International Police Procedurals

When builders discover a human skeleton during a renovation of a café, they call in archeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway, who is preoccupied with the threatened closure of her department and by her ever-complicated relationship with DCI Nelson. The bones turn out to be modern—the remains of Emily Pickering, a young archaeology student who went missing in 2002. Suspicion soon falls on Emily’s Cambridge tutor and also on another archeology enthusiast who was part of the group gathered the weekend before she disappeared—Ruth’s friend Cathbad.

Detective Carl Morck has received a bottle that holds an old and decayed message written in blood. It's a cry for help from two young brothers, tied and bound in a boathouse by the sea. After floating in the ocean for years before turning up, the bottle sat forgotten, unopened, on a police department windowsill, before the seal was cracked and the gruesome message, written in Danish, was analyzed. Could it be real? Who are these boys, and why weren't they reported missing? Could they possibly still be alive?

In this fifth installment in the critically acclaimed Irene Huss series, three men are found brutally executed in one of Goteborg's most fashionable neighborhoods. All three men were involved in an online poker company, but that's all they appear to have in common. The complex investigation immerses Detective Inspector Irene Huss and her colleagues into a world of expensive cars, fancy homes, and impressive castles in the air. Meanwhile, the normally peaceful atmosphere of the Huss family is disturbed by marital tension as Irene suspects her husband, Krister, of a having an affair with a younger woman.

For the first time in decades Rome is paralysed by a blizzard. And a gruesome discovery is made in the Pantheon, one of the city's most ancient and revered architectural treasures. Covered by softly falling snow is the body of a young woman, her back horribly mutilated. But before Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni of the Questura can begin a formal investigation, the US Embassy has brought in its own people, FBI Agents who want the case closed down as quickly and discreetly as possible.

With their dark sophistication and dry humor, Andrea Camilleri’s classic crime novels continue to win more and more fans in America. The latest installment of the popular mystery series finds the moody Inspector Montalbano further beset by the existential questions that have been plaguing him of late. But he doesn’t have much time to wax philosophical before the gruesome murder of a man—shot at point-blank range in the face with his pants down—commands his attention.

When Viktor Palmgren, a powerful Swedish industrialist, is shot during his after-dinner speech in the luxurious Hotel Savoy, it sends a shiver down the spine of the international money markets and puts the tiny town of Malmö on edge. No one can identify the gunman when Martin Beck takes over the scene and finds a web so despicable that it's hard to imagine who wouldn't want Palmgren dead.

New York Times and internationally best-selling author Jussi Adler-Olsen delivers an exhilarating mystery in the Department Q series, featuring Detective Carl Mørck and his enigmatic assistants, Assad and Rose. In the middle of his usual hard-won morning nap in the basement of police headquarters, Carl Mørck, head of Department Q, receives a call from a colleague working on the Danish island of Bornholm. Carl is dismissive when he realizes that a new case is being foisted on him.

The number one New York Times best-selling author’s award-winning series returns with another stunning crime drama featuring Scotland Yard members Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers. As Inspector Thomas Lynley investigates the London angle of an ever more darkly disturbing case, his partner, Barbara Havers, is looking behind the peaceful façade of country life to discover a twisted world of desire and deceit.

International superstar Jussi Adler-Olsen, with more than fourteen million copies of his books sold worldwide, returns with the fourth book in his New York Times best-selling Department Q series, about a perplexing cold case with sinister modern-day consequences. In 1987, Nete Hermansen plans revenge on those who abused her in her youth, including Curt Wad, a charismatic surgeon who was part of a movement to sterilize wayward girls in 1950s Denmark.

A journalist shows up on Eve Duncan's doorstep with a plea for help. Jill Cassidy has just come from a small African village with a heart wrenching story: Half the villagers - many of them children - have been killed in a horrific attack by guerilla soldiers, the bodies burned beyond recognition. Now, the families desperately need Eve's help to get closure and begin to heal. But when Eve arrives in the remote jungle, she begins to suspect that Jill's plea may have been a cover story for a deeper, more sinister plot.

The death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should not be suspicious. Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing out of the ordinary when Peggy’s caretaker, Natalka, begins to recount Peggy Smith’s passing. But Natalka had a reason to be at the police station: while clearing out Peggy’s flat, she noticed an unusual number of crime novels, all dedicated to Peggy. And each psychological thriller included a mysterious postscript: PS: for PS.

It's nearly Christmas in Oxford, and Detective Inspector Bridget Hart is enjoying a rare day off at Oxford's Christmas Market. A ghost tour seems like a fun way to round off the day. Until, that is, a brutal murder brings the evening to a tragic close. Torn between work and family commitments over the festive season, Bridget soon discovers that the ghost of Christmas past is reaching out to the present with fatal consequences.

A man is found murdered in his Reykjavik flat. There are no obvious clues apart from a cryptic note left on the body and a photograph of a young girl's grave. Delving into the dead man's life Detective Erlendur discovers that 40 years ago he was accused of an appalling crime, but never convicted. Had his past come back to haunt him? As Erlendur struggles to build a relationship with his unhappy daughter, his investigation takes him to Iceland's Genetic Research Centre, where he uncovers disturbing secrets that are even darker than the murder of an old man.

There's nothing Ruth Galloway hates more than amateur archaeologists, but when a group of them stumble upon Bronze Age artifacts alongside a dead body, she finds herself thrust into their midst - and into the crosshairs of a string of murders circling ever closer.

In a quiet village surrounded by ancient woods and the imposing Italian Alps, a man is found naked with his eyes gouged out. It is the first in a string of gruesome murders. Superintendent Teresa Battaglia, a detective with a background in criminal profiling, is called to investigate. Battaglia is in her mid-60s, her rank and expertise hard-won from decades of battling for respect in the male-dominated Italian police force. Soon she finds that buried deep in these mountains are whispers of a dark and dangerous history, possibly tied to a group of eight-year-old children.

When a lobster fisherman on an early morning run pulls in his traps, he finds something he wasn't expecting to catch - a body. When police discover the dead man was the brother of a senior Scottish government official who vanished without a trace, Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie takes over the investigation. At the same time, a woman in the wealthy enclave of Perth is clearing out her sister's home after a fatal road accident and finds a mysterious camper van in the garage containing a skeletonized body. But who is it?

When the brutally murdered body of a local geography teacher is discovered at Kilwinnoch’s famous beauty spot, Blood Water Falls, the community is rocked to its core. For DCI Duncan Bone, the killing appears to be an open and shut case. But it’s not long before a sinister clue unleashes dark and deadly forces, blowing the investigation wide open, and putting Bone and his team in grave danger.

When a young woman is found brutally murdered in her own apartment with an intricate pattern of lines carved into her face, Copenhagen police detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner are assigned to the case. Soon, they establish a link between the victim, Julie Stender, and her landlady, Esther de Laurenti, who’s a bit too fond of drink and the host of raucous dinner parties with her artist friends. Esther also turns out to be a budding novelist - and when Julie turns up as a murder victim in the unfinished mystery she’s writing, the link between fiction and real life grows.

All fifteen-year-old Marco Jameson wants is to become a Danish citizen and go to school like a normal teenager. But his uncle Zola rules his former gypsy clan with an iron fist. Revered as a god and feared as a devil, Zola forces the children of the clan to beg and steal for his personal gain. When Marco discovers a dead body - proving the true extent of Zola's criminal activities - he goes on the run. But his family members aren't the only ones who'll go to any lengths to keep Marco silent - forever.

The body of a young Russian woman washes up on an Icelandic shore. After a cursory investigation, the death is declared a suicide and the case is quietly closed. Over a year later Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavík police is forced into early retirement at 64. She dreads the loneliness, and the memories of her dark past that threaten to come back to haunt her. But before she leaves she is given two weeks to solve a single cold case of her choice.