British Crime Thrillers

Yorkshire Dales, Summer 1997. Vicky Mott slips out the door of her remote cottage, and into the pale dawn light. She scrawls a note for her friends. Gone to see the sunrise. V xxx That's the last anyone ever hears from twenty-year-old music lover Vicky. Another victim of the Fellside Strangler? That would make Vicky the fourth young woman to lose her life this summer. Snatched by a mysterious killer who stalks the fells . . . But Vicky's body is never found.

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.

A Riviera crime novel the way you want it to be! The newly married Kit Aston and Mary are back in their latest crime caper that takes you from a stag weekend in Scotland to the set of Alfred Hitchcock’s latest film and onto the gaming tables of Monte Carlo. When Kit and Mary join Agatha in Monte Carlo, they are shocked to discover that Prince Albert I has asked her to investigate unusual gambling activities in the casino. This becomes a murder investigation when Kit’s Uncle Alastair is accused of being a killer. The finger of blame points towards the mysterious Bluebeard Club. Can Kit ...

When Amelia is invited to an all-expenses-paid retreat on a private island, the mysterious offer is too good to refuse. Along with six other strangers, she’s told they’re here to test a brand-new product for Timeo Technologies. But the guests’ excitement soon turns to terror when the real reason for their summons becomes clear. Each guest has a guilty secret. And when they’re all forced to wear a memory-tracking device that reveals their dark and shameful deeds to their fellow guests, there’s no hiding from the past. This is no luxury retreat - it’s a trap.

When Lady Abigail, the wife of the wealthy Baron of Cambridge, is found dead in her bed, Detective Inspector Henry Smith is called in to investigate. With a multitude of suspects, including the gruff and unfriendly Baron himself, Henry must use all his investigative skills to uncover the truth behind Lady Abigail's mysterious death. As he delves deeper into the case, secrets are uncovered and tensions rise, leading to a dramatic conclusion that will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the very end.

It's been several years since Detective Jimmy Perez left Shetland. He has settled into his new home in Orkney, the group of islands, off the northern coast of Scotland, with his partner Willow Reeve and their growing family. One stormy winter night, his oldest and closest friend, Archie Stout, goes missing. Ever the detective, Perez catches a boat to the island of Westray, where Archie worked as a farmer and lived with his wife and children. But when he arrives he finds a shocking scene.

DC Sophie Jones was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Viciously bludgeoned one night in a dark alley, she is left fighting for her life in hospital, leaving no clues as to why she was there or what might have motivated the attack. For Detective Karen Hart, fiercely protective of her young protégée, this is already deeply personal: an attack on Sophie is an attack on the whole team. When a car workshop near the crime scene is linked to local mobster Quentin Chapman, the man Hart has spent years trying to bring down, it’s hard not to jump to the most obvious conclusion.

When the luxurious overnight passenger train from Calais to the Riviera, known as the Blue Train, arrives in Nice, a guard goes into the compartment of American heiress, Ruth Kettering and attempts to wake her. Unfortunately, she will never wake up, as she is dead, having been killed by a heavy blow to her head, disfiguring her almost beyond recognition. What is more, her precious ruby, known as the 'Heart of Fire', is missing. The prime suspect is Ruth’s estranged husband, but detective Hercule Poirot, who also just happens to be a passenger on the train, is not convinced.

Max Tudor thought he'd left the world of deceit when he resigned from MI5 to become an Anglican priest. Then his bishop asks him to return to his Oxford college, St Luke's, to investigate the death of its chaplain, and Max realizes there's no leaving the past behind. At first, Max agrees with the official police verdict of death by natural causes. The Rev. Ace Graybill was as harmless a man as ever lived. It's difficult to see how he managed to cross anyone capable of murder.

At the Central Criminal Court, an eager crowd awaits the trial of Victoria Lamartine, an active participant in the Resistance during the war. She is now employed at the Family Hotel in Soho, where Major Eric Thoseby has been found murdered. Thoseby is believed to have fathered Lamartine's child, and the prosecution insist that his death is revenge for his abandonment of Lamartine and her arrest by the Gestapo. A last-minute change in Lamartine's defence counsel grants solicitor Nap Rumbold just eight days to prove her innocence.

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.

Ritchie Gulliver MP is dead. Castrated and left to bleed in an empty Leith warehouse. Vicious, racist and corrupt, many thought he had it coming. But nobody could have predicted this. After the life Gulliver has led, the suspects are many: corporate rivals, political opponents, the countless groups he's offended. And the vulnerable and marginalised, who bore the brunt of his cruelty—those without a voice, without a choice, without a chance. As Detective Ray Lennox unravels the truth, and the list of brutal attacks grows, he must put his personal feelings aside.

The body of a disgraced college lecturer is found on an abandoned railway line. In the four years since his dismissal for sexual misconduct, he’d been living like a hermit. So where did he get the 5,000 pounds found in his pocket? Leading the investigation, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks begins to suspect that the victim's past may be connected to his death. Forty years ago the dead man attended a university that was a hotbed of militant protest and divisive, bitter politics. And as the seasoned detective well knows, some grudges are never forgotten - or forgiven.

When a long-serving Master at one of England's most prestigious public schools drowns in Bassenthwaite Lake, Detective Inspector Skelgill is summoned to investigate his apparent suicide. It soon becomes clear that senior members of staff are not all that they seem. As the school closes ranks, Skelgill realizes he is pitted against a sinister power struggle for control of its highly lucrative operation.

How long can you live in fear, always peering over your shoulder? The gruesome murder of Lizzie Rice, the mother of one of Belfast's most notorious crime kingpins, threatens to unleash a powder keg of violence on the city's streets. With riots erupting and a growing body count, each victim meeting a similarly brutal end, it becomes abundantly clear that DCI Ian Wilson and his dedicated Murder Squad are facing a chilling and cunning serial killer. To outsmart this ruthless murderer, Wilson must navigate both the labyrinthine corridors of the past and the shadows of his own present. "Death to...

Three friends go on a foodie road trip to the Scottish Highlands and Islands to celebrate their pending retirement, expecting stunning scenery, great food, fine wines, and a chance to reminisce about the good old days. When they somehow secure a reservation at a remote and extremely exclusive restaurant set on a private island in Loch Broom, they know they’re in for a once-in-a-lifetime dining experience.

A skeletal hand is unearthed in the vault under the Pump Room in Bath, England, near the site where Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. Then a skull is excavated. The bones came from different corpses, and one is modern. Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond must solve a series of crimes including murder and forgery, requiring a knowledge of history, 19th-century art, literature...and human nature.

It's Alys Pugh's birthday and her mates are organizing a little surprise for her. When she doesn't show up, they realize something's wrong. Later, her body is found in the cold waters of Llyn y Fan. On searching Alys' house, detectives discover an array of seaside objects and suspect they are some sort of message left by the killer. With everyone seemingly harboring a secret, tempers fray and suspicion grows. And when similar trinkets are found in another of their houses, those underlying tensions bubble to the surface. Then someone else in the group is killed.

You are Dead is the 11th thrilling crime novel in Peter James' Roy Grace series, narrated by Daniel Weyman. They were marked for death. The last words Jamie Ball hears from his fiancée, Logan Somerville, are in a terrified mobile phone call. She has just driven into the underground car park beneath the block of flats where they live in Brighton. Then she screams and the phone goes dead.

A COLD CASE. A MISSING PERSON. A MURDER WITH NO MOTIVE. AND ONE DEADLY CONNECTION. When private detective Maggie Bainbridge is hired to track down missing software developer Paul Davie, the case seems straightforward - the man had been having a passionate affair with a colleague, and it looks like he's simply run off with his mistress. But ten years earlier, Davie's brother Jaz had drowned in Loch Fyne in tragic circumstances, and now another body has been found in the same loch, this one wrapped in polythene sheeting. The cases can't possibly be connected, can they? But as Maggie delves ...