British Detective Mysteries

“M.G. Cole is a brilliant new addition to the echelon of British crimewriters.” Peter James "Dark, grim, tense. A compelling new voice." PAUL FINCH, author of the Detective Mark Heckenburg novels. REVENGE IS ONLY HALF THE STORY An unreported missing person. A crime that lurks undetected. A temptation that corrupts the incorruptible. Only when a corpse is uncovered are these dark secrets revealed. But the dead can’t speak. They can’t accuse. And they certainly don’t pay their debts. It’s up to DCI David Garrick’s investigation team to connect the dots and unearth a most ...

Detective Joseph Easter's daughter discovers a cottage hidden in some trees on a large fenland farm. Someone has been living there. The farm owner's wife has been receiving sinister pagan artifacts, including a witch's knife. Are they some sort of warning or message? Joseph and his daughter search the cottage and find an old satchel. Inside are photos of a beautiful girl, Jennifer Cowley. She went missing 15 years ago. She'd been stalked by a young man, who was convicted of her murder, even though her body was never found.

One buried body. Many hidden secrets. When the body of a teenage girl is discovered, the villagers of Birkbury close ranks to protect their secrets. Gossip turns to fear and suspicion as they realise the killer is one of them and is prepared to kill again. Beneath the good manners and polite smiles, DCI Hatherall discovers deep-seated resentments and family feuds going back decades. The stakes are raised when another girl goes missing. Will the police uncover the killer before it is too late?

Early one morning, DS Robin Butler is summoned to a crime scene. Not as a policeman, but as best friend to renowned meteorologist, Dr Finn Mason. The morning after studying an enormous storm, Finn has locked himself in a van. Bloodied, confused, and with no memory of how he came to be there. And alongside him - a dead body.

A peaceful spring afternoon turns into DC Holly Towns’ worst nightmare, once the sun goes down. A blast of gunfire tears through the glass walls of a turret that rises from one end of Quinn’s Landing. It spins Holly’s world upside down and sends the Criminal Investigations Unit on a single-minded pursuit of the shooter. Holly and former detective, Danny Cavallo, are meeting with Geraldine Quinn at the elegant lakeside home that has been in her family for generations. The older woman claims she’s become nervous on her own and wants Cavallo to install a high-tech security system, with...

When murder is served at a Scottish Burns supper, it’s not the haggis that hides the deadliest secret. Can an amateur sleuth catch the killer before they toast another victim? Antiques expert, Dotty Sayers, is thrilled to return to the Cotswolds to reconnect with old friends and run the auction house where her career began. She and her friend, Sergeant Keya Varma, organise a traditional Burns Night celebration, but things go awry when one of their guests meets his end before the first whisky is poured.When the new police inspector is pushed aside by headquarters before she can crack the ...

When Scotland Yard superintendent Duncan Kincaid takes Gemma, Kit, and Toby for a holiday visit to his family in Cheshire, Gemma is soon entranced with Nantwich's pretty buildings and the historic winding canal, and young Kit is instantly smitten with his cousin Lally. But their visit is marred by family tensions exacerbated by the unraveling of Duncan's sister Juliet's marriage. And tensions are brought to the breaking point on Christmas Eve with Juliet's discovery of a mummified infant's body interred in the wall of an old dairy barn.

She should say no. She’s not a detective after all. But how can she? When Felicity Philips receives a panicked call from an old friend, there simply isn’t a way that she can turn him down. Edward, the jeweller to the crown, is in deep trouble and he cannot tell the police. His terrible truth must be kept secret. But what is his motivation for calling Felicity? Does he really believe she is the only one who can help? Or are his motivations more personal and dark than he is letting on? With her usual cast of supporting misfits, Felicity is going to see what she can do … … but when she...

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.

Mrs. Laetitia Rodd, aged 52, is the widow of an archdeacon who makes her living as a highly discreet private investigator. Her brother, Frederick Tyson, is a criminal barrister living in nearby Highgate with his wife and 10 children. Frederick finds the cases, and Laetitia solves them using her arch intelligence and her immaculate cover as an unsuspecting widow. When a case arises involving the son of the highly connected Sir James Calderstone, Laetitia sets off for Lincolnshire undercover as the family's new governess.

Ever since she drove her best friend's fiance to kill himself, Isabel Drew has been nicknamed Jezebel. She is domineering, arrogant, vain - and beautiful enough to get away with it. She is starring as a princess in a medieval pageant when her past catches up to her. On tiny slips of paper, threats appear, promising death to Isabel and those around her. Fearing she may be attacked, she invites the brilliant Inspector Cockrill to keep her safe after the performance.

As Christmas approaches in the sleepy English village of Weston Saint Ambrose, the rains bring the wettest winter on record and the farmer's fields are submerged. The water uncovers all manner of things, however, including a dead body, dredged up from its watery grave. Snagging on the jetty of Isolde Evans, the reclusive writer is shocked to recognize the victim. And she's not the only one.

Considered the first full-length detective novel in the English language, T.S. Eliot described The Moonstone as 'the first and greatest English detective novel'. The stone of the title is an enormous yellow diamond plundered from an Indian shrine after the Siege of Seringapatam. Given to Miss Verinder on her 18th birthday, it mysteriously disappears that very night. Suspicion falls on three Indian jugglers who have been seen in the neighbourhood. Sergeant Cuff is assigned to the case....

When the body of an old man is found lying in the ruins of St Benet’s Abbey, his throat cut, a knife resting in his open hand, DI John Tanner and DC Jenny Evans are given no choice but to accept a ruling of death by misadventure. But when the body goes missing from its tomb, after a priest is found nailed to a cross, and another impaled on a stake, everything begins to point back to the murder of a teenage girl, thrown from the top of a church tower, some 43 years before.

Steeped in a history of award-winning Yorkshire ale, the town of Markham boasts not one but two breweries. Richard Foster runs one; his sister, Emily, along with her partner, Janice, runs the other. And not without some resentment. The unwelcome return of the town’s former bad boy, Brendan Scholes, threatens to ignite the sibling rivalry further. Scholes claims to have found the long-lost secret recipe to the beer that made Richard and Emily’s father famous, and he wants money.

STAND-ALONE MURDER MYSTERY, #12 IN THE SERIES. MEET MAVERICK BRITISH DETECTIVE DI SKELGILL... "MAD, BAD AND JUST A LITTLE BIT COZY."WHEN DI SKELGILL TAKES under his wing a talented fell-runner – his underprivileged cousin, Jess – little does he realise in what jeopardy he places her. For Cumbria is being targeted by the infamous ‘county lines’ drug gangs. As turf wars break out, Jess inadvertently finds herself in the crossfire – but family ties blind her to the danger of her association with Skelgill. As the body count increases, Skelgill finally recognises the threat to his ...

Marriage? It can be absolute murder. The royal wedding looms and Felicity can think of little else … until a member of her dream team is arrested for attempted murder. Doris, a long-time friend and superstar florist, stands accused of attempting to kill half a dozen brides, their bouquets poisoned with an unknown toxin. Ordered not to interfere by the hateful Chief Inspector Quinn, Felicity is determined to find the real person behind the bizarre crimes and clear her friend’s name – Doris must be innocent, right? But Felicity is not exactly known for her sleuthing skills. If anything,...

STAND-ALONE MURDER MYSTERY, #14 IN THE SERIES. MEET MAVERICK BRITISH DETECTIVE DI SKELGILL... "MAD, BAD AND JUST A LITTLE BIT COZY."‘A KILLER IN OUR MIDST?’ cried a newspaper headline to commemorate the disappearance of Mary Wilson. It is two decades since Britain’s first mass DNA sweep failed to incriminate a single local male. Mary was listed merely as a missing person. Now archaeologists have unearthed human remains in Cummacatta Wood. The forensics match – age, sex, fragments of clothing... and dental records. But the murder hunt has only just begun when an outsider, a convicted...

Albert and Rex are going to the palace. It’s the day the Kings' birthday honour list recipients get their knighthoods, but like everywhere else they go, there is trouble to be found. With his three children and youngest granddaughter, Apple-Blossom, in tow, Albert is a little embarrassed by the lavishness of the affair. Yet all that is forgotten when he spots a man he knows. A man guilty of murder. A man who can only be at the palace for one thing. But Albert is about to be presented to the king, now is not the time to be chasing criminals. I guess that's why he's Rex's sidekick. Step ...

** Amazon Top Ten Best Seller ** A British couple disappear in Spain and fears grow for their safety. As a fluent Spanish speaker, Detective Inspector Michael Fernandez seems the ideal choice to help track them down. But Michael hates his father’s homeland. He has never been to Spain. Fatefully, the investigation leads him to the village where his father was born and the truth about the past is gradually revealed. Then a body is found and the hunt for the killer is on. REVIEW: "A cracking detective story, which romps along, keeping the pages turning. The plot kept me guessing right to the...