Traditional Police

When the manager of a residential home for adults with learning difficulties is found dead in the freezer, the police investigation must tread carefully. Many of the residents are vulnerable. But could one of them be the killer? Detective Inspector Winter Meadows leads the inquiry. He begins to uncover some irregularities: in the finances, in the standards of care and with the account of events that staff and residents give to the police. The neighbours of the care home are troubled with all the goings-on.

Inspector Dupin and Claire are on a two-week vacation, but while Claire seems to enjoy the quiet of the beach, Commissaire Dupin takes every opportunity to leave the beach towel. The fabulous dinners on the hotel patio and the rumors about a stolen statue of a saint are the few interesting moments of his days on vacation. But then a tourist vanishes without trace, and there's an attack on a deputy to the local assembly, who is involved in confrontations with local farmers. Shortly after that, the Britanny beach resort is shocked by the discovery of a corpse.

Maine game warden Mike Bowditch has been sent into exile, transferred by his superiors to a remote outpost on the Canadian border. When a blizzard descends on the coast, Bowditch is called to the rustic cabin of a terrified couple. A raving and halffrozen man has appeared at their door, claiming his friend is lost in the storm. But what starts as a rescue mission in the wilderness soon becomes a baffling murder investigation. The dead man is a notorious drug dealer, and state police detectives suspect it was his own friend who killed him.

An officer who served with Rutledge in the trenches of France before being sent back to England under suspicious circumstances has now been accused of savagely beating the husband of the woman he still loves. The suspect has taken the wife hostage, threatening to kill her and her maid unless Rutledge takes charge of the investigation. Although the case painfully mirrors Rutledge's own past and the love he lost to another man, he cannot refuse it.

The Vermont Bureau of Investigation (VBI) has been pulled onto three cases at the same time; meanwhile, VBI head Joe Gunther has to take time off to care for his ailing mother. Those cases are now in the hands of the individual investigators. Sammie Martens is assigned a murder case. The victim is a young woman, the roommate of the daughter of medical examiner Beverly Hillstrom. A recent transplant from Albany, New York, Sammie must find out what put a hit man on the trail of this seemingly innocent young woman.

When Constable Evan Evans and his new fiancée decide to travel south from home in Llanfair, Wales, to visit his mother in Swansea, they're not expecting the disturbing news that greets them on their arrival: the young thug convicted of murdering Evan's father several years earlier is suspected of murder once again.

In the West End, a renowned Italian escape artist dies spectacularly on stage during a performance - immolated in a gleaming copper cauldron of his wife’s design. In Cambridge, the runaway daughter of a famous don is found drowned, her long blonde hair tangled in the Jesus Lock on the River Cam. And in Baker Street, a mysterious locksmith exacts an unusual price to open a small silver box sent to Watson.

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.

Inspector Drake is called to the holiday home of an eminent Manchester barrister and recently appointed judge to face the grizzly sight of his badly mutilated body. The scene resembles a copycat killing from years previously, when the barrister had prosecuted the perpetrator now serving life in prison. Drake realizes the killer might be targeting the judge, the legal teams, or the journalist who covered the original trial, and he embarks on a frantic search to identify and warn them all.

Despite their investigative prowess, Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Michael Sinclair, Lord Acton, and rookie detective Kathleen Doyle stir more than a few feathers at CID Headquarters when their relationship comes to light. But office politics quickly become trivial when a rash of underworld murders shatters London's normally austere façade. With a growing list of successfully solved cases to her name, the ever-dauntless Doyle shakes off the gossip and sets out to investigate the escalating turf war.

It is the stroke of midnight on Hogmanay when Alison Reid admits a caller to her home. When her death is later reported, DI Clare Mackay attends the scene. The initial evidence does not rule out murder, but it’s not possible to say for certain if foul play was involved. Yet when the pathologist informs Clare about a post mortem of a young woman found in the Kinness Burn, and with some similarities to Alison’s case, it seems there’s a strong chance that there’s a killer on the loose in St Andrews.

On an unseasonably hot October morning, Bowditch is called to the scene of a bizarre crime: the corpses of seven moose have been found senselessly butchered on the estate of Elizabeth Morse, a wealthy animal rights activist who is buying up huge parcels of timberland to create a new national park. What at first seems like mindless slaughter—retribution by locals for the job losses Morse's plan is already causing in the region—becomes far more sinister when a shocking murder is discovered.

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.

The best mysteries have one thing in common: a memorable perpetrator. For every Sherlock Holmes or Sam Spade in noble pursuit, there's a Count Dracula, a Lester Leith, or a Jimmy Valentine. These are the rogues and villains who haunt our imaginations - and who often have more in common with their heroic counterparts than we might expect. Now, for the first time ever, Otto Penzler gathers the iconic traitors, thieves, con men, sociopaths, and killers who have crept through the mystery canon over the past 150 years, captivating and horrifying readers in equal measure.

London, summer 1920. An unidentified body appears to have been run down by a motorcar and Ian Rutledge is leading the investigation to uncover what happened. While the signs point to murder, vital questions remain: Who is the victim? And where, exactly, was he killed? One small clue leads Rutledge to a firm built by two families, famous for producing and selling the world's best Madeira wine. Lewis French, the current head of the English enterprise, is missing. But is he the dead man? And does either his fiancée or his jilted former lover have anything to do with his disappearance - or possible death?

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.

Former detective sergeant Norman Norman’s retirement is boring him to tears. So when he’s asked to assist an upcoming female DI and mentor a new team of misfits in a sleepy Welsh coastal town, he jumps at the opportunity. But the training has barely begun when a woman’s corpse washes up on the sand. With no reports of missing persons, DS Norman is stumped...until the post-mortem reveals a shocking hint to the culprit being local. But with a growing list of suspects who all have alibis, the experienced cop and his fledgling team’s first case could be their last.

Soon after the cargo liner Alexandra Rose steams into the Mersey Estuary, one of the ship’s passengers is found dead, leading to Detective Inspector Andy Ross’s most baffling case to date. Another death soon follows, and Ross discovers that the case has its roots in the depths of the Amazon Rainforest. A billionaire entrepreneur, mysterious passengers, a team of researchers, and a band of vicious mercenaries all have their part to play.

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.

A society wedding at Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire becomes a crime scene when a man is murdered. After another body is found, the baffled local constabulary turns to Scotland Yard. Though the second crime had a witness, her description of the killer is so strange it's unbelievable. Despite his experience, Inspector Ian Rutledge has few answers of his own. The victims are so different that there is no rhyme or reason to their deaths. Nothing logically seems to connect them - except the killer. As the investigation widens, a clear suspect emerges. But for Rutledge, the facts still don't add up, leaving him to question his own judgment.