Police Procedural Thriller

Get three absolutely gripping crime thrillers set on the UK's atmospheric north Norfolk coast from number one best-selling British author J M Dalgliesh in this great value collection.

Who killed Gray Mitchell? Gray Mitchell’s body is found buried under fresh snowfall in the early hours of the morning outside Stromford Cathedral. DI Jim Neal and DS Ava Merry are called in to investigate. It seems that a number of people had motives to kill him, including Mitchell's partner. Then another shocking act of violence occurs, also connected to the cathedral. Detectives Neal and Merry’s investigation reveals an intricate web of secrets connecting the crimes. But there is something the detectives have missed, the dark secret which can break open the case.

In The Golden Egg, as the first leaves of autumn begin to fall, Vice Questore Patta asks Brunetti to look into a minor violation committed by the mayor’s future daughter-in-law. Brunetti has no interest in helping his boss amass political favors, but he has little choice but to comply. Then Brunetti’s wife, Paola, comes to him with a request of her own. The mentally handicapped man who worked at their dry cleaners has just died of a sleeping pill overdose, and Paola loathes the idea that he lived and died without anyone noticing him, or helping him.

Joe Gunther, a Brattleboro, Vermont cop, is the head of the new Vermont Bureau of Investigation (VBI). In The Marble Mask, the VBI's first case takes the force north to Stowe, where a 50-year-old corpse has turned up in a crevasse on Mt. Mansfield. When the frozen stiff turns out to have been a big-time Canadian crime boss named Jean Deschamps who disappeared after World War II, Joe and his gang cross the border to work with the Mounties, the Surete, and the local cops in Sherbrooke.

Colonel Caversham, once prominent in the British colonial service, has died and left his large collection of artifacts to the local Calleshire museum. Included in those artifacts is a 3,000-year-old Egyptain mummy and case, now the responsibility of one Mr. Fixby-Smith, curator of the Greatorex Museum. When the lid of the mummy case is raised, however, what greets the coroner, curator, and inspector C. D. Sloan is not what they expect.

A woman is murdered in an empty house. Within 24 hours there is another horrific murder using the same method. The detectives soon deduce that the victims are random, but the locations are not. The killer looks for the right house - somewhere he won't be disturbed. When a man confesses, it looks like the case is closed, but Detective Stephen Greco is unconvinced. Can he keep control when things get personal?

After tracking down a crazed sniper last year, homicide detective Mike Houston opted to leave Boston for the isolated mountains of Maine. He adjusted nicely to chopping his own firewood, relaxing in his log cabin, and simply enjoying the solitude of the mountains. But then his former partner, Lt. Anne Bouchard, pays him a visit and dangles the words serial killer in front of him. And suddenly he finds himself back in the game beside her - though not "officially".

Chief Inspector Acton and Detective Sergeant Kathleen Doyle know firsthand how the administration of justice can often follow a labyrinthine path. As they pursue a self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner, Acton's own questionable methods may prove his undoing.

A small girl brings Joe Gunther a bird's nest - made partially of human hair. In the search to match a body - and an identity - to the hair's owner, Joe comes across an unexplained death, a grisly murder, and a sudden disappearance. All seem to be entangled in a puzzling web of municipal corruption, blackmail, and industrial espionage. A shell-shocked World War II veteran nicknamed the Ragman may hold the key to it all - but only if Joe can get him to talk before the murderer strikes again.

Fred Underhill is a young cop on the rise in Los Angeles in the early 1950s - a town blinded to its own grime by Hollywood glitter; a society nourished by newspaper lies that wants its heroes all-American and squeaky clean. A chance to lead on a possible serial killing is all it takes to fuel Underhill's reckless ambition - and it propels him into a dangerous alliance with certain mad and unstable elements of the law enforcement hierarchy. When the case implodes with disastrous consequences, it is Fred Underhill who takes the fall. His life is in ruins, his promising future suddenly a dream of the past.

News travels fast in the small state of Vermont. In this tight-knit society, police officers and investigators proudly maintain a kinship that transcends the boundaries of their jurisdictions. When an unidentified body is found in the peaceful town of Brattleboro, local police and the Vermont Bureau of Investigation both appear at the scene. But before investigator Joe Gunther can begin to gather evidence of murder, a family emergency sends him to his hometown, where the lives of his mother and brother have suddenly been threatened.

A young woman is found dead in a college while the students demonstrate. It turns out she was the principal's secretary, and there was more to her than meets the eye. Who wanted her dead and why? And what does it have to do with the student revolt led by a charismatic firebrand from Iraq? Inspector John Crow is called in and has little doubt who's responsible, but a series of surprises will make him reconsider everything. Many of the faculty seem to have things to hide.

Retired policeman turned killer Jeffrey Brandt has gone underground. He is even living something like a normal life in North Wales. He killed to make society stand up and take notice. It did. His crimes are notorious. So infamous, in fact, that someone wants to emulate him. How will Brandt react to a copycat killer? Will he be flattered, or disturbed that someone wants to steal his limelight? Crucially, for investigating officer DSI Stella Johnson, the new spate of murders might offer an opportunity to finally bring Brandt to justice.

Book 1 in the thrilling new crime series, by David J. Gatward, author of the DCI Harry Grimm crime series, and set in the hauntingly beautiful Somerset countryside.

Boone Drake follows all the rules - as a cop, husband, and father. But when everything in his personal life is destroyed, he buries himself in guilt. His faith is rocked when he questions why God would allow this to happen to him. When it appears that it can't get any worse, he's accused of police brutality and suddenly his career is at risk. The possibility of being promoted to the Organized Crime Division is slipping from his hands. His life is spiraling out of control....

What if the person you thought you knew best turns out to be someone you never knew at all? Andrea Cooper knows everything about her mother, Laura. She knows Laura has spent nearly her whole life in the small beach town of Belle Isle, Georgia; she knows Laura's never wanted anything more than to lead a quiet, normal life in this conventional community; she knows Laura's a kind and beloved speech pathologist who helps others; she knows Laura's never kept a secret in her life. Andrea knows that Laura is everything she isn't—confident, settled, sure of herself.

The victims are all found face-down in the murky waters of the creek that runs through Cherokee Pointe, Tennessee. They are naked, except for the black satin ribbon tied around their necks. And each murdered woman shares a single characteristic... they are all redheads... Socialite Reve Sorrell has come to Cherokee Pointe seeking answers about her family history and her shocking connection to wrong-side-of-the-tracks Jazzy Talbot. With their stunning good looks and shining red hair, the two are mirror images of each other—twins abandoned at birth and raised in very different worlds.

When Sergeant Mike West and his partner, Garda Andrews, are called to a suspicious death, they are shocked to find the small body of a child abandoned in a suitcase. Who is she? No child has been reported missing. Their search reaches outside Ireland but without success, and soon another dead body takes their attention. There is a surfeit of suspects this time, but as the case evolves, the two detectives are stunned where it leads.

Detective Josie Quinn lifts the baby from the pram, holding her close and gently soothing her. Josie scours the scene for the sweet little girl’s mother, but the park is deserted. Glancing down, something catches her eye. Nestled amongst the child’s soft pink blankets is a polaroid photo, the corner smudged with blood. The search for Cleo Tate has Josie and her team in a chokehold; the abandoned newborn needs her mother, and every second counts now lab results show the blood belongs to her. The blurred photo of a body of water is Josie’s only lead. But what does it mean?

DI Sara Ramsey is forced to tackle one of her toughest cases to date when a tragic fire turns out to be the actions of a deranged arsonist. A person set on revenge...but why? What’s his motive? He’s risking everything, striking when innocent people are asleep in their beds, leaving in his wake a trail of devastation that is harrowing for Sara and her team to unravel. Emotions are running high for all concerned: the families, the investigation team, and the murderer.