British Detective

DS Kat Ballantyne came to the crime-writing festival for an escape. Instead she’s walked straight into a murder scene. Moments before he’s due on stage, a famous novelist is found dead in a locked room. It looks like natural causes, but Kat sees tiny clues that suggest murder. As she investigates, she uncovers literary rivalries, personal vendettas and hidden agendas. Is there anyone who didn’t have a motive to murder Mark Swift?

Professor Claire Lane interrupted by a sudden telephone call to help in a murder investigation leaves the tranquility of Edinburgh for the country lanes of Oxford. Lord of the Realm, Inspector Ralph McGinnis is puzzled. Unlike his colleague Miss Lane is adamant this is a copycat murder. Last seen in the seventeenth century by an overzealous Venetian statesman. A well-known Australian financier is dead. Propped up in the Nativity scene outside the church. The vicar is acting strangely, could he have been persuaded to preach peace and good will during this festive season, or will Claire work ...

A body was found in a Trunk at Kings Cross Station. Nothing unusual, except Chief Inspector, Lord Ralph McGinnis is sent down from Scotland Yard to investigate. Recognized as retired Police officer Casper Fellen, Ralph suspects he stumbled into gang warfare, and what is the Royal connection with horseracing at Epsom? Professor Claire Lane senses the truth. Will she side with Ralph, or take another view, agree to disappear undercover with renowned Gang boss Alexander Carrington. Is this the end, or does this spell disaster for not only Claire’s reputation, but to Ralph’s heraldic ...

On the island of Corfu, a British spy is dead and his double-agent is missing. Investigator Lucas Grant needs to find out what the hell's going on, before it’s too late. Only two miles across the sea lies Albania, where the secretive and brutal Hoxha communist regime guards its independence - and strategically invaluable naval bases - against the Soviet Union and NATO alike. Has the KGB found a way to change the balance of power? Landing on the unfamiliar island, Grant enlists the help of the local field agent - the dead man's lover - and uncovers a sinister, complex plot that threatens ...

'A fantastic writer.' Donald Ray Pollock 'Nigel Bird is fast becoming one of the top writers in his genre.' Luca Veste DIRTY OLD TOWN is the debut collection from the prize-winning writer Nigel Bird. His brilliantly observed slices of life allow us to visit places we may not normally choose to enter and to walk a few miles in the shoes of others. Though his tales have darkness at their core, they are also full of a heart and spirit that one rarely finds in the world or ‘noir’ or ‘crime-writing’. There are 9 stories here: Drinking Wine (Spo-Dee-Oh-Dee); Dirty Old Town; Sea Minor; ...

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside. The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organization that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths.

DI Barney Mains blames himself for the grotesque murder of a top banker in France. He's obsessed with the belief that he allowed a near-mythical assassin to escape certain death to kill again. And when a duplicate murder is reported 1000 miles away in Barney's home town in Scotland, the guilt drives him ever closer to the edge. How many more must pay the ultimate price for his failure? But then death comes closer to home. He is left with no choice but to face his demons, before a shocking confrontation which will change everything...

It had been a typical New Year's Eve party. But as midnight approaches, Mr. Satterthwaite - a keen observer of human nature - senses that the real drama of the evening is yet to unfold. And so it proves when a mysterious stranger knocks on the door. Who is this Mr. Quin? Mr. Satterthwaite's new friend is an enigma. He seems to appear and disappear almost like a trick of the light. In fact, the only consistent thing about him is that his presence is always an omen - sometimes good, but sometimes deadly....

When the body of a man killed by a point blank shot to the head is found in Crooked Man Woods, it appears to be a suicide. But when Inspector Jess Campbell and Superintendent Ian Carter begin to investigate, it soon becomes clear that not all is as it seems. The victim, Carl Finch, had been causing quite a stir in the small-town community. With rising debts and complicated relationships, the suspects are beginning to mount up.

Minerva Kenny is a dear woman, but her tendency to "borrow" things without asking has finally caught up with her. William Barrett has learned Minerva's shameful secret, and he's holding it over her head. Mrs. Jeffries and the staff at Upper Edmonton Gardens have hatched a scheme to save her - but when they try to recover the damning evidence from Barrett, they discover something more shocking: Barrett's corpse. Considering the victim's wicked ways, Minerva is far from the only suspect.

Visiting her family's South Carolina estate, socialite Gray Godfrey wakes from a night out to an empty bed. Her husband, Paul, is gone, and a thrashing hangover has wiped her memory clean. At first, she's relieved for the break from her tumultuous marriage; perhaps Paul just needed some space. But when his car is found abandoned on the highway, Gray must face the truth: Paul is gone. And Gray may not want him found. Her life is unraveling. When a stranger named Annie calls claiming to know Paul's whereabouts, Gray reluctantly accepts her help.

Lady Philippa, the wife of Sir Aymer, a knight of the realm, disappears while travelling from her husband’s manor to Bampton. She and her maid are traveling in an enclosed wagon, while her husband, his grooms, and a squire are mounted. When the party arrives at Bampton Castle neither the lady nor her maid are within the enclosed wagon: They have simply vanished. As the disappearance may have happened while the travelers were on Lord Gilbert’s lands, his surgeon and bailiff, Hugh de Singleton, is assigned to discover what has happened to the lady. Has she been taken or has she fled?

An attack, a shouted warning and a race to safety! I whirled round putting an arm up defensively, as I did my crash helmet struck an arm and a cosh dropped to the floor with a thud. A curse and heavy boot lash towards me, I put a foot out to block the kick. The reinforced sole of my biking boot crunches against the shin of my assailant. The perfect over the ball tackle. My attacker falls and hits his head on the wall. “Get out of here!” It is a skinhead girl, she is pointing up the road to where a gang of, maybe, twenty people are heading my way, fast. A well-crafted plot and snappy ...

July 1912. Lady Hardcastle and her tenacious lady’s maid, Florence Armstrong, are enjoying a convivial gathering at the home of their dear friends, the Farley-Strouds. The only fly in the idyllic ointment seems to be the lack of musical entertainment for the forthcoming summer party—until, that is, Lady Hardcastle’s brother Harry calls with news of a murder.

The past has a way of catching up to you... Following the explosive events of End Game, American private investigator Thomas Blume is battling to come to terms with a changed British city he helped to create. But when a young woman is brutally murdered, he finds himself dragged into a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a serial killer targeting victims that are all too familiar. Taken across the dark, treacherous streets of modern London, Blume searches through a decades-old conspiracy, digging up secrets that make him question if even the police can be trusted. But with time running out ...

Determined to confront the hazy memories of his troubled youth, Oliver Matthews, a retired detective and confirmed bachelor, returns to the picturesque town of Henley-on-Thames for the first time in years. An unexpected encounter rekindles the possibility of a lost love. However, this joyful reunion is jeopardised when old friends remind him of a mystery with personal implications. As Oliver delves deeper, he uncovers the disturbing truth behind why he abandoned his dearest friends. The weight and shame of his past mistakes create profound turmoil within him. He grapples with the haunting ...

In appearance Hercule Poirot hardly resembled an ancient Greek hero. Yet, reasoned the detective, like Hercules, he had been responsible for ridding society of some of its most unpleasant monsters. So, in the period leading up to his retirement, Poirot makes up his mind to accept just 12 more cases: his self-imposed "Labors". Each would go down in the annals of crime as a heroic feat of deduction.

Pick up a glass of fine wine and join West Virginia police detective Josh Draper and his spunky sidekick Annie McBride in another puzzling murder mystery, this involving a treasure from the past. When an Italian diplomat turns up dead at a rambling estate in the Allegheny Mountains, the U.S. Government calls on Josh and his subtle people skills to ferret out the killer without ruffling diplomatic feathers. He’s locked in the mansion without weapon or police resources until he can work out which of the smooth European negotiators is behind the brutal death and why. You won’t rest a ...

When Harry Falcon, a wealthy boatyard owner and decorated World War Two veteran, is found drowned in his bath, DI John Tanner and DC Jenny Evans start by questioning his two sons, each with a motive for wanting him dead. But when the elder son is found with his head smashed in under a toppled yacht, and the younger son has been talking to a local property developer, one who’d spent months trying to buy the yard from his father, the investigation soon leads them towards a dark and dangerous secret, one which nobody can quite believe.

Rilton Castle has been peaceful for many months but the discovery of the body of a young Indian man dumped in a ditch near the village shatters the calm. Chief Inspector Muga starts an enquiry into the man’s death and discovers he had been digging into the private life of several of the local residents. Who killed Ramjap Shastri? Was it Mike Ash, to protect his nephews? Was it Dax, to protect the only family that had ever made him feel welcome? Was it Ben Hillor to protect his wife from shame? Or was it someone from outside the community who also bore a grudge against Shastri? As the ...