reviewing the case, Bosch sees something that doesn’t add up, and a sheriff’s department intent on bringing a quick search for justice in the killing of one of its own.

After Emery Hazard loses his job as a detective in Saint Louis, he heads back to his hometown - and to the local police force there. Home, though, brings no happy memories. Hazard's new partner, John-Henry Somerset, had been one of the worst tormentors, and Hazard still wonders what Somerset's role was in the death of Jeff Langham, Hazard's first boyfriend. When a severely burned body is discovered, Hazard finds himself drawn deeper into the case than he expects. Determining the identity of the dead man proves impossible, and solving the murder grows more and more unlikely.

Jonathan Stride’s best friend, Steve Garske, makes a shocking deathbed confession: He protected Stride by covering up a murder. Hours later, the police dig up Steve’s yard and find a body with a bullet hole in its skull. Stride is pretty sure he knows who it is. Seven years ago, an out-of-town reporter disappeared while investigating anonymous allegations of rape against a prominent politician. Back then, the police believed that the reporter drowned at a dangerous swimming hole called the Deeps...but the discovery of the body changes everything.

It's June in Montreal, and Dr. Temperance Brennan, who has left a shaky marriage back home in North Carolina to take on the challenging assignment of Director of Forensic Anthropology for the province of Quebec, looks forward to a relaxing weekend in beautiful Quebec City. First, though, she must stop at a newly uncovered burial site in the heart of the city. The remains are probably old and only of archeological interest, but Tempe must make sure they're not a case for the police. One look at the decomposed and decapitated corpse, stored neatly in plastic bags, tells her she'll spend the weekend in the crime lab.

In a wicked conspiracy reaching across the Mexican border, Tularosa pits a jaded ex-cop against tight-lipped Army personnel, hired thugs, and smooth-talking outlaws. Forced into retirement by a crippling gunshot wound, Santa Fe policeman Kevin Kerney seeks solitude on a small New Mexico ranch far from the nearest neighbor. But when his godson disappears without a trace into the harsh, high-security desert of the White Sands Missile Range, Kerney emerges to search for the young soldier.

Wexford is shopping for his wife’s birthday present when the body of a strangled woman is discovered nearby. Then his daughter is arrested for an anti-nuclear war demonstration, and a car bomb puts him in the hospital while a psychopathic killer is loose and bent on revenge.

Detective Constable Kate Wolfe is sent to a Cheshire backwater after falling foul of a disciplinary hearing in London. But before she even has a chance to settle in, Kate finds herself in a situation from which there's no coming back. She's reported as a troublemaker to her new boss, Detective Chief Inspector Helen Taylor, a no-nonsense veteran who once had an esteemed, high-profile career. The pair investigates a spate of arson attacks, a dead body found in a burnt-out building, and a missing architect while fighting their growing attraction for each other.

Jonathan Stride and Serena Dial are both investigating high-profile murders in Las Vegas. A celebrity is assassinated during a fling with a prostitute, and a young boy is killed in a brutal hit-and-run incident. When the cases converge, Jonathan and Serena find themselves racing the clock against a determined serial killer and searching for a connection to the unsolved murder of a showgirl years earlier.