British Detectives Thrillers

Driving back through Wales in a fierce winter storm, forensic anthropologist David Hunter is forced to seek shelter at a remote village in Eryri mountains. But a one-night stop-over becomes something very different after a gruesome discovery in depths of the local forest. With communications down and the only road washed out by the storm, Hunter is unsure who - if anyone - he can trust. And as long buried secrets begin to emerge, he knows that, whatever dark past the isolated community might be hiding, there's no one he can call on for help. This time he's on his own.

While attending a crime scene on the outskirts of Maidstone, DI Kay Hunter makes a shocking discovery. The victim has been brutally cut to pieces, his identity unknown. When more body parts start turning up in the Kentish countryside, Kay realizes the disturbing truth–a serial killer is at large and must be stopped at all costs. With no motive for the murders and a killer who has gone undetected until now, Kay and her team of detectives must work fast to calm a terrified local population and a scornful media. When a third victim is found, her investigation grows even more complicated.

A new breed of villain has risen, possessed of extraordinary intellect and violence. Only the brilliant mind and courage of Sexton Blake, scourge of the criminal world, can stop them, in these three classic stories, collected together in one volume for the first time. From the streets of London to the catacombs of Paris, join Blake as he pits his wits against bank robbers, impostors and kidnappers, duels with swords and pursues his foes by any means necessary.

With his partner away on a honeymoon, Yorkshire detective Andrew Dalziel tries to beat the blues by taking a vacation of his own. But after getting caught in a torrential rain and running into a funeral procession, he winds up accompanying a crowd of upper-class mourners to a crumbling country house. Dalziel isn't known for his elegant manners, but he has bigger problems than not fitting in: The owner of the home has died under unusual circumstances, and soon more bodies are turning up.

DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but her hippy neighbours keep her well-supplied in homebrew and conversation so she has more tolerance for them than most. When one of them goes missing she feels duty-bound to find out what happened. But her path leads her to more than a missing friend... It's an easy job to track the young woman down to the Writer's House, a country retreat where aspiring authors gather to workshop and work through their novels. It gets complicated when a body is discovered and Vera's neighbour is found with a knife in her hand.

Young Tom French was found dead, lying in a marsh on the Norfolk coast, with his head bashed in and his binoculars still around his neck. One of the best birders in England, Tom had put the village of Rushy on the birdwatching map. Everyone liked him. Or did they? George Palmer-Jones, an elderly birdwatcher who decided quietly to look into the brutal crime, discovered mixed feelings aplenty. Still, he remained baffled by a deed that could have been motivated by thwarted love, pure envy, or something else altogether.

It was just an ordinary Wednesday lunchtime when Detective Martha Munro's life changed forever. Her sergeant is speaking, but she barely hears what he's telling her. Your mother has been shot dead. Your four-year-old daughter has been taken. There are no leads. Who would want to hurt her family? Martha realizes it's time to ask herself some hard questions about her late father. He led the anti-corruption squad at Scotland Yard. It's rumored he kept a list of everyone who worked for him, from coppers to criminals. And just being on the list was a sure-fire way to lower your life expectancy.

THERE'S A DARK SHADOW OVER ULSTER AND IT KILLS. On a fateful night in Belfast, two young men are discovered dead, their demise appearing as ordinary as natural causes. Despite encountering disapproval from the upper echelons, DCI Wilson makes a pivotal decision to delve deeper into these seemingly innocuous deaths, heeding the instinctive guidance of pathologist Stephanie Reid. An unsettling aura lingers, suggesting an undercurrent of intrigue, and it falls upon the shoulders of the Belfast Murder Squad to unearth the concealed truths. What gradually unfolds is a sinister element that has ...

A Dedicated Man is the second novel in Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks series, following on from Gallows View. Near the village of Helmthorpe, Swainsdale, the body of a well-liked local historian is found half-buried under a dry stone wall. Harry Steadman has been brutally murdered. But who would want to kill such a thoughtful, dedicated man? Chief Inspector Alan Banks is called in to investigate and soon discovers that disturbing secrets lie behind the apparently bucolic facade.

Marchfield Square was meant to be a haven from the outside world. A place for those who need somewhere safe from their pasts, or who could otherwise not afford to stay in the city they call home. That was Celeste Van Duren's plan. One of her tenants being murdered in his own kitchen, and the police trying to pin it on his long-suffering wife, was not. So Celeste does what anyone with a lot of money, a strong sense of justice and a bad hip would do: she recruits some help to track down the real murderer.

No CompassionA vicious rape, a woman left traumatised. A previous victim is quickly identified. Then more come forward.A serial rapist is attacking the women of Exeter in their beds at night. There are fingerprints and DNA but no matches, CCTV but no identification. With the press clamouring for answers DS Pete Gayle and his team must work through a maze of conflicting evidence to identify and arrest the offender before he can commit another brutal attack.

A missing father. A desperate daughter. A terrible discovery. A new case is the last thing DS Pete Gayle needs right now, but when it falls right into his lap, he has no choice. Justice is crying out to be served. With a career-making trial about to begin and his son in imminent danger from a pair of psychopathic brothers, Pete goes on the hunt in what could turn out to be the biggest case of his life.

Two skeletons are discovered in the grounds of St Mary's Choir School. This was not a centuries-old Christian burial. They are wearing modern-day clothes, and there is evidence of foul play. Consecrated land has been sadistically violated.

Detective Inspector Gilbert Markham is a rising talent of the Bromgrove police force. He is on the trail of the murderer when another life is brutally claimed. Who is the savage killer lurking in this innocent place?

In the usually peaceful town of Eastvale, a simmering tension has now reached breaking point. An antinuclear demonstration has ended in violence, leaving one policeman stabbed to death. Fired by professional outrage, Superintendent 'Dirty Dick' Burgess descends with vengeful fury on the inhabitants of Maggie's Farm, an isolated house high on the daleside.

A faceless corpse is discovered in a tranquil, hidden valley below the village of Swainshead. And when Chief Inspector Alan Banks arrives, he finds that no-one is willing to talk. Banks's frustration only grows when the identity of the body is revealed. For it seems that his latest case may be connected with an unsolved murder in the same area five years ago. Among the silent suspects are the Collier brothers, the wealthiest and most powerful family in the area.

Nine-year-old Samuel lives alone in a once-great estate in Surrey with the family’s housekeeper, Ruth. His father is dead, and his mother has been abroad for months, purportedly tending to her late husband’s faltering business. She left one night while Samuel was sleeping. Beyond her sporadic postcards, Samuel hears nothing from his mother. Samuel’s life is otherwise regulated by Ruth, who runs the house with an iron fist. As rumors in town begin to swirl, Samuel wonders whether something more sinister is afoot. Perhaps his mother did not leave but was murdered - by Ruth.

The Hunters (A Crime Thriller) ‘To follow… the brilliantly inspired tracking of Hill’s two detectives is a joy, apart from the brain-teasing pleasure of accepting the author’s challenge to identify the murderer.’ London Evening News 'Staunton walked out into the field. He stopped about twenty yards in, squatted down on his haunches and stared at the ditch where the girl’s body had been found. Then he was motionless for a while, absorbing the details of the place, picturing it in darkness, the girl, her screams muffled by the murderer’s hand, being dragged along the inside of ...

She looked like she’d drifted off to sleep, curled up in her white dress, blonde hair floating in the breeze. They called it the Angel Murder. Eighteen-year-old Angelica Brock is found dead at a local beauty spot, dressed in a pure white nightgown, her white-blonde hair arranged around her. For years her death is a mystery, her killer the one who got away for a whole generation of police.

A young woman sits quietly compliant at a sea-front bus-stop as a police officer takes a bloody knife from her hand. ‘I’m safe now,’ she says. But safe from whom? Who is she, whose blood is on the blade and where has she come from? These are just a few of the questions DS Pete Gayle must answer in the latest book in this top-selling series.

Murder can strike more than once... Shetland Detective Jimmy Perez knows it will be a difficult homecoming when he returns to the Fair Isles to introduce his fiancée, Fran, to his parents. It's a community where everyone knows each other, and strangers, while welcomed, are still viewed with a degree of mistrust. Challenging to live on at the best of times, with the autumn storms raging, the island feels cut off from the rest of the world. Trapped, tension is high and tempers become frayed. Enough to drive someone to murder.