English Police Mysteries

Meet Detective Inspector Dan Hellier, a man who needs to redeem his career and catch a killer. Soon after DI Hellier returns home to Exeter under a cloud, the body of a talented young singer is found in the woods. When her death reveals links to the boss of a recording studio, a predatory gang and a school music teacher, Hellier knows he has his work cut out. Before more innocent people are put in danger, Hellier will need to untangle the web of lies and work out which of many suspects are guilty of murder.

Change is afoot at Kings Lake Central police station. A most unexpected new detective inspector takes up his post this Monday morning, and the oldest detective in the place takes a momentous decision. Around them, other officers are considering their own situations, and even the building itself seems to be facing an uncertain future. But life and death go on, nevertheless, and by lunchtime someone will make a grim discovery on the Norfolk saltmarshes. A stranger seems to have suffered a slow and agonizing death out there.

Ten years ago, Marshall profiled a serial killer the press had dubbed the Shadow Man, who killed six young athletes at remote sites in cold blood, and he worked with Northumbria Police to catch the perpetrator. But the Shadow Man kept the burial locations of the final three bodies to himself. Tired of the passivity, Marshall quit profiling and joined the police. Now a detective inspector in Police Scotland’s Borders Major Investigation Team, Marshall is summoned to HMP Frankland in County Durham, a.k.a. the Monster Mansion.

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.

Mourning the loss of his wife, Rita, former NYPD homicide detective Nico Doyle moves to her hometown of Gravigna in the winesoaked region of Chianti. Half Italian and half Irish, Nico finds himself able to get by in the region with the help of Rita’s relatives, but he still feels alone and out of place. He isn’t sure if it’s peace he’s seeking, but it isn’t what he finds. Early one morning, he hears a gunshot and a dog's cries near his cabin and walks out to discover a dead body in the woods, flashily dressed in gold tennis shoes.

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.

When a worker goes missing from a North Sea gas platform, there seem to be just two possible explanations - it was a tragic accident or a suicide. It does not take Smith and his detectives long, however, to discover that James Bell led a double life back onshore in Kings Lake, a life complicated enough to make him at least one dangerous enemy. Before the case can be unraveled, Smith must get a new team working together.

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.

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.

People come to Los Angeles to chase their dreams. Sometimes they find themselves cast into a nightmare. And sometimes, the most ardent dreamers turn out to be the most vicious monsters. The body of an aspiring actress is found dumped near a hospital emergency room. She’s been drugged and murdered and the motive for the callous crime remains maddeningly out of reach. Until, a prime suspect materializes. Another Hollywood hopeful. Only to be shot dead by a sniper using a weapon that turns out to have been catalogued in a previous murder. And another, before that.

Twenty-year-old Kendele Byers is savagely killed and buried in a shallow grave. She had a violent past, a bizarre, kinky line of work, and the suspect list grows longer every day. But when another woman is murdered, Detective Mitchell Lonnie realizes that there's something much more sinister afoot: a connection between the two murders. Both victims had received a clue hinting at their oncoming demise several minutes before they were attacked. There's a serial killer in Glenmore Park.

Before Jack the Ripper terrorised London, Police Inspector Samuel Ravenscroft patrolled the streets of Whitechapel. Clever and hard-working, Ravenscroft nonetheless has the worst record in the force. He lets a murderer escape during a chase and is banished to the spa town of Malvern for a water treatment to cure his asthma. Ravenscroft accepts a dinner invitation from a new acquaintance, Jabez Pitzer. Before dinner, the maid finds Pitzer slumped over his desk - dead. Ravenscroft immediately recognises the signs - Pitzer has been poisoned.

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.

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.

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.

After a routine delivery, midwife Sarah Brandt visits her patient in a rooming house and finds that another boarder, a young girl, has been killed. At the request of sergeant Frank Malloy, she searches the girl's room and discovers that the victim is from one of the most prominent families in New York - and the sister of an old friend. The powerful family, fearful of scandal, refuses to permit an investigation. But with Malloy's help, Sarah begins a dangerous quest to bring the killer to justice before death claims another victim.

Det. Inspector Kate Carter and her team are assigned to investigate the murder of man found inside the wreckage of a car. A vintage vinyl record from 1964, found next to the body, soon turns out to be an important clue as a second body is discovered. And meanwhile, Det. Inspector Kate, shrewd and smart, and a happy-go-lucky mum to three children, has something very dark to contend with her in her personal life.

Just back from her second tour in Afghanistan, NYPD Detective Chiara Corelli goes undercover to expose a ring of dirty cops. But when she's ordered to kill to prove her loyalty, she aborts the operation without having identified the leaders. Now, Corelli is the one exposed. With her brothers and sisters in blue ostracizing her, can she trust Detective P. J. Parker to watch her back?

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.

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?