Traditional Police

May 1959. From one side of St. Brigid's Island, the mountains of Connemara can be glimpsed on the distant mainland; from the other, the Atlantic stretches as far as the eye can see. This remote settlement, without electricity or even a harbor, has scarcely altered since its namesake saint set up a convent of stone huts centuries ago. Those who live there, including sisters Rose and Emer, are hardy and resourceful, dependent on the sea and each other for survival.

A call for help from a former colleague leads Maine game warden investigator Mike Bowditch and his girlfriend Stacey Stevens on a sea kayaking trip to a research station far off the coast. Stacey spent summers interning on the island, a sanctuary for endangered seabirds, and they are shocked by the atmosphere of tension they encounter when they come ashore. The biologists are being threatened and stalked by a mysterious boatman who they suspect is trespassing on the refuge late at night.

When Maine game warden Mike Bowditch is tasked with shooting invasive feral hogs that are tearing up the forest in his district, he makes a horrific discovery—a dead baby buried in a shallow grave. Even more disturbing: evidence suggests the infant was the child of a young woman who was presumed to have died four years earlier after she disappeared from a group rafting trip. As Bowditch assists the reopened investigation, he begins to suspect that some of his neighbors aren’t who they seem to be.

When two female hikers disappear in the Hundred Mile Wilderness—the most remote stretch along the entire Appalachian Trail—Maine game warden Mike Bowditch joins the desperate search to find them. Hope turns to despair after two unidentified corpses are discovered—their bones picked clean by coyotes. Do the bodies belong to the missing hikers? And were they killed by the increasingly aggressive wild dogs? Soon, all of Maine is gripped with the fear of killer coyotes. But Bowditch has his doubts.

Recipient of the British Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger, Gold Dagger, and Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement, Peter Lovesey has also won Anthony and Macavity Awards for his splendid mysteries. In The Headhunters, an innocent discussion about killing the boss leads friends Gemma and Jo into real-life murder.

September, 1940. The sun is shining, and in the midst of the good weather Londoners could be mistaken for forgetting their country was at war - until the familiar wail of the air-raid sirens heralds an enemy attack. The Blitz has started, and normal life has abruptly ended - but crime has not. That night a man's body is discovered in an unmarked van in the back streets of West Ham. When Detective Inspector John Jago is called to the scene, he recognises the victim: local justice of the peace Charles Villiers. The death looks suspicious, but then a German bomb obliterates all evidence.

5 September 1992: Fifteen-year-old Norma Jean Judd disappeared from her home never to be seen again. Exactly 18 years later, Bryan Judd, Norma Jean’s twin, is pulled from the searing heat of a hospital incinerator. When his charred remains are examined, the murder squad confirms that his death was no accident. Could his death be linked to his sister’s disappearance? For DI Peter Shaw and DS George Valentine, the case proves their most intriguing yet.

A wicked Scottish winter has just begun when pioneering female physician Sophia Jex-Blake calls on Detective Inspector Ian Hamilton to investigate the suspicious death of one of her patients - a railroad lineman who she believes succumbed to the horrific effects of arsenic poisoning. The most provocative aspect of the case doesn’t escape Hamilton: the married victim’s numerous sexual transgressions. Now, for the first time since the unexplained fire that killed his parents, Hamilton enters the Royal Infirmary to gain the insights of brilliant medical student Arthur Conan Doyle.

Small-town police chief Arly Hanks takes on the New York Police Department to save her mother from a murder rap in this madcap police procedural.

Every August thousands of tourists and performers flood into Edinburgh for its famous festival. But this year, on the very first day, an explosion rocks Princes Street, and a man is killed. A few hours later, a threatening letter is delivered to the Secretary of State – apparently from a freedom group – demanding political separation from England. Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner, head of CID, quickly assembles his team, with SAS backup.

The CID's Andrew Dalziel prefers simple killers. Not a crackpot who fancies himself Hamlet and taunts authorities with lofty quotes from the Bard. Dubbed the Yorkshire Choker, he's already taken three lives in four weeks and promises more tragedy to come. To help nab the serial strangler, Peter Pascoe has enlisted the help of linguistics professors, psychologists, and psychics-all of it nonsense to the grounded Dalziel.

Constable Evans joins Sergeant Watkins to follow a trail of clues that leads them to the South of England and then to France, and finally to the conclusion that a dangerous killer is loose in Llanfair, in Rhys Bowen's fourth Evan Evans mystery, Evan and Elle. There is both excitement and dismay in Llanfair when a new French restaurant opens. The glamorous owner, Madame Yvette, tries to win over the locals, and everything seems to be going well until a string of fires plagues the town.

Kamil Rahman is a cook in a Brick Lane restaurant. But he used to be a detective back in Kolkata. And somehow trouble still knows how to find him. When a young woman Kamil knows is murdered the police are convinced her boyfriend is the culprit. Kamil isn't so sure and feels he has no choice but to start his own investigation. Meanwhile, his friend and restaurant manager, Anjoli, is troubled by a rise in the number of homeless deaths in their local area.

Who said retirement was easy? After 25 years of dedicated service, one ill-fated meeting over an unsolved missing person’s case sees London police officer Jack Griffin forced into resignation, effective immediately. Now, with more free time than he had planned, Jack takes on the role of lead investigator as a newly-assigned Met Police Cold Case Team puts him in their crosshairs. The case? Patricia Lucas disappeared from Notting Hill five years ago and Griffin was the first officer on scene.

Mumbai is a city that thrives on extravagant spectacles and larger-than-life characters. But as Chopra is about to discover, even in the city of dreams, there is no guarantee of a happy ending.

After bombs explode during an anarchist attack in Long Spoon Lane, two of the culprits are captured and the leader is shot... but by whom? As Thomas Pitt of the Special Branch delves into the case, he finds that there's more to the terrorism than the brutality of misguided idealists. Clues suggest that Inspector Wetron is the mastermind.

Detective Inspector Ian Hamilton is no stranger to Edinburgh's darkest crimes. Scarred by the mysterious fire that killed his parents, he faces his toughest case yet when a young man is found strangled in Holyrood Park. With little evidence aside from a strange playing card found on the body, Hamilton engages the help of his aunt, a gifted photographer, and George Pearson, a librarian with a shared interest in the criminal mind.

Two deaths, the suicide of a newly laid-off worker and an unscrupulous businessman found murdered, lead Inspector Montalbano to inspect the Halcyon, a nearly abandoned mysterious ship with no passengers.

For centuries, the Koh-i-Noor diamond has set man against man and king against king. Now part of the British Crown Jewels, the priceless gem is a prize that many have killed to possess. So when the Crown Jewels go on display in Mumbai, security is everyone's principal concern. And yet on the very day Inspector Chopra visits the exhibition, the diamond is stolen from under his nose. The heist was daring and seemingly impossible. The hunt is on for the culprits.

Thea Osborne and her trusty spaniel, Hepzie, have been asked by the Montgomerys to look after their house in Blockley while they take a much-needed holiday. Their elderly mother, Granny Gardner, shouldn't be any trouble - although she is slightly forgetful. Thea's got far more to worry about when a body is discovered in the house next door.