British Police Mysteries

When Octavia Garamond passed away, she left explicit instructions in her will: The police must be present at her funeral, and the coroner should be exceptionally thorough when examining her body. Amelia Kennerly is perplexed to find herself the sole executor of her great-aunt's will, as she barely knew her. Further questions arise when the local parson is anything but happy to conduct Octavia's service. Then someone breaks into Octavia's home and tears the house apart. It seems the old lady's words may have been eerily prescient: "Hell is empty, and all the devils are here."

When a woman with a past is brutally murdered, the detectives assigned to the investigation discover that there’s no shortage of motives and suspects. A faceless corpse is found in a local park. DCI Tyler and DS Mills establish that the dead woman was working at two brothels in the city, and operating under the name Scarlet. A wealth of suspects and motives are uncovered, and Scarlet, a complex young woman with an interesting past, appears to have been leading a secret life. The investigation stalls, and Tyler’s long-suffering boss goes off sick, his ambitious replacement demanding a ...

Who killed Danute Zukas, a twenty-three-year-old Lithuanian woman, in July, 2014? In Wiltshire, England, the Crime Review Team investigates cold cases and has successfully resolved more than a dozen. Headed by former police detective Gus Freeman, the team uses old witness statements plus fresh clues to start the hunt again. Danute Zukas arrived in Bath, England, in March, 2011, worked in a late-night bar, and was well liked and happy. Then in April, 2012, she quit her job and disappeared.

Detective Sergeant Matthew Ryan wants to clear the name of his former boss, who stands accused of official corruption. But before he can do so, his boss disappears. Did he escape from police custody, or was he kidnapped? Or did something even worse happen to him?

CASE FILE #18–June 2008. Katherine Alford was found dead in her car at a local beauty spot. The devoted mother had received an urgent phone call late in the evening, and asked a neighbor to babysit for ten minutes. She never returned. Gus Freeman and his team uncover failings in the initial police investigation, but every eyewitness they re-interview can’t offer fresh clues, they only add to the mystery. Who did Katherine dash out of the house to meet?

When a grocer is found dead in his corner shop, it seems clear that he was killed by the same man apprehended for other robberies in the area. But DCI Tyler is not convinced that the case is that simple. The pressures of inner-city policing are relentless, and Tyler is only adding to his reputation as a maverick and a liability by keeping on with the investigation, despite repeated warnings from above. But the detective, true to form, is like a dog with a bone, regardless of the consequences. When complaints about his methods start to pour in, Tyler becomes more convinced that he is onto ...

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.

DCI Ellie Blackwell trusts the certainties of history, the clean lines of a 17th-century map. Her life is a fortress of order built against the chaos of her job. But when she's called to the scene of a wealthy developer's apparent suicide, the clues are a maddening mess of contradictions. At the heart of it all: a three-line Japanese poem that feels like a key to the wrong lock.

Forensic psychologist Saskia Monet finds herself caught up in a chilling mystery when Detective Inspector Winter Labey of the Jersey police calls upon her expertise in a case that’s spiraling out of control. Three little girls have vanished without a trace, and each disappearance has been marked by a wooden flute left at the scene, a chilling signature of the kidnapper known as the Pied Piper.

Constable Nick’s beat is modernized, with his police bike replaced by a mini-van. He gets more than he bargained for as his work draws him into closer contact with villagers, in more ways than one. There are compromising positions aplenty in this next charming installment of Aidensfield life. Nick finds himself lost in heavy fog and runs across a couple of illicit lovers trapped in their car. He advises the village grocer about his very respectable lady shoplifter and discovers how farmer Owens copes with his bossy wife.

Fifty years ago, a group of teenagers spent a weekend on Holy Island, forging a bond that has lasted a lifetime. Now, they still return every five years to celebrate their friendship and remember the friend they lost to the rising waters of the causeway at the first reunion. Now, when one of them is found hanged, Vera is called in. Learning that the dead man had recently been fired after misconduct allegations, Vera knows she must discover what the friends are hiding and whether the events of many years before could have led to murder then, and now.

(This book was previously published with the subtitle 'The Strange Case of the Exploding Dolly-trolley') When tragedy comes to Daisy's doorstep, it's way too close for comfort. Those responsible have to be brought to justice... and quickly, before they strike again. It’s been two weeks since Daisy brought Finn’s aristocratic world crashing down, and village life reverted to as normal as it ever gets where she is concerned. But then one morning it all changes, in a very disturbing way. To begin with, Daisy believes someone from her past is to blame. Before she retired, she had a job very...

No Compromise (DS Peter Gayle thriller series, book 7)A brutal murder. A man jailed. A new witness who claims he couldn’t have been there.Already in the middle of a violent and complex case, DS Pete Gayle gets entangled in a tangled web of lies and intrigue. With a man in jail for a murder he may not have committed, the reputation of the station and the whole force is on the line. Pete has to face one of the hardest choices of his life. To break ranks and go against another officer risks losing friends, colleagues and career, but if he ignores the case, will he be able to live with himself?

Does nine-year-old Buddy Norris even have a chance? He’s been missing for two days and the only person who might know where he is has just been killed by a hit-and run driver. The search for Buddy is concentrated in downtown Port Alma, a scenic coastal city. The massive cliffs overlooking the water and the quaint Lower Town streets are a major tourist draw, and hold an infinite number of places to hide a child. But Constable Holly Towns is drawn to the countryside on the outskirts of the city. Holly likes her police job but her future is a coin-toss. She’s either on the way out, ...

Wild Fire is the eighth and final book in the Shetland series from Ann Cleeves, the number one bestselling author and creator of Vera and the Two Rivers. Rumours of an affair surround a woman found hanged – on the most troubling case of his career, Inspector Jimmy Perez must work with Willow Reeves once again, and she has news that will change his life forever.

On Shetland, the launch of an exhibition at The Herring House art gallery is disturbed – a stranger bursts into tears, claiming not to remember who he is or where he comes from. The next day, Inspector Jimmy Perez finds his dead body in a fisherman’s hut. Initially, it seems to be a straightforward case of suicide – yet this is no desperate act. Instead, it soon becomes clear, this is the work of a cold-blooded killer. As Perez investigates, he finds himself mired in the hidden secrets of a small community. Then another body is found.

The CID's Andrew Dalziel prefers simple killers. Not a crackpot who fancies himself Hamlet and taunts authorities with lofty quotes from the Bard. Dubbed the Yorkshire Choker, he's already taken three lives in four weeks and promises more tragedy to come. To help nab the serial strangler, Peter Pascoe has enlisted the help of linguistics professors, psychologists, and psychics-all of it nonsense to the grounded Dalziel.

When undercover cop Jez Walker is shot dead, it appears cut and dried. Arrest the gang he was embedded in and question them until a confession surfaces. It doesn’t work out that way - the closer the Batterton Major Crime Investigation Team looks, the more obvious it is that the gang didn’t kill Walker. So who did? Answering that question means looking at other aspects of Jez’s past. And doing that raises questions they’d rather had stayed unasked.

As the snow falls in Newcastle, Detective Joe Ashworth and his daughter, Jessie, travel home on the busy Metro. When the train stops unexpectedly due to bad weather, Jessie notices that one woman doesn’t leave, and when trying to wake her they find that the passenger has been fatally stabbed. With no witnesses DI Vera Stanhope looks into the victim’s past and discovers she lived for years on Harbour Street, in a run-down Northumberland fishing town.

IN THE HEART OF DANGER, SECRETS UNRAVEL AND DESTINIES COLLIDE Detective Superintendent Ian Wilson finds himself the target of a deadly vendetta. As he grapples with the looming threat to his life, the unsettling backdrop of Belfast sees the sudden disappearance of two gay men, a chilling mystery that sets the stage for a series of events with far-reaching consequences. Meanwhile, Detective Rory Browne, driven by a personal connection to the case of the missing men, becomes entangled in a perilous web that could make him the next victim of a cunning serial killer. With each step into the ...