Historical Police Fiction

It’s 1954, and Heller takes on the Sam Sheppard case - a young doctor is startled from sleep and discovers his wife brutally murdered. He claims that a mysterious intruder killed his wife. But all the evidence points to a disturbed husband who has grown tired of married life and yearned to be free at all costs. Sheppard is swiftly convicted and sent to rot in prison. Just how firm was the evidence...and was it tampered with to fit a convenient narrative to settle scores and push political agendas?

Napoli, 1932. Manca una settimana a Pasqua e l'aria profuma di primavera. In un'esclusiva casa di tolleranza, viene trovata morta una delle ragazze più belle, la famosa Vipera. Chi è stato a soffocarla con un cuscino? Nella sua indagine, il commissario Ricciardi si troverà impigliato in una rete di sentimenti e passioni insospettabili, che toccheranno anche lui. Rappresentata con maestria nella sua vivace autenticità, la città arriverà a svelare il suo volto meno conosciuto.

The detectives in Josie's squad don’t fit the spit and polish image of the Adam 12 LAPD. They’re grubby, unshaven, disrespectful to authority, and generally do police work in an effective, if not by-the-book way. She’s comfortable balancing on the edge of legality to make a good arrest until one night an informant tells her that a cop has stepped over the line and is selling rock cocaine. In Josie’s mind, there’s nothing worse than dirty cops. She learns the hard way that they can be vicious, clever, and determined to do anything - including murder - to avoid capture.

USA, 1958. President Joseph McCarthy sits in the White House, elected on a wave of populist xenophobia and barely‑concealed anti‑Semitism. The country is in the firm grip of McCarthy's Hueys, a secret police force evolved from the House Un-American Activities Committee. Hollywood's sparkling vision of the American dream has been suppressed; its remaining talents forced to turn out endless anti‑communist propaganda.

September 1878. One night, as the pleasure boat The Princess Alice makes her daily trip up the Thames, she collides with the Bywell Castle, a huge iron-hulled collier. The Princess Alice shears apart, throwing all 600 passengers into the river; only 130 survive. It is the worst maritime disaster London has ever seen, and early clues point to sabotage by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, who believe violence is the path to restoring Irish Home Rule. For Scotland Yard Inspector Michael Corravan, born in Ireland and adopted by the Irish Doyle family, the case presents a challenge.

Rancho Santa Elena in 1987 seems like the ideal Southern California paradise—that is, until a series of strange crimes threatens to unravel the town’s social fabric: workers attacked with mysterious weapons; a wealthy real estate developer found dead in the pool of his beach house. The only clues are poison and red threads found at both crime scenes. As Detective Benjamin Wade and forensic expert Natasha Betencourt struggle to connect the incidents, they begin to wonder: Why Santa Elena? And why now?

Summer 1989: Gunther Fahnstiel, once a tough cop who wasn't averse to taking a little side money from a certain madam, has just escaped the dementia ward of his Wichita nursing home. He's not exactly sure where he wants to go, but wherever it is, it has to do with the bag full of cash belonging to the man he accidentally backed over with his RV in 1979. During his search, Gunther begins to relive the violent fallout of that madam's sex lottery 40 years ago. As Gunther's memories unravel, his past and present will collide in a devastating reckoning.

As commander of the River Police, Monk is accustomed to violent death, but the mutilated female body found on Limehouse Pier one chilly December morning moves him with horror and pity. The victim’s name is Zenia Gadney. Her waterfront neighbors can tell him little—only that the same unknown gentleman had visited her once a month for many years. She must be a prostitute, but—described as quiet and kempt—she doesn’t appear to be a fallen woman. What sinister secrets could have made poor Zenia worth killing? And why does the government keep interfering in Monk’s investigation?

Eine gefährliche Raubmörder-Bande treibt ihr Unwesen in Berlin, als im Herbst 1932 die 75-jährige Frau eines Markthändlers in ihrer Wohnung überfallen und umgebracht wird. Die Spur führt Kommissar Gennat zum Ringverein „Felsenfest“. Doch die Ermittler stoßen dort auf eine Festung des Schweigens. Gennat bittet seinen Freund, den Polizeireporter Max Kaminski, um Hilfe. Der fürchtet allerdings, von den Ringbrüdern schnell enttarnt zu werden. Kaminskis Frau Lissy hat die zündende Idee: Mit falscher Identität sucht sie den Kontakt zu den Frauen und Freundinnen der Ringbrüder.

Dem Eisenbahnattentäter auf der Spur. Max Kaminski ist eigentlich Reporter, aber viel zu neugierig, um nicht auch selbst auf die Fährte von Verbrechern zu gehen. Als 1931 in der Nähe der Kleinstadt Jüterbog bei Berlin ein Zug entgleist und ein anonymer Brief mit einer Geldforderung auftaucht, ruft das die Berliner Kriminalpolizei auf den Plan. Aber Kommissar Gennat und seine Kollegen tappen zunächst im Dunkeln. Nach einigen Monaten entgleist dann in Ungarn der legendäre Orient-Express auf dem Weg nach Wien.

Fesselnd, authentisch, hoch atmosphärisch: Kalter Krieg in Berlin und ein perfider Frauenmörder. In Tanzpalast, dem 8. Band der historischen Krimi-Reihe von Harald Gilbers, jagt Kommissar Oppenheimer einen Serienmörder, der seine weiblichen Opfer als Heilige inszeniert. Berlin, 1950: Eine junge Frau, die als vermisst gemeldet war, wird schließlich ermordet aufgefunden, ihre Leiche inszeniert wie eine Heiligenikone. Das Brisante: Sie hatte eine Affäre mit einem amerikanischen General.

As lawman, rancher, and Korean War veteran, Ty Dawson has his share of problems in the southern Oregon county he calls home. Despite how rural it is, Meriwether can't keep modernity at bay. The 1970s have changed the United States—and Meriwether won't be spared. A standoff looms when the US Fish & Wildlife Service seeks to separate longtime cattleman KC Sheridan from his water supply—ensuring the death of his livestock. If that's not enough trouble, a Portland detective is found dead in a fly-fishing resort cabin.

France, 1977. Baptiste is an intelligent but somewhat naive detective, sent to work in Clermiers, a town filled with corruption. A girl goes missing, presumed dead after bloody clothes are found close to an illicit party near an abandoned chateau. Baptiste believes he's nailed the culprit, the eccentric Gilles Mailloux. When he appears in court, the public call for the guillotine - and that's the sentence Mailloux gets. But as Mailloux awaits an appeal for clemency, he asks to see Baptiste, who's still haunted by the fact the girl's body remains missing.

Trieste, primavera del 1902. Il ricordo dei fatti di sangue seguiti al primo sciopero operaio dell'Impero asburgico è ancora vivo nella mente della cittadinanza. A pochi giorni dalla revoca dello stato d'assedio proclamato dal governo di Vienna, un sottufficiale dell'esercito viene trovato morto e sfigurato in un vicolo. Intanto, una preziosa reliquia cristiana, il Mandylion, viene rubata, perduta e infine ritrovata da Davorin, un ragazzino di dodici anni che in seguito a ciò pare acquisire strani poteri.

The activities of the infamous drug-running gang founded by Cornelius Mildew may have been hampered in The Mildew Gang, but the king of crime is still alive and well-and still threatening to take his revenge. Scotland Yard whisks the two young people responsible away from London, where they'll presumably be safe-but when they're attacked once again by Mildew's henchmen, they return to the big city to help bring about his downfall.

When Tokyo falls victim to a deadly terrorist attack, Detective Sergeant Mariko Oshiro knows who is responsible, even if she doesn't have proof. She urges her commanding officers to arrest the perpetrator - an insane zealot who was just released from police custody. When her pleas fall on deaf ears, she loses her temper and then her badge as well as her best chance of fighting back.

It is 1945 in the American sector of occupied Berlin, and a German boy has discovered the body of a beautiful young woman in a subway station. Blonde and blue eyed, she has been sexually assaulted and strangled with a chain. When the bodies of other young women begin to pile up, it becomes clear that this is no isolated act of violence, and German and American investigators will have to cooperate if they are to stop the slaughter.

Tripoli, 1960s: During the years in which post-colonial Libya fell prey to the sprawling greed of the West, Michele Balistreri suffered a succession of blows that would scar him for life. The death of his mother; the unspeakable horror that befell his best friend's family; his father's role in Gaddafi's ascent to power; and the innocent blood pact that would corrupt the course of his future.

At dawn one morning in 1933, an amateur dowsing team digging the banks of the Thames for precious metals unearths the body of a young woman with a missing toe and a priceless gold coin in her mouth. The case falls on Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard Joe Sandilands’ turf, but he’s been given another assignment - and a very high-profile one. London is hosting a historic global economic conference to try to solve the global Depression, and political tensions are running very high...

In 1964, when Ned Parker, farmer and part-time constable, is summoned to a cornfield one hot morning to examine the remains of a tortured bird dog, he discovers that there is a dark presence in their quiet community of Center Springs, Texas. Ned is usually confident handling moonshiners, drunks, and instances of domestic dispute. But when it comes to animal atrocities—which then turn to murder—the investigation spins beyond his abilities.