Police Fiction

Body and soul. The song. That's what London constable and sorcerer's apprentice Peter Grant first notices when he examines the corpse of Cyrus Wilkins, part-time jazz drummer and full-time accountant, who dropped dead of a heart attack while playing a gig at Soho's 606 Club. The notes of the old jazz standard are rising from the body - a sure sign that something about the man's death was not at all natural but instead supernatural.

"And see if there's any news about the missing girl." Life, as Smith used to say, is just one thing after another - as one investigation ends, a new one begins. But for reasons unknown to the rest of her team, DCI Cara Freeman will be haunted by the next case for the Kings Lake Central murder squad. They find themselves delving into the seamy side of life in the town, and one of their number will have departed before this new investigation is over. Perhaps Detective Sergeant Chris Waters should have seen it coming, but he has a lot more than work on his mind these days.

Crimebusting duo DI Jackman and DS Evans are back, solving another crime that will make your skin crawl. Twenty years ago: a farmer and his wife are cut to pieces by a ruthless serial killer. Now: a woman is viciously stabbed to death in the upmarket kitchen of her beautiful house on the edge of the marshes. Then a man called Daniel Kinder walks into Saltern police station and confesses to the murder. But DI Rowan Jackman and DS Marie Evans of the Fenland Constabulary soon discover that there is a lot more to Daniel than meets the eye.

Harry Bosch, exiled from the LAPD, is working cold cases for the San Fernando Police Department when all hands are called out to a local drugstore, where two pharmacists have been murdered in a robbery. Bosch and the tiny town's three-person detective squad sift through the clues, which lead into the dangerous, big-business world of prescription drug abuse. To get to the people at the top, Bosch must risk everything and go undercover in the shadowy world of organized pill mills.

Gov-corp detective Carlos Moreno was only a baby when Atlas left Earth to seek truth among the stars. But in that moment, the course of Carlos' entire life changed. Atlas is what took his mother away; what made his father lose hope; what led Alejandro Casales, leader of the religious cult known as the Circle, to his door. And now, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Atlas' departure, it has something to do with why Casales was found dead in his hotel room.

For Dorothea Cassidy Thursdays were special. But one Thursday in June was to be more special than any other. It was the day that Dorothea Cassidy was strangled... As the small town of Otterbridge prepares for its summer carnival, Inspector Stephen Ramsay begins a painstaking reconstruction of Dorothea’s last hours. He soon discovers that she had taken on a number of deserving cases – a sick and lonely old woman, a disturbed adolescent, a compulsive gambler, a single mother with a violent boyfriend and a child in care – and even her close family have their secrets to hide.

'And in Edinburgh of all places. I mean, you never think of that sort of thing happening in Edinburgh, do you...?' 'That sort of thing' is the brutal abduction and murder of two young girls. And now a third is missing, presumably gone to the same sad end. Detective Sergeant John Rebus, smoking and drinking too much, his own young daughter spirited away south by his disenchanted wife, is one of many policemen hunting the killer.

Photography student Toby Unsworth has found the location for the perfect night-time shoot. A cobbled street in the old part of Fenfleet. Later, when he looks at the images on his laptop, he thinks he sees a woman's face in the window of an old, disused building. He asks his housemate Alex to come and take a look . . . Two days later, Toby and Alex are dead. Carbon monoxide poisoning. An unfortunate accident. But Alex's mother doesn't believe it. She hires Matt and Liz to find out the truth.

In the wild crags of the Dark Peak moorland, a ruthless conflict has been raging for years. The discovery of an illegal haul from the bedroom of a terraced house is a clue to what might be at stake - perhaps the entire future of one of the most prized landscapes in the Peak District National Park. For young Derbyshire police detective DC Ben Cooper, an assignment to the Rural Crime Squad means stepping into the middle of the conflict, without being quite sure whose side he's on.

A young boy is found horribly murdered in a mock crucifixion. Is the murderer the elderly woman who witnessed the crime? A neurologist who can no longer bear the pain life inflicts on its victims? A psychiatrist with a macabre sense of humor and a guilty secret? A mysterious mental patient, locked in silent isolation? Lieutenant Kinderman follows a bewildering trail that links all these people, confronting a new enigma at every turn even as more murders surface. Why does each victim suffer the same dreadful mutilations? Why are two of the victims priests?

Detective Reed Mattox, just three months removed from the death of his partner, has turned invisibility into an art form. Switching to the K-9, taking over the graveyard shift, moving to a farmhouse miles outside of Columbus - his every move has become predicated on putting as much distance between himself and the outside world as possible. That distance is shattered, though, when bodies begin turning up in The Bottoms, the poverty-stricken section of town he is assigned to patrol.

Detective Joseph Easter's daughter discovers a cottage hidden in some trees on a large fenland farm. Someone has been living there. The farm owner's wife has been receiving sinister pagan artifacts, including a witch's knife. Are they some sort of warning or message? Joseph and his daughter search the cottage and find an old satchel. Inside are photos of a beautiful girl, Jennifer Cowley. She went missing 15 years ago. She'd been stalked by a young man, who was convicted of her murder, even though her body was never found.

All Ellison Russell wanted was an update on her stock portfolio. Instead, she found her broker dead. With an unexpected out-of-town guest at her house, Ellison is too busy for a murder investigation. Only this time, Detective Anarchy Jones wants her help, and she can't deny the handsome detective. Can Mr. Coffee supply her with enough caffeine to keep her brain sharp and everyone else happy?

Fifteen year old Marilyn turns up alone and frightened on Inspector Ramsay’s doorstep so he takes the young girl home to the isolated coastal community known as the Headland. And in the Howes’ dark and cluttered kitchen they find Kathleen safe and apparently well, though acting rather mysteriously. Six months later, Ramsay has more or less forgotten the strange incident, busy as he is on the trail of a local child abductor. Until he receives news that Mrs Howe has disappeared once more.

Tormented by the recent loss of a colleague, DCI Jack Logan is on the warpath, determined to bring down all those he holds responsible for the officer's death. His quest for revenge is cut short when a woman's body turns up on the remote island of Canna, and Jack is summoned to investigate. As a storm closes in, Jack finds himself cut-off from the rest of the world, with no car, no phone signal, and only DC Neish for company,

William Warwick has been promoted to detective sergeant, but his promotion means that he, along with the rest of his team, have been reassigned to the Drugs Squad. They are immediately tasked with apprehending Khalil Rashidi, a notorious drug dealer who operates his extensive network out of South London. As the investigation progresses, William runs into enemies old and new: Adrian Heath, from his school days, now a street dealer he convinces to turn informer; and financier Miles Faulkner, who makes a mistake that could finally see him put behind bars.

Monk's house is being fumigated, and he has nowhere to go. Fortunately, his assistant Natalie and her daughter are kind enough to welcome him into their home. Unfortunately, their home is not quite up to Monk's standards of cleanliness and order. But while Monk attempts to arrange his surroundings just so, something else needs to be put straight. The death of a dog at the local firehouse - on the same night as a fatal house fire - has led Monk into a puzzling mystery.

Some lines should never be crossed. Police corruption, an investigation that ends in tragedy and the mystery of a little girl’s silence – three unconnected events that will prove to be linked by one small town. While detective Cormac Reilly faces enemies at work and trouble in his personal life, garda Peter Fisher is relocated out of Galway with the threat of prosecution hanging over his head. But even that is not as terrible as having to work for his overbearing father, the local copper for the pretty seaside town of Roundstone.

There’s no police training stronger than a cop’s instinct. Faith Mitchell’s mother isn’t answering her phone. Her front door is open. There’s a bloodstain above the knob. Her infant daughter is hidden in a shed behind the house. All that the Georgia Bureau of Investigations taught Faith Mitchell goes out the window when she charges into her mother’s house, gun drawn. She sees a man dead in the laundry room. She sees a hostage situation in the bedroom. What she doesn’t see is her mother....

Homicide detective Tori Hunter was used to doing things her way. But even after six different partners in seven years, she was not prepared for the hot-tempered Samantha Kennedy. Samantha, on the other hand, was trying to juggle a new job and a demanding boyfriend and now finds herself with an even greater challenge - being partnered with the most difficult detective in the entire squad.