British Crime Fiction

A playwright is murdered, seemingly in connection with the suspected blackmail of his friend—a rising young MP who, without explanation, disappeared from public view before his untimely death. With a number of high-profile suspects to investigate, the key to solving the case rests on a written clue left behind by the killer....

When a young woman is brutally murdered in the Norfolk countryside, the locals blame Black Shuck - a legendary wild dog. There’s only one problem: The wounds weren’t made by an animal. DCI Robert Kett is battling a black dog of his own. With his wife still missing, and the injuries from his last case leaving him in constant pain, everything seems impossible - not least looking after his three young children.

Amid the tragic mayhem of the morning of 9/11, failed Brighton businessman and ne'er-do-well Ronnie Wilson sees the chance of a lifeline: to shed his debts, disappear and reinvent himself in another country. Six years later the discovery of the skeletal remains of a woman's body in a storm drain in Brighton leads Roy Grace on an enquiry spanning the globe, and into a desperate race against time to save the life of a woman being hunted down like an animal in the streets and alleys of Brighton.

There's a new man in charge at Bow Street Magistrates' Court and all is not well. His ambition is to split up Lavender and Woods—and to add to Lavender's woes, someone is leaking exaggerated stories about his investigations to The Times. Lavender is tasked with solving the theft of an aristocrat's precious jewels, while Woods is instructed to track down a libeler. But after a series of vicious murders and surprising coincidences, they discover that these apparently unconnected crimes have more in common than they could ever have imagined.

The career of playwright Joy Sinclair comes to an abrupt end on an isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands when someone drives an 18-inch dirk through her neck. Called upon to investigate the case in a country where they have virtually no authority, aristocratic Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers grapple for both a motive and a murderer. Emotions run deep in this highly charged drama, for the list of suspects soon includes Britain’s foremost actress, its most successful theatrical producer, and the woman Lynley loves.

Thomas Pitt, mainstay of Her Majesty’s Special Branch, is summoned to Connaught Square mansion, where the body of a junior diplomat lies huddled in a wheelbarrow. Nearby stands the tenant of the house, the beautiful, notorious Egyptian woman Ayesha Zakhari, who falls under the shadow of suspicion. Pitt’s orders are to protect—at all costs—the good name of the third person in the garden: senior cabinet minister Saville Ryerson. The distinguished public servant, whispered to be Ayesha’s lover, insists that she is as innocent as Pitt himself.

England, 1925. When a strange young woman is found murdered on the grounds of Unsworth Castle, the duke and his family are astounded at first, but quickly become enraged when the police begin asking all sorts of impertinent questions. And when suspicions dare to fall on one of their own, it is up to Mr. Quayle, Lord Unsworth's exceedingly efficient secretary, to find the true culprit and save the House of Unsworth from scandal and ruin.

In the chilly depths of a Yorkshire winter, a well-liked rector is found bludgeoned to death in her own church. With no sign of a murder weapon, local superstition quickly pins the blame on the ghost of a medieval monk believed to haunt the building. Well accustomed to unusual murder investigations, DCI Jim Oldroyd takes on the case, along with his assistant, Sergeant Andy Carter, but they are hampered at every turn by the deepening snow and the threat of the supernatural.

Spiritualism has captured the public’s imagination. Séances are all the rage, and Detective Ian Hamilton’s otherwise sensible aunt Lillian is not immune to their allure. But for Ian, indulging her superstitions has its limits. When members of Lillian’s circle of séance friends begin turning up dead, Ian doesn’t need a medium to tell him these aren’t freak accidents.

Unconventional Detective Declan Miller has a problem. Well, two problems. First, there's his dead wife and her yet-to-be-solved murder. He really should stop talking to her ghosts. Second, and most pressing, a young man has just appeared on his doorstep with a briefcase containing a pair of severed hands.

DI Kate Young has known for years that her boss, Superintendent John Dickson, is a violent and evil man. But when she finally confronts him and accidentally shoots and kills him, she’s forced to cover her tracks before anyone can pin his death on her. With revelations about his corruption soon to become public knowledge, Kate sets up a trail of evidence to make it seem that Dickson has conveniently vanished… But Kate knows the corruption doesn’t end with Dickson.

When Dr Raymond Ferens moves to a practice at Milham in the Moor in north Devon, he and his wife are enchanted with the beautiful hilltop village lying so close to moor and sky. At first they see only its charm, but soon they begin to uncover its secrets - envy, hatred and malice. Everyone says that Sister Monica, warden of a children's home, is a saint - but is she? A few months after the Ferens' arrival her body is found drowned in the mill-race. Chief Inspector Macdonald faces one of his most difficult cases in a village determined not to betray its dark secrets to a stranger.

Meet disgraced ex-DI Ellie Reckless, a self-proclaimed "cop for criminals", and the person the underworld calls when they can't call the police. For months now, she's built up a series of favors, all so she can set them off like dominos—proving that Nicky Simpson, YouTube sensation and wannabe gangster, was the man who destroyed her life—and killed the man she loved. And in return, Nicky has watched her carefully, waiting to see whether she's too much of a threat to keep alive. But when Nicky's life is threatened, he's forced to turn to Ellie and her team for help.

Ending his secondment to London’s Met Police, Roy Grace gets a tip-off about a county lines drugs mastermind operating out of Brighton. On his first day back in his old job in Sussex, he is called to a seemingly senseless murder. Separately, Meg Magellan finally has her life back together, five years after the car crash that killed her husband and their son. Her daughter, Laura, now 18, is on her gap year travelling in South America with a friend, and Meg misses her badly. Laura is all she has in the world....

Virtual romance becomes a terrifying obsession in Want You Dead.... Single girl, 29, smouldering redhead, love life that's crashed and burned. Seeks new flame to rekindle her fire. Fun, friendship, and - who knows - maybe more? When Red Westwood meets handsome, charming, and rich Bryce Laurent through an online dating agency, there is an instant attraction. But as their love blossoms, the truth about his past, and his dark side, begins to emerge.

Two years ago, Miff Ferguson chose to opt out of the rat race. Since then he's been living rough and happily so. Until now. For as the first signs of winter approach, everything in his life is uprooted. While looking for shelter, Miff stumbles across the corpse of a young woman in a dilapidated warehouse. Quickly realizing he is not alone, and has been spotted, Miff becomes embroiled in a game of cat-and-mouse with a killer that forces him to abandon his life and take refuge with his aunt and uncle in the village of Weston St. Ambrose.

A man waits at a London airport for Ingrid Ostermann, the love of his life, to arrive. Across the Atlantic, a retired NYPD cop waits in a bar in Florida’s Key West for his first date with the lady who is, without question, his soulmate. The two men are about to discover they’ve been scammed out of almost every penny they have in the world – and that neither women exist.

Ex-DCI Luke Sackville is asked by Globo Energy to investigate two environmental movements. Both groups promote protests and nonviolent civil disobedience, but when members of his Ethics Team go undercover they discover this is a facade. Beneath the surface sinister forces are at work. Luke becomes embroiled in a race to find and stop a murderer who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Sow the Wind is the sixth book in the series of crime thrillers featuring Luke Sackville and his Ethics Team.

For LA producer Larry Brooker, this is the movie that could bring the fortune that has so long eluded him.... For rock superstar, Gaia, desperate to be taken seriously as an actor, this is the role that could get her an Oscar nomination.... For the City of Brighton and Hove, the publicity value of a major Hollywood movie being filmed on location, about the city's greatest love story - between King George IV and Maria Fitzherbert - is incalculable.

DCI Matilda Darke has returned to work after a nine-month absence. A shadow of her former self, she is tasked with reopening a cold case: the terrifyingly brutal murders of Miranda and Stefan Harkness. The only witness was their 11-year-old son, Jonathan, who was too deeply traumatised to speak a word. Then a dead body is discovered, and the investigation leads back to Matilda's case. Suddenly the past and present converge, and it seems a killer may have come back for more....