Crime Fiction Police Procedural Suspense

DCI Whitney Walker’s in trouble. She’s threatened with demotion if she screws up another case. So, when a killer starts murdering female students, it’s a chance to redeem herself. Forensic psychologist, Dr. Georgina Cavendish, has spent her life inside the university walls, but when one of her students is murdered, she steps out from behind the text books and puts her skills to the test.

The polluted waters of the canals in Venice are an ever-present issue; but environmental concerns become significant in Commissario Guido Brunetti's work when an investigator from the Carabiniere—looking into the illegal hauling of garbage—asks for a favor. But the investigator is not the only one with a special request. Brunetti's father-in-law needs help and a mysterious woman comes into the picture. And the Commissario soon finds himself in the middle of an investigation into murder and corruption more dangerous than anything he's seen before.

The last thing patrol cop Kate Prospero expected to find on her nightly rounds was a werewolf covered in the blood of his latest victim. But then, she also didn't expect that shooting him would land her in the crosshairs of a Magic Enforcement Agency task force, who wants to know why she killed their lead snitch. The more Prospero learns about the dangerous new potion the MEA is investigating, the more she's convinced that earning a spot on their task force is the career break she's been wanting. But getting the assignment proves much easier than solving the case.

In a hushed Vatican reading room, the scene was shocking: a crazed professor shot dead after brandishing evidence of a grisly crime. Moments later, two bodies are found in a nearby church, each with a gruesome calling card from the killer.

They call it the Bone Box. A collection of old cases, solved and unsolved, that continue to haunt forensic pathologist Birdy Waterman. None is more disturbing than the first. After two decades, Birdy still remembers the screaming. The blood on the boy's hands. The body of a girl, butchered in the woods. Birdy's testimony helped put her own cousin behind bars. It was a sacrifice for what she thought was right - but now, 20 years later, she wants to reopen the box.

Life is already complicated enough for John Lee Quarrels, what with his estranged wife dropping in for unannounced sleepovers, her oversexed sister tempting him, his pot smoking ponytailed grandfather growing his own stash, his Elvis obsessed grandmother, and being caught smack dab in the middle of a power struggle between the Sheriff and Chief Deputy. But when a road construction crew unearths the skeletons of three murder victims, John Lee suddenly finds himself on the trail of a killer who may well have died long before the deputy was even born.

Detective Boone Drake has just masterminded the most massive sting in Chicago history, bringing down the heads of not only the biggest street gangs in the city but also the old crime syndicate. The story is the biggest in decades, and the Chicago Police Department must protect the key witness at all costs. Despite top secret plans to transfer the witness ahead of his testimony before the grand jury, an attempt is made on his life.

An edge-of-your-seat crime thriller starts with a vicious stabbing of a pretty teenage girl and her boyfriend on a local bus. She happens to be the mayor's niece. It's the final straw for the community. The police are desperate to get results and decide on a risky course of action involving undercover infiltration of the notorious Effingell Estate. Detective George Elms knows this hellish place extremely well, and his sharp investigative mind is put to work to solve the crime. The police are under immense media pressure and conveniently a local lowlife confesses to the attack.

In the peace and tranquility of the woods at Pinehills on a Saturday afternoon, a mobile phone begins to ring. The phone belongs to DC Smith, and it isn't unusual that the call is from Kings Lake Central police station; what is unusual is the fact that he seems to be the subject of an investigation rather than taking part in one. What can the links be between a prisoner's violent death in another county, the disappearance of two teenagers, and the highest profile case in Kings Lake for many years?

DI Hillary Greene is called out to attend a suspicious death at Three Oaks Farm in the picturesque village of Steeple Barton. The large farmhouse is filled with music and revelers, but when she steps into the farm's cowshed, Hillary finds a dead bride. Dressed in a sumptuous white wedding gown, the young, beautiful redhead had clearly been strangled. But not everything is what it seems, and the victim turns out to be at the center of a web of jealousy and intrigue in the close-knit village.

From the moment he sees the young woman's body in her hotel bathtub, homicide detective Jack Murphy knows he's looking at a truly demented but brilliantly designed puzzle. She's been drained of blood. Missing her left hand - and the killer left a special message just for him. Hours later, he sees her severed hand arranged on a second victim's body. The newspaper has the gruesome details. The FBI has a theory.

Carl Mørck used to be one of Denmark’s best homicide detectives. Then a hail of bullets destroyed the lives of two fellow cops, and Carl - who didn’t draw his weapon - blames himself. So a promotion is the last thing he expects. But Department Q is a department of one, and Carl’s got only a stack of cold cases for company. His colleagues snicker, but Carl may have the last laugh, because one file keeps nagging at him: A liberal politician vanished five years earlier and is presumed dead. But she isn’t dead...yet.

Rookie crime reporter Jason Wade, a troubled loner from the wrong side of the tracks, pursues the story of a murdered Seattle nun. The case leads him to a hermit nun who founded a mysterious religious order; and ultimately to the dark secret that has tormented his ex-cop father for decades. It culminates in a life and death struggle against the clock. With time running out, Jason and his father battle the odds to confront a terrible truth.

When the call comes in about a lonely woman found burned to death in a deserted cottage, Detective Lottie Parker is first on the scene. Her investigation swiftly reveals the victim has no family to mourn her. As a young girl, she was abandoned by her parents and hidden away at the Sisters of Forgiveness Convent. Has something in her tragic past led to her murder?

One morning Gwen Thomas takes a short walk with her Siberian husky in the outskirts of the Welsh town she calls home. She is drawn to a desolate area where, some 20 years ago as a teenager, she was brutally attacked and her friend killed. Disorientated by a sudden rush of memories, she has a fall. Later, recovering in hospital, she begins to recollect the events that led up to her friend’s death.

Helen Carter has just landed her first case as a detective: a murder in an abandoned cinema. A mysterious clock-like symbol is drawn on the wall...in blood. Stranger still is what the killer left behind: the business card of an ex-cop. Since being promoted from WPC, Helen is having trouble making her mark in the male-dominated Edinburgh CID, working under Inspector Jack Craven. He’s not happy about having a woman on his team. Witnesses won’t talk to her; her colleagues don’t take her seriously.

Detectives Laura Baxter and Jack Holt are members of the elite Las Vegas Metro PD, one of the toughest and most respected law enforcement agencies in the United States. In the middle of a city with two million residents and 43 million annual visitors, they’re hunting for a killer. When a beautiful, young girl is killed in the high-roller Pleasure Pit of the exclusive Scala Casino, the news reverberates for hours among the ritzy clientele. Before taking the stage where she found her death, Crystal was last seen boarding an unmarked helicopter for a late-night flight.

When Inspector James Hardy learns the body of a young woman discovered in the River Thames is that of a friend, his life goes into a tail-spin. The victim’s flatmate is on the run for her life. She could be the key to catching the killer. In a race against time, Hardy must track her down before the killer does. As the truth behind the investigation unfolds, Hardy’s own family come under threat. With two young daughters to protect and an investigation that twists and turns, Hardy finds himself pushed to the limit.

A man is making a crude leather mask with slits for eyes and mouth, and an iron spike fixed in the middle of the forehead. It is a 'death mask', once used by Icelandic farmers to slaughter calves. He has revenge in mind. Meanwhile, with Detective Erlendur absent, his baseball-loving colleague Sigurdur Óli is in the spotlight. A school reunion has left Sigurdur Óli dissatisfied with life in the police force. Iceland is enjoying an economic boom and young tycoons are busy partying with the international jet set.

The corpse of a beautiful woman, clad in only a bathing suit, is found strangled to death on a popular Sussex beach. When she is finally identified, it turns out she was a top profiler for the National Crime Faculty who was working on the case of a serial killer. And though she was a Bath resident, the authorities don't want Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond to investigate the murder. How strange. What could they be trying to hide?