British Thrillers Mysteries

When old Monty discovers a dead body in his drawing room, it's up to Inspector Jess Campbell to get to the bottom of the mystery. Monty is a recluse, holed up in his crumbling manor house being generally unpleasant to everyone, even those relatives he actually likes. When his family and locals claim they've never seen the murder victim before, Campbell smells a lie. With the help of Superintendent Ian Carter, she will have to dig deep into the murky past of Monty and his family, all the way to the shocking truth.

When a body is discovered floating in a Thames river lock one dreary morning, Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James are summoned from Scotland Yard to Chiltern Hills. The dead man is Connor Swann, son-in-law of two of London's most renowned opera personalities. And prints on the corpse's neck suggest that Swann was strangled.

Though American by birth, Frances Wynn, the now-widowed Countess of Harleigh, has adapted admirably to the quirks and traditions of the British aristocracy. On August 12th, each year, otherwise known as the Glorious Twelfth, most members of the upper class retire to their country estates for grouse-shooting season. Frances has little interest in hunting - or birds or a second husband - and is expecting to spend a quiet few months in London with her almost-engaged sister, Lily, until the throng returns.

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.

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...

Fiona, Sue, and Daisy, three retired ladies who volunteer at the local charity shop, Dogs Need Nice Homes, can’t believe their favorite customer is dead. Eighty-six-year-old Sarah Brown was found murdered in her hallway by her delivery man, a domino clutched in her hand—with a name scratched on it. When another person is found dead with a domino in their hand, and with the police making no progress, the ladies will need to help unmask a serial killer. At least they have Fiona’s scruffy-haired terrier cross to assist them.

DC Scott Cullen of Lothian and Borders CID has only been in the job three months. Young, eager to please and desperate to do good. So a missing persons should be an easy case to solve. Right? Fresh from a messy divorce, Caroline Adamson’s future is finally looking up. Her son seems happy and she’s dating again. Trouble is, Cullen can’t find Caroline or the man she met on Schoolbook, the latest social network taking Edinburgh by storm.

As the mists roll over the fens and enigmatic lights twinkle in the distance, only the locals know their way along the hidden paths through the mysterious watery terrain of one of England's most beautiful and sometimes dangerous places. Detective Matt Ballard may have retired but there's still plenty going on in the fens to keep him busy. Someone trashes an old lady's garden and daubs her isolated cottage with hateful graffiti. Emilia Swain seems to be totally harmless, so why is she being targeted?

"Matt Drabble is a name that will one day be as widely recognized as Stephen King & Dean Koontz" - READERS FAVORITE Detective Inspector Alison Raines is a woman dedicated to the job, that job being to protect her city and to speak for the dead. Her uncomplicated world is coming to an end with a cancer diagnosis that will cut short a life that revolved around work and little else. Her answer to rapidly approaching finish line is to tie up the cases that no one believes are murders but her gut tells her otherwise. Sure that not every accidental death is what it seems, but with her condition ...

Writer-in-residence Penelope Parish will need to use every trick in her quaint British bookshop to unravel a murderous plot that threatens to ruin a ducal wedding. The wedding of the duke and duchess of Upper Chumley - on Stoke has all the makings of a fairy tale, complete with a glowing bride and horse-drawn carriage. But it wouldn't be much of a story without a villain, and as American Gothic novelist Penelope Parish is coming to learn, happy-ever-afters are as fraught in this charming British town as they are in her books.

He’s already murdered eight women. Now, he’s coming for me. We find her on a grey November day on Dartmoor, England. I’m excavating a Bronze-Age cairn, expecting to find a burial urn and maybe some bronze tools if I’m really lucky. And then I see her fingers poking through the soil as if she’s trying to claw her way out of her grave. I’m an osteoarchaeologist, used to dealing with bones, and I know immediately she’s been in the ground for months rather than thousands of years. Then I find a message in the grave that’s clearly meant for me. It turns out the girl is the eighth...

Commander Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard has just published a new book of poems and has taken a brief respite from publicity on the remote Larksoken headland on the Norfolk coast. A psychotic strangler of young women is at large in Norfolk, and getting nearer to Larksoken with every killing. And when Dalgliesh discovers the murdered body of the Acting Administrative Officer on the beach, he finds himself caught up in one of the most baffling murder cases of his career.

Everyone is hiding a secret. Including me. The last thing I want to be doing on the coldest day of the year is sleeping rough on the streets of Plymouth. When a young woman approaches me and says she knows of a place where I can have a bed and a hot meal, I’m quick to agree. And that’s how I end up at the House of Stars. The house is run by Jupiter, who gives all his girls and clients codenames. When he finds out I’m young and untouched, he names me Virgo. He says he’ll take care of me, because he has very special plans for me. One of his clients is going to pay a lot of money to ...

Detective Sara Hirst has moved from London to Norfolk Police's Serious Crimes Unit. She wants to know the truth about her father, who has connections to the area. Her mother won't tell her the real story. A new job. A new place. Same old problems. Sara's first call-out is to a decomposing body discovered in a ditch on a local farm. How does the murder relate to a recent spate of thefts? Who wanted the victim dead? Then the case grows very personal.

When the body of a young woman is discovered in the cowshed of Cricket Farm, the tranquility of the British countryside is shattered. Inspector Jess Campbell is on the case, but with few leads, a grumbling partner, and the new superintendent Ian Carter piling on the pressure, she's beginning to wonder why she chose to be a detective in the first place.

A body is discovered inside of the smoldering ruins of Key House. The crumbling Cotswold manor has long been empty, but rumor has it that the owner, Gervase Crown, was seen lurking around just before the fire. Inspector Jess Campbell and Superintendent Ian Carter pin Gervase as a prime suspect, but was he the murderer, or the target? It seems that his sudden reappearance has stirred up animosity long thought forgotten.

Chief Inspector Brian Hooley has a plan, and it won't make him popular. He wants to bring back autistic detective Jonathan Roper. Currently suspended on misconduct charges, his condition, coupled with a relentless work ethic, makes Roper a unique investigator with observational skills that allow him to see what others miss. But he is also a complex man who doesn't get social boundaries, and plenty of his colleagues just don't like him. Hooley doesn't care about that. He knows Roper is the one to make a difference.

Penelope Parish has hit a streak of bad luck, including a severe case of writer's block that is threatening her sophomore book. Hoping a writer in residence position at The Open Book bookstore in Upper Chumley-on-Stoke, England, will shake the cobwebs loose, Pen, as she's affectionately known, packs her typewriter and heads across the pond. Unfortunately, life in Chumley is far from quiet, and when the chairwoman of the local Worthington Fest is found dead, fingers are pointed at Charlotte Davenport, an American romance novelist and the future duchess of Worthington.

When 14-year-old Zoe Johnson doesn't come home on a Monday night in early December, the alarm bells in Kings Lake Central police station do not ring straight away - after all, she's from the Dockmills, one of the toughest estates in the town. But for Detective Sergeant DC Smith, due to retire in just three weeks' time, there are some strange echoes of the case that has haunted him for the past 13 years. Maybe it's simply his over-developed sense of irony, or maybe, in his final days as a police officer, Smith must look once more into the eyes of a serial killer.

Struggling with his new role as a detective chief inspector, John Tanner is warned of a convicted psychopath’s early release. When a couple is found later that day; the man stabbed to death, the woman with her throat cut, he's forced to assume the convict is responsible. But when the male victim turns out to be heir to a global pharmaceutical company, and his twelve-year-old son is nowhere to be found, he has to start looking closer at the victim’s family, and their sprawling stately ancestral home.