Police Procedural Thriller

Gold Dagger-winner and best-selling author in the United Kingdom, Ian Rankin crafts absorbing crime novels with solidly drawn characters and first-rate plotting. In Strip Jack, he portrays a shocking murder investigation that exposes the sordid side of Edinburgh politics and society. Detective John Rebus suspects a set-up when a respected Member of Parliament is caught in a police raid on a brothel—and his flamboyant wife suddenly disappears.

After a routine delivery, midwife Sarah Brandt visits her patient in a rooming house and finds that another boarder, a young girl, has been killed. At the request of sergeant Frank Malloy, she searches the girl's room and discovers that the victim is from one of the most prominent families in New York - and the sister of an old friend. The powerful family, fearful of scandal, refuses to permit an investigation. But with Malloy's help, Sarah begins a dangerous quest to bring the killer to justice before death claims another victim.

The Inspector Banks novel In a Dry Season was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and won an Anthony Award. Cold Is the Grave won the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award. It takes the aging, solitary inspector from his cozy Yorkshire cottage into the dark underworld of London. The assignment is a favor asked by Banks' boss and greatest enemy: Chief Constable Riddle.

Wexford is horrified by the carnage he encounters at Tancred Manor, home of a famous anthropologist, but he is determined to do all that he can for 17-year-old Daisy, the only survivor of the mass murders that obliterated her family.

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.

A sadistic killer pushed Chicago cop Marty Hogan past her limits - and it was all caught on video. She lost her job, her sense of self, her entire world until an open detective position in small-town Texas gave her a chance at redemption. Police Chief Clay Settlemeyer knows all about mistakes and second chances - he's still earning his own, so he's willing to give Marty the opportunity to prove herself. But when her ex-partner is murdered, it looks like Chicago is coming to small-town Texas with a vengeance.

Crime and criminals keep getting in the way of Detective Garda Sergeant Mike West's personal life. The woman he loves is living in his house, in his spare bedroom. It should be simple, but it isn't. He has a solution. A romantic weekend away, in a lighthouse on Clare Island. A stunning place, a beautiful woman. What could be more perfect? When one of the islanders dies in a bizarre and a tragic accident, West is roped in to help. But it isn't an accident, and there is more than one suspect. There's also more than one secret. Can West solve the case before someone else dies?

Shortly after 9.30 in the morning, a young man walks into Surf City, Bondi’s newest shopping complex. He’s wearing a dark grey hoodie - and a bomb around his neck. Just a few minutes later, he is locked in a shop on the upper floor. And trapped with him are four innocent bystanders. For police chaplain Paul Doherty, called to the scene by Senior Sergeant Boehm, it’s a story that will end as tragically as it began. For this is clearly no ordinary siege. The boy, known as Ali Khan, seems as frightened as his hostages and has yet to utter a single word.

On a spring day in Venice, Commissario Brunetti and his assistant, Vianello, play hooky to help Vianello's friend Marco Ripetti, arrested during an environmental protest. They secure his release, only to be faced with the fury of the man's father-in-law, Giovanni De Cal, who has made violent threats against Ripetti. Brunetti's curiousity is peaked, and he finds himself drawn to investigate. Is De Cal the type of man to carry out his threats?

The polluted waters of the canals in Venice are an ever-present issue; but environmental concerns become significant in Commissario Guido Brunetti's work when an investigator from the Carabiniere—looking into the illegal hauling of garbage—asks for a favor. But the investigator is not the only one with a special request. Brunetti's father-in-law needs help and a mysterious woman comes into the picture. And the Commissario soon finds himself in the middle of an investigation into murder and corruption more dangerous than anything he's seen before.

Who could have suspected that the exciting stag party for the groom would be the prelude to the murder of his close friend Charlie Hatton? And Charlie's death was only the first in a string of puzzling murders involving small-time gangsters, cheating husbands, and loose women. Now Chief Inspector Wexford and his assistant join forces with the groom to track down a killer....

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.

Now that Alexandra "Alex" Donavan is finally free of her troubled upbringing, she's able to live out her childhood dream of working for the FBI. But soon after she becomes a member of the FBI's elite Behavioral Analysis Unit, authorities in Kansas and Missouri contact them about bodies found on freight trains traveling across the country - all killed in the same way.

Kaely Quinn's talents as an FBI behavior analyst are impossible to ignore, no matter how unorthodox her methods. But when a reporter outs her as the daughter of an infamous serial killer, she's demoted to field agent and transferred to St. Louis. When the same reporter who ruined her career claims to have received an anonymous poem predicting a string of murders, ending with Kaely's, the reporter's ulterior motives bring his claim into question. But when a body is found that fits the poem's predictions, the threat is undeniable.

Bo Tully, sheriff of Blight County, Idaho, has dealt with small-town crime throughout his long, storied career. Now, contemplating retirement after years on the job, Tully is faced with perhaps his most perplexing case yet. When area bald eagles start getting picked off by a ghost-like killer, and when a prominent local rancher is murdered by an arrow with eagle fletching, things gets complicated fast. In this fast-paced whodunit, Tully has a vast array of suspects to choose from, including the rancher's gorgeous, bird-loving wife, who mysteriously leaves for a ranch in Mexico the day of the murder.

There's more than blood and bone beneath the skin... The victim, a nondescript "numbers cruncher," died horribly just yards away from his terrified wife and daughter, murdered by men who clearly enjoyed their work.

When the brutally beaten body of a young man is found in an alley, Eastvale's Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his colleague, Detective Constable Susan Gay, have no choice but to lock up the three Pakistani youths who seemingly started it all after an argument in a pub. But they're out in no time, and Banks is in big trouble with the chief for risking a racial incident with the arrest.

K-9 search and rescue handler Jamie Flint and her team - both human and canine - are called in when a group vanishes during a dogsledding expedition for battered women in the Mahoosuc Mountains of Maine. When it's learned a rogue gunman was involved in the disappearance, authorities look to the abusive partners of the women now lost for answers. Meanwhile, a voice from Jamie's past begins to haunt her, echoing the words of the shooter now in pursuit of a target Jamie alone can save.

In 1919, Delano, Georgia, appoints its first chief of police. Honest and hardworking, the new chief is puzzled when young men start to disappear. But his investigation is ended by the fatal blast from a shotgun. Delano's second chief-of-police is no hero, yet he is also disturbed by what he sees in the missing-persons bulletins. In 1969, when Delano's third chief takes over, the unsolved disappearances still haunt the police files.

A young man's mutilated body is found on top of the Agglestone. It seems that he was involved in a human trafficking and prostitution gang. But why is DCI Sophie Allen keeping something back from her team? Is it linked to the extraordinary discovery of her own father's body at the bottom of a disused mineshaft, more than 40 years after he disappeared? Find out.