Crime Fiction Police Procedural Suspense

DC Scott Cullen isn’t so much disillusioned with the police force but his insufferable boss, DI Bain, and the way he constantly sidelines Cullen, hampering his ability to solve cases. Is it personal? When the owner of Dunpender Distillery near Dalkeith opens a cask of whisky for a special edition, he finds more than a single malt – the barrel contains the body of a man, mangled and unidentifiable.

To most people, respected clergymen like Mark Cantrell are pillars of the community, and completely beyond reproach. But their killer knows better. They are sinners of the worst kind, and they must burn on earth before they burn in hell....

Thomas Austin was once a prominent NYPD detective, known for locking up a psychopathic serial killer dubbed "The Holiday Baby Butcher". Now retired in a small beach town in the Pacific Northwest, Austin runs a little café, trying to overcome the loss of his wife, a DA who was gunned down only one year ago.

Everyone is always telling Stone Barrington that he’s too smart to be a cop, but it’s pure luck that places him on the streets in the dead of night, just in time to witness the horrifying incident that turns his life inside out. Suddenly he is on the front page of every New York newspaper and his life is hopelessly entwined in the increasingly shocking life (and perhaps death) of Sasha Nijinsky, the country’s hottest and most beautiful television anchorwoman.

The first victim is attacked in her home. Tied to her bed. Forced to watch every unspeakable act of cruelty - but unable to scream. The second murder is even more twisted. Signed, sealed, and delivered with a message for the police, stuffed in the victim's throat. A fractured nursery rhyme that ends with a warning: "There will be more". For detective Jack Murphy, it's more than a threat. It's a personal invitation to play.

As the first anniversary of the formation of the Kings Lake murder squad approaches, there is a problem—they've run out of murders. As a result, they are given the task of reviewing unsolved cold cases. One of these comes back to life in unexpected ways as the team try to discover the identity of the young woman whose body was found in the Norfolk countryside two decades ago. And even if they can give her a name, how can they possibly find her killer after so many years?

Gus Freeman is a retired detective inspector who has spent the past three years alone. Freeman’s wife, Tess, died from a brain aneurysm six months to the day after his retirement. He is still coming to terms with his enforced solitary existence. His old boss wants Gus to head up a Crime Review Team investigating cold cases. Old witness statements plus fresh clues, and the hunt would be on. But Freeman wonders whether his superiors need his old-style methods.

When Mandy Gibson, a teenage schoolgirl, disappears in the affluent East Lothian town of North Berwick, DC Scott Cullen finds himself caught in the cross-fire of competitive police politics. When her body is found, the heartbroken parents don’t hesitate to point the finger of suspicion at young Jamie Cook, a tearaway teen with a long history of run-ins with the police. But where is he now?

When washed-up 80s rock legend Johnny Freestone is found dead in a cave off Scotland's North Coast 500 tourist route, it looks like a tragic accident–another celebrity lost to a reckless lifestyle. But Police Scotland detective–and secret Freestone fan–Jack Logan isn’t convinced that the star's death was an accident. As Logan delves into Johnny's final days, he uncovers a trail of bitter rivalries, broken promises, and a comeback tour that wasn’t quite what it seemed.

In Juneau, a young Native archeologist is sent to protect the ancient burial sites uncovered by an Alaskan gold mining company. He never returns. In Anchorage, a female torso - minus head, hands, and feet - is washed ashore near a jogging trail by the airport. It is not the first. At Alaska’s Fugitive Task Force, Arliss Cutter and deputy Lola Teariki are pulled from their duties and sent to a federal court in Juneau. Instead of tracking dangerous fugitives, Cutter and Lola will be keeping track of sequestered jurors in a high-profile trial.

A serial killer has the city of Boston in his grip. He's killing with antique Revolutionary War weapons and leaving bodies at markers on the city's historical Freedom Trail. No one is safe—especially those with ancestry ties back to the Patriots. FBI Special Agents Kate Walsh and Declan James rush to the aid of local authorities to help catch a killer in their hometown. As a descendant of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Agent Walsh is in the killer's crosshairs. Part madman and part mastermind—no one knows who is next.

Newly minted homicide detective Nell Buchanan returns to her home town, annoyed at being assigned a decades-old murder — a 'file and forget'. But this is no ordinary cold case, as the discovery of more bodies triggers a chain of escalating events in the present day. As Nell starts to join the pieces together, she begins to question how well she truly knows those closest to her. Could her own family be implicated in the crimes? The nearer Nell comes to uncovering the secrets of the past, the more dangerous the present becomes for her, as she battles shadowy assailants and sinister forces.

A torso in a suitcase looks like an impossible case, but Sean Duffy isn’t easily deterred, especially when his floundering love life leaves him in need of a distraction. So with detective constables McCrabban and McBride, he goes to work identifying the victim. The torso turns out to be all that’s left of an American tourist who once served in the U.S. military. What was he doing in Northern Ireland in the midst of the 1982 Troubles?

Twenty-year-old Kendele Byers is savagely killed and buried in a shallow grave. She had a violent past, a bizarre, kinky line of work, and the suspect list grows longer every day. But when another woman is murdered, Detective Mitchell Lonnie realizes that there's something much more sinister afoot: a connection between the two murders. Both victims had received a clue hinting at their oncoming demise several minutes before they were attacked. There's a serial killer in Glenmore Park.

Peter Diamond, head of Bath CID, takes a city break in Vienna, where his favorite film, The Third Man, was set, but everything goes wrong, and his companion, Paloma, calls a halt to their relationship. Meanwhile, strange things are happening to jobbing musician Mel Farran, who finds himself scouted by methods closer to the spy world than the concert platform. The chance of joining a once-famous string quartet in a residency at Bath Spa University is too tempting for Mel to refuse. Then a body is found in the city canal, and the only clue to the dead woman’s identity is the tattoo of a music note on one of her teeth.

"And see if there's any news about the missing girl." Life, as Smith used to say, is just one thing after another - as one investigation ends, a new one begins. But for reasons unknown to the rest of her team, DCI Cara Freeman will be haunted by the next case for the Kings Lake Central murder squad. They find themselves delving into the seamy side of life in the town, and one of their number will have departed before this new investigation is over. Perhaps Detective Sergeant Chris Waters should have seen it coming, but he has a lot more than work on his mind these days.

After a routine delivery, midwife Sarah Brandt visits her patient in a rooming house and finds that another boarder, a young girl, has been killed. At the request of sergeant Frank Malloy, she searches the girl's room and discovers that the victim is from one of the most prominent families in New York - and the sister of an old friend. The powerful family, fearful of scandal, refuses to permit an investigation. But with Malloy's help, Sarah begins a dangerous quest to bring the killer to justice before death claims another victim.

Perched on the soft tar of a New York City rooftop, a mysterious sniper fires a single round from a .50 caliber rifle. Five stories below, his target collapses on the marble steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, dead. Crime reporter Jane Cole needs this story badly. Suspended NYPD cop Robert Warren is desperate to clear his name. They don't trust each other, but they make the perfect team. And as Cole and Warren track the killer, they uncover a plot so ruthless it shocks the conscience, a crime so expansive it will rock the world.

DI Nikki Galena: A police detective with nothing left to lose, she's seen a girl die in her arms, and her daughter will never leave the hospital again. She's gotten tough on the criminals she believes did this to her. Too tough. And now she's been given one final warning: make it work with her new sergeant, DS Joseph Easter, or she's out.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell has been "exiled" to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland. But while following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found wrapped in plastic and weighed down at the bottom of the harbor. Crossing all lines of protocol and jurisdiction, he starts doggedly working the case.