Traditional Police

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.

Detective Sergeant Kathleen Doyle was investigating a tip she’d received about doctors who were being assaulted at a London free clinic, but - strangely enough - none of the volunteers was willing to give her a statement. Instead, her only witness offered a fanciful tale about supernatural evildoers - which was nonsense, of course; it was clearly an attempt to shift the blame to the appropriate cultural bogeyman.

In the respectable seaside town of Flaxborough, the equally respectable councillor Harold Carobleat is laid to rest. Cause of death: pneumonia. But he is scarcely cold in his coffin before Detective Inspector Purbright, affable and annoyingly polite, must turn out again to examine the death of Carobleat's neighbour, Marcus Gwill, former prop. of the local rag, the Citizen. This time it looks like foul play, unless a surfeit of marshmallows had led the late and rather unlamented Mr Gwill to commit suicide by electrocution. ('Power without responsibility', murmurs Purbright.)

At the offices of the Hatton Garden diamond merchant, Duke and Peabody, the body of old Mr Gething is discovered beside a now empty safe. With multiple suspects, the robbery and murder is clearly the work of a master criminal and requires a master detective to solve it. Meticulous as ever, Inspector Joseph French of Scotland Yard embarks on an investigation that takes him from the streets of London to Holland, France and Spain and finally to a ship bound for South America.

It's late autumn in Edinburgh and late autumn in the career of Detective Inspector John Rebus. As he tries to tie up some loose ends before retirement, a murder case intrudes. A dissident Russian poet has been found dead in what looks like a mugging gone wrong. By apparent coincidence a high-level delegation of Russian businessmen is in town, keen to bring business to Scotland. The politicians and bankers who run Edinburgh are determined that the case should be closed quickly and clinically.

Bombs are exploding in London, but life seems to have planted more subtle booby-traps for Miles Flint, a spy. The job appeals to Miles. He doesn't want action; he wants, just for once, not to botch a case. Having lost one suspect, Miles becomes too involved with another, a young Irishwoman. His marriage and home seem ready to crumble. But Miles is given one last chance for redemption: a trip to Belfast, which becomes a flight of terror and murder. Can the voyeur survive in a world of violent action?

The woman lies dead at the foot of the stairs. It's obvious what happened: she tripped and fell. But PC D'Arblay, called to the dilapidated West London villa by an anonymous tip-off, can't shake the feeling that's exactly what someone wants him to think. It was the deep head wound that killed her - but her dying fall left no blood trail. DCI Slider, of the Shepherd's Bush murder squad, is soon convinced D'Arblay's right. But with no motive, no murder weapon and no idea even who the victim is, Slider faces steep odds to get a result.

A late summer heatwave seems to have triggered an unusually high number of suicides. As the dead bodies pile up, DS Jack Mackinnon and the rest of MIT realise things aren’t as straightforward as they seem, and when similar letters are found at the scene of each "suicide", Mackinnon is convinced they are dealing with a serial killer. A killer who is determined to deliver his own deadly justice.

As Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year approach, the ancient city of York is busier than ever, and so is Detective Chief Inspector John Shadow. First, he has the theft of valuable Roman artifacts from a museum.

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.

Down-on-his-luck businessman Tam McDonnell thinks he may have rescued his ailing pub when a local man comes good on his promise to fill the venue with punters in exchange for a percentage of the takings. That's until he discovers a newly hired barmaid dead in the toilets. DI Charlie West's team struggle to find a motive. Clearly murdered, if the corkscrew in her neck is anything to go by, the victim was loved by all who knew her and apparently led a squeaky-clean life—cleaner than the toilet, at any rate.

In Edinburgh's old Parliament House, an armed robbery trial is about to take a macabre turn. While the lawyers tussle over the evidence, the judge suddenly collapses in mortal agony--the victim of an apparent heart attack.

When the body of Rufus Moorcroft, a middle-aged widower with a distinguished war record, is found in his summerhouse, the verdict is suicide. But both reporter Jill Francis and her lover, Detective Richard Thornhill, approaching the case from different angles, discover there's more to it than that. The sixth instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series.

For Inspector Esa Khattak and Sergeant Rachel Getty, the Syrian refugee crisis is about to become personal. Esa's childhood friend, Nathan Clare, calls him in distress: his sister, Audrey, has vanished from a Greek island where the siblings run an NGO. Audrey had been working to fast-track refugees to Canada, but now, she is implicated in the double-murder of a French Interpol agent and a young man who had fled the devastation in Syria. Esa and Rachel arrive in Greece to a shocking scene, witnessing for themselves the massive fallout of the Syrian war in the wretched refugee camps.

Homicide detective Taylor Jackson thinks she's seen it all in Nashville—from the Southern Strangler to the Snow White Killer. But she's never seen anything as perverse as The Conductor. Once his victim is captured, he contains her in a glass coffin, slowly starving her to death. Only then does he give in to his attraction.

A fabulous yellow diamond becomes the dangerous inheritance of Rachel Verinder. Outside her Yorkshire country house watch the Hindu priests who have waited for many years to reclaim their ancient talisman, looted from the holy city of Somnauth. When the Moonstone disappears, the case looks simple, but in mid-Victorian England no one is what they seem, and nothing can be taken for granted.

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.

DCI Bennett and his team are back and called to a house in Ripon that has collapsed into a sinkhole where a body is discovered. Soon old, weathered remembrance crosses are found dug up. Each one numbered. DC April Richmond is assigned to help the team due to her impressive biblical knowledge and makes a startling discovery.

A young student at St. Stephen's College, the daughter of a professor up for a prestigious post, is found brutally murdered on an isolated jogging path. Unwilling to turn the killing over to the local police, the university calls in New Scotland Yard. Thus, Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, enter the rarefied world of Cambridge University, where academic gowns often hide murderous intentions. For both officers, the true identity of Elena Weaver proves elusive.

Inspector Agnes Lüthi, a Swiss-American police officer in Lausanne, Switzerland, has just transferred to the Violent Crimes unit from Financial Crimes to try to shed all reminders of her old life following her husband's death. Now, on the eve of the worst blizzard Lausanne has seen in centuries, Agnes has been called to investigate her very first homicide case. On the lawn of the grand Château Vallotton, at the edge of Lac Leman, a young woman has been found stabbed to death.