Historical Police Procedural

DCI Monkia Paniatowski has seen dozens of murder victims in her time, but nothing could have prepared her for the corpse in the woods. It is not so much that the man’s throat has been slashed that shocks her, nor even the way he is naked – it is the way he has been carefully posed. Paniatowski has been assigned a new sergeant, who she does not entirely trust. Worse yet, an old enemy from the secret service announces he will be monitoring her every move.

Captain Alexei Korolev has nothing to complain about. He has his own room in an apartment, a job in the police force that puts food on the table, and his good health. In Moscow in 1937, that's a lot more than most people have to be grateful for. Korolev receives an urgent call from his boss - it seems an important man has been murdered, and Korolev is the only detective they're willing to assign to this sensitive case.

State Security Officer Brano Sev is the secretive member of the Ministry for State Security. No one else quite trusts him, but it is part of his job to do what the authorities ask, no matter what. So when he gets an order to travel to the village of his birth in order to interrogate a potential defector, he goes. When a man turns up dead shortly after he arrives and Brano is framed for the murder, he assumes this is part of the plan and allows it to run its course.

In December 1941, America is reeling from the brutal attack on Pearl Harbor. Both patriotism and paranoia grip New York as the city frantically mobilizes for war. Nurse Louise Hunter is outraged when the FBI, in a midnight sweep of prominent Japanese residents, storms in to arrest her patient’s wife. The desperately ill Professor Oakley is married to artist Masako Fumi. The nurse vows to help the professor free Masako. But when the murdered body of Masako’s art dealer is discovered in the gallery where he’d been closing down her controversial show, Masako’s troubles multiply.

It is 1956. Radio reports of the Hungarian revolution break through the government's radio jamming, setting the entire Eastern Bloc on edge.

Inspector Ferenc Kolyeszar must track down a murderer while dealing with his crumbling marriage. As he is drawn deep into an underworld of betrayal and violence, he finds that he is not so different from those he pursues.

To the outside observer, Salt Lake City seems to be the squeaky-clean “City of Saints” - its nickname since Mormon pioneers first arrived. Its wide roads, huge Mormon temple topped by a horn-blowing angel, and orderly neighborhoods give it the appearance of the ideal American city. But looks can be deceiving. When beautiful socialite Helen Kent Pfalzgraf turns up dead, Salt Lake County Deputy Art Oveson - a twenty-something husband, dad, and devout Mormon just getting his start - finds himself thrust into the role of detective.

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...

Billy Boyle awakens in a field hospital in Sicily with amnesia. In his pocket is a yellow silk handkerchief embroidered with the initial L. Gradually he remembers: he has been sent ashore in advance of the troops with this token from Lucky Luciano to contact the head of the Sicilian Mafia. But he must also thwart a murderous band of counterfeiters of Army scrip led by Vito Genovese.

When a famed Oxford historian is found dead in his study one night, all evidence points to his son, Stephen. About to be disinherited from the family fortune, Stephen returns to home after a long estrangement—and it happens to be the night his father is shot to death. When his fingerprints are found on the murder weapon, Stephen’s guilt seems undeniable. But there were five other people in the manor house at the time, and as their stories slowly emerge.

May 1959. From one side of St. Brigid's Island, the mountains of Connemara can be glimpsed on the distant mainland; from the other, the Atlantic stretches as far as the eye can see. This remote settlement, without electricity or even a harbor, has scarcely altered since its namesake saint set up a convent of stone huts centuries ago. Those who live there, including sisters Rose and Emer, are hardy and resourceful, dependent on the sea and each other for survival.

After an absence of a year, Catherine LeVendeur and her husband Edgar are glad to return to Paris. When they enter the house, however, they are shocked by the discovery of the dead body of a Knight Templar. Although innocent, Catherine fears that she or her family will be incriminated. Her father Hubert has recently announced his Jewish roots, and twelfth-century Europe is not a safe place for Jews.

The grave on the football field is shallow, and easy to spot from a distance. It would have been found sooner, had most of the residents in the black half of Birmingham not been downtown, marching, singing, and being arrested alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. Police detective Ben Wellman is among them when he gets the call about the fresh grave. Under the loosely packed dirt, he finds a young black girl, her innocence taken and her life along with it. His sergeant orders Wellman to investigate, but instructs him not to try too hard.

New York, 1891: a rapidly changing city, torn between lamplight and electric light, where the burgeoning steel and railway industries attract a flood of humanity from every corner of the globe, fuelling cutthroat gangs, corruption and vice. A prostitute is found brutally murdered. Immediately fear starts to spread. The victim bears the same hallmarks as Jack the Ripper's recent killing spree in England. Could it be that the Ripper has crossed the Atlantic to fresh killing grounds? Or is this simply a copycat murder?

It is May 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama. As Martin Luther King, Jr.’s civil rights demonstrations begin to fill the streets, prejudices awaken and tempers flare. Amid the violence and confusion, a deaf black girl is found raped and murdered. Veteran homicide detective Ben Wellman pursues the murderer through the throngs of protesters, the pool halls of the black district of Bearmatch, the white mansions of Mountain Brook, and, finally, even in his own department. As he did in Sacrificial Ground, Cook has created a novel of uncommon force and resonance.

When a chorus girl is found dead on a Broadway stage dressed in the leading lady's costume, there are no signs of violence, no cuts, no bruises, no marks at all. If pressed, the coroner would call it a suicide, but then that would make her the second girl to turn up dead in such a manner in the last few weeks. And the news of a possible serial killer would be potentially disastrous to the burgeoning theater world, not to mention the citizens of New York.

In 1965 Constable Cody Parker’s frightening dreams of gathering storm clouds for the tight-knit Parker family from Center Springs, Texas, proved accurate. Cody is ambushed and nearly killed on a lonely country road during an unusually heavy snowfall. With that attack, the locals fear that a disturbed murderer "the Skinner" has returned to their community. While his nephew recovers, Constable Ned Parker struggles to connect a seemingly unrelated series of murders.

On a hot August day in 1994, 76 holidaymakers travel to an island off the North Norfolk coast. Only 75 return alive - a young man is murdered, the case left unsolved. Twenty years later, using state-of-the-art forensics, the DNA results of a blood-soaked towel prompt DI Peter Shaw to summon all 75 original suspects to a mass screening. But one of them is found dead in her bed. Is there a link to the 1994 murder? DI Shaw and DS Valentine become immersed in the secrets of an isolated community.

London, East End, 1888: Ein unheimlicher Killer verübt im Stadtteil Whitechapel eine bis dahin beispiellose Mordserie, der ausschließlich Prostituierte zum Opfer fallen. Er nennt sich selbst "Jack the Ripper". Scotland Yards Chief Inspector Donald Swanson und sein Team werden auf den Fall angesetzt. Doch alle Versuche, Licht ins Dunkel zu bringen, scheitern. Sogar Oscar Wilde und Lewis Carroll geraten in den Dunstkreis der Ermittlungen.

On a stormy night in March 1941, Maisie Rose Hawkins leaves her drunk husband, Stan, out in the rain - and he disappears. Detective Sergeant Bob Robbins and young PC Laurie Oliver are called out to investigate and discover that Stan’s small fishing boat is gone, the rope sawn through. As Bob searches for answers, it becomes apparent that in this small Cornish village where everyone knows everything about everybody, nobody quite knows the truth.

Atlanta 1956: In der pulsierenden Südstaatenhauptstadt verschärfen sich die Rassenkonflikte, als die Bürgerrechtsbewegung mit dem jungen Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. einen neuen Wortführer bekommt. In dieser ohnehin schon angespannten Lage wird Arthur Bishop, der Herausgeber der führenden schwarzen Tageszeitung ermordet. Sofort gerät der Journalist und ehemalige Cop Tommy Smith ins Fadenkreuz der rassistischen Polizisten. Um sich zu entlasten, muss Smith mehr über die Geschichte erfahren, an der Bishop gearbeitet hat.