Police Fiction

Psychiatrist Dr. Tonya Preston lives a life of cool detachment, often sacrificing her personal needs to appease her opinionated father. She often finds it easier to deal with patients than confront her family or her own issues. When her path dramatically crosses that of irrepressible rookie Police Officer Haley Jordan, she's thrown out of her comfort zone.

Detective Inspector John Rebus is not a man easily intimidated, so when political heavyweights start to lean on the dour, moralistic Edinburgh detective to stop an investigation, Rebus doggedly digs in and follows the case as it moves from embezzlement to murder and finally to conspiracy at the highest level of government.

Retired from the force, Detective Superintendent Jeffrey Brandt goes native. He stabs a woman but holds back from killing her. Frustrated that no one takes any notice, he ups his game. Next time, he'll kill. Brandt fully knows how the police work. He'll use this knowledge to win a sick game; after all, he's chosen the rules. The crime scenes are spotless, Brandt's covered his tracks. There is no forensic evidence. Yet each killing has his unmistakable print. Faced with the challenge of discovering his identity is DCI Stella Johnson. She rises to Brandt's macabre challenge.

A murder followed by a series of random, motiveless crimes leaves Detective Garda Sergeant Mike West and his team puzzled. When Edel Johnson arrives at the scene of a crime Mike is taken aback, more so when he discovers she is now working with a victim support group. He has feelings for her, but he is the garda who investigated her husband's murder, and their relationship is complicated.

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.

Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Nick Houston is as tough as they come, and he and his K-9, Saxon, are hot on the trail of a major illegal-gun dealer. But his best lead - the beautiful owner of the Dog Park Cafe, Andi Hardt - is not cooperating. Doesn't matter how sexy she is or that his dog seems to be in love with her. She's a suspect, and he won't cross that line. Ever.

Twenty-five years ago, a schoolgirl was attacked. Ambushed by three bullies at her home where she lived alone with her granny. Now, the mother of one of those bullies is found murdered on the Hobfield housing estate. Written on the wall in the victim’s blood is the word “sorry”. Detective Tom Calladine and his partner DS Ruth Bayliss discover a link to some bones found at an old house up in the hills. It was the home of the teenage girl who was attacked. The detectives have more than this puzzling case on their hands.

A schoolgirl found it on a nature hike. A severed human foot wearing pink nail polish. A gruesome but invaluable clue that leads forensic pathologist Birdy Waterman down a much darker trail - to a dangerous psychopath whose powers of persuasion seem to have no end.

In the busy town center of Canterbury, a woman and a young boy are snatched from the street. A few miles away, a man stands on the edge of a viaduct ready to throw himself off. Sergeant Shaun Carter, a police negotiator, is trying to talk him down, but he dare not get too close. This man is the only person who has the answers needed to find the missing. These two events will have consequences for everyone they touch. And Shaun Carter is forced to make heartbreaking choices as he faces a vicious criminal network. As the situation spirals out of control, Shaun asks for help.

In the 17th installment in Peter Lovesey's timeless British detective series, Peter Diamond digs deep into Bath history to ferret out the secrets of one of its most famous (and scandalous) icons: Richard "Beau" Nash, who might have been the victim of a centuries-old murder.

Detective George Elms is out of prison, and the police force that put him there is in chaos. Now they want him back to lead the hunt for vicious cop killer Kane Forley. Only George can put together a team that will bring this criminal to justice. Are his superiors using George as bait? They have their own very dark secrets to hide. But this is personal, and things spin out of control fast. Soon George will face one last race against time to save everyone who is close to him. Who can he trust to help him?

Peter Diamond is tasked to run security for a wedding. Seems a bit beneath his extraordinary detective talents, as well as his title as head of Bath's CID, but this isn't your run-of-the-mill ceremony: the bride and groom belong to families on opposite ends of the law - and someone is trying to sabotage the nuptials by taking out a hit on the father of the bride.

Since his retirement from King's University, life has been rather quiet for Professor Daly. When he is invited back to King's University to deliver a series of prestigious lectures, his heart leaps. But on arrival he discovers that he has not been called back to the university on account of his literary knowledge. Somebody has been sending the president of King's threatening letters. Somebody within the university, it seems, wants him dead. Perhaps aware of his own arrogant, materialistic, and bullying nature and the effects it may produce, President Bradley seems genuinely worried.

One time police detective Peter Diamond loses his job as a security guard when he fails to spot a small Japanese child hiding in the furniture department of Harrods. Weeks later, she's still unclaimed; Diamond is unable to forget the frightened eyes of the silent little girl and takes on the challenge of uncovering her identity.

Gemma James is adjusting to professional and personal changes - and a future now intricately entwined with Duncan Kincaid. But her new responsibilities are put to the test when she is placed in charge of a particularly brutal homicide: The lovely young wife of a wealthy antiques dealer has been found murdered on fashionable Notting Hill. This case sets off warning bells for Duncan: It's far too similar to an unsolved murder in which an antiques dealer was killed in precisely the same way.

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?

When Commissario Brunetti is summoned in the middle of the night to the hospital bed of a pediatrician, he is confronted with more questions than answers. Three men, a young carabiniere captain and two privates from out of town, burst into the doctor's apartment while the family was sleeping, attacked him, and took away his 18-month-old boy. What could have motivated an assault by the forces of the state that was so violent it has left the doctor mute?

Just graduated from the police academy, Linda Wallander returns to Skane to join the police force, and she already shows all the hallmarks of her father - the maverick approach, the flaring temper. Before she even starts work she becomes embroiled in the case of her childhood friend, Anna, who has inexplicably disappeared.

On a cold Venetian night, shortly before Christmas, a street vendor is killed in a scuffle in Campo San Stefano. The closest witnesses are the tourists who had been browsing the man's wares: fake handbags of every designer label. The dead man had been working as a vu cumpra, one of the many African immigrants purveying goods outside normal shop hours and without work permits. Commissario Brunetti's response is that of everybody involved: why would anyone kill an illegal immigrant?

While working one afternoon on the Northern Divide, a young tree-marker makes a grisly discovery: in a squatter's cabin near an old mill town, a family has been murdered. An army vet coming off a successful turn leading a task force that took down infamous biker criminals, Detective Frank Yakabuski arrives in Ragged Lake, a nearly abandoned village, to solve the family's murder. But no one is willing to talk. With a winter storm coming, Yakabuski sequesters the locals in a fishing lodge as he investigates the area with his two junior officers.