Small Town Crime

Bringing together six short stories - two of which are previously unpublished - One Last Dram Before Midnight is perfect for fans of Denzil Meyrick. These tales take us from Jim Daley's early days pounding the beat in Glasgow as a young constable to a lighthearted whisky smuggling romp involving Hamish and some ghostly pipers.

When two teenagers - Johannes and Mari - are found murdered inside their school, in the small Norwegian village of Fredheim, the finger is soon is pointed at 18-year-old Even, whose relationship with Mari ended just before she died. Mari was writing a story for the school newspaper about Even and his dad, who died in a car accident 10 years earlier. But was it really an accident? And had Mari uncovered information that someone was willing to commit murder to protect?

The Sterling Ranch’s season opening isn’t going so smoothly. With the ranch’s lodge full of guests and a Montana blizzard threatening, Will Sterling needs help - and he needs it fast. So when his childhood friend Poppy Carmichael agrees to lend a hand, he’s grateful for a second chance...and more enticed by the woman she’s become than he cares to admit. For Poppy, it was supposed to be a retreat full of horse rides and hoedowns - with a side of showing Will what he’s been missing all these years.

In Middlesbury, a rally is being held by the British Allegiance Party - a far-right group protesting against the opening of a new Mosque. When the crowd disperses, a body is found in an alleyway. Tommy Meegan, the loud-mouthed leader of the group, has been stabbed through the heart. Across town, a Muslim community centre catches fire in a clear act of arson, leaving a small child in a critical condition. And the tension which has been building in the town for years boils over.

Grace Daniels is distraught after her daughter's body is found in a Leicestershire country lane. Her only solace is the reemergence of Faye, an old friend who seems to understand her loss. DI Will Jackman delves into the case until a family tragedy and a figure from his past threaten to derail him. When the police discover another victim, the spotlight falls on Grace. Can Jackman find the killer before she is convicted of a crime she didn't commit?

When an old man is found dead on the road - seemingly run over by a Hungarian au pair - police investigator Anna Fekete is certain that there is more to the incident than meets the eye. As she begins to unravel an increasingly complex case, she’s led on a deadly trail where illegal immigration, drugs and ultimately murder threaten not only her beliefs but her life.

Few kidnap victims grow up to become police officers - but this is exactly what Nina Foster did. Following a frenzied stabbing she is drafted into her first murder investigation. With former rescuer DCI Stan McGuire as her mentor and John ('Wingsy') Wing as her partner, she thrives on the pace and banter that go with the job. As the body count increases and the force's biggest-ever manhunt gets underway, Nina is determined to find the murderer.

Anna Fekete returns to the Balkan village of her birth for a relaxing summer holiday. But when her purse is stolen and the thief is found dead on the banks of the river, Anna is pulled into a murder case. Her investigation leads straight to her own family, to closely guarded secrets concealing a horrendous travesty of justice that threatens them all. How long will it take before everything explodes?

Ted Sweeney. Affable everyman in small-town Montana. Tailgate hung on with baling wire, owner of his own business. Ten minutes ago, his biggest worry had been how to pay for the engagement ring rattling around in his pocket. But that was before he came home to find a corpse tidily arranged in his favorite recliner, his "old pal of a piece of furniture". Is it a warning or a setup or what? Sweeney can't help but admire the efficiency of the work, the slice deep across the guy's throat. Somebody knew what they were doing.

Little Henry Wallace was eight years old and 100 miles from home before anyone talked to him. His mother placed him on a train with a label around his neck, asking for him to be kept safe for a week, kept away from Hinton Hollow. Because something was coming.

¿Hasta dónde llegarías para proteger a la gente que amas? ¿Hasta dónde llegarías para vengarlos? En 1961, tras más de veinte años en paradero desconocido, Rogelio Villanueva regresa a su pueblo para hacerse cargo del negocio familiar. En 1967, su cadáver aparece desangrado en la bañera. En el lavabo, una nota con una críptica inscripción; y bajo su barbilla, dos extrañas marcas amoratadas. Muy pronto, lo que parecía ser un suicidio se revela como un asesinato, dando pie a una investigación que desembocará en una conclusión inesperada.

New Mexico Undersheriff Bill Gastner is presented with a case that appears to have brought big-time crime, including drug gangs, into Posadas County.

In Wild Thyme, Pennsylvania, secrets and feuds go back generations. The lone policeman in a small township on the sparse northern border, Henry Farrell expected to spend his mornings hunting and fishing, his evenings playing old-time music. Instead, he has watched the steady encroachment of gas drilling bring new wealth and erode neighborly trust. The drug trade is pushing heroin into the territory. There are outlaws cooking meth in the woods, guys Henry grew up with. When a stranger turns up dead, Henry’s search for the killer will open old wounds.

In a dusty town in Nebraska’s rugged sandhills, weary Sheriff’s Deputy Harley Jensen patrols the streets at night, on the lookout for something - anything - out of the ordinary. It’s July 1978, and the heat is making people ornery, restless. That and the Reddick family patriarch has decided, decades after authorities ended the search for his murdered boy’s body, to lay a headstone. Instead of bringing closure, this decision is the spark that threatens to set Pickard County ablaze.

Hitler, Mussolini and Pope Paul V are on fire. Fireworks explode and flaming tar barrels are being dragged through the streets. Bonfire Night in Lewes is the closest England comes to Mardis Gras. In their fifth adventure, Morley, Miriam and Sefton find themselves caught up in the celebrations and the chaos. On the morning after the night before, Sefton goes for a swim in Pells Pool, the oldest freshwater lido in England - in the very centre of Lewes - where he discovers a woman’s body. She has drowned. Is it a misadventure or could it be...murder?

Single-mother bounty hunter Lori Anderson has finally got her family back together, but her newfound happiness is shattered when she’s snatched by the Miami Mob – and they want her dead. Rather than a bullet, they offer her a job: find the Mob’s ‘numbers man’ - Carlton North - who’s in protective custody after being forced to turn federal witness against them. If Lori succeeds, they’ll wipe the slate clean and the price on her head - and those of her family - will be removed. If she fails, they die.

At an AA meeting, handyman and part-time investigator Jay Porter meets a recovering addict who needs his help. In the midst of another grueling northern New Hampshire winter, Amy Lupus’ younger sister, Emily, has gone missing from the Coos County Center, the newly opened rehab run by Jay’s old nemeses, Adam and Michael Lombardi. As Jay begins looking into Emily’s disappearance, he finds that all who knew Emily swear that she’s never used drugs. She’s a straight shooter and an intern at a newspaper investigating the Center and the horrendous secret hidden in it - or beneath it.

Three years have passed since estate-clearing handyman Jay Porter almost lost his life following a devastating accident on the thin ice of Echo Lake. His investigative work uncovering a kids-for-cash scandal may have made his hometown of Ashton, New Hampshire, a safer place, but nothing comes without a price. The traumatic, uncredited events cost Jay his wife and his son, and left him with a permanent leg injury. Jay is just putting his life back together when a mysterious stranger stops by with an offer too good to be true.

In this atmospheric and profoundly moving debut, Cathy and Daniel live with their father, John, in the remote woods of Yorkshire, in a house the three of them built themselves. John is a gentle brute of a man, a former enforcer who fights for money when he has to, but who otherwise just wants to be left alone to raise his children. When a local landowner shows up on their doorstep, their precarious existence is threatened, and a series of actions is set in motion that can only end in violence.

When Alicia Bryson returns to her estranged father’s home in a tiny Yorkshire village, she feels burdened by his illness. Her hometown brings back memories of a miserable and violent childhood, and Alicia worries that her young daughter Jenny’s summer will be filled with a similar sense of unhappiness. The town is exactly as she remembered it - the people, the buildings, even the woods. But her arrival has not gone unnoticed. There is someone watching her every move.