International Police Procedurals

In the wake of an earthquake, the water level of an Icelandic lake drops suddenly, revealing the skeleton of a man half-buried in its sandy bed. It is clear immediately that it has been there for many years. There is a large hole in the skull. Yet more mysteriously, a heavy communication device is attached to it, possibly some sort of radio transmitter, bearing inscriptions in Russian. The police are called in and Erlendur, Elinborg, and Sigurdur Olii begin their investigation, which gradually leads them back to the time of the Cold War when bright, left-wing students would be sent from Iceland to study in the "heavenly state" of communist East Germany.

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.

One time police detective Peter Diamond loses his job as a security guard when he fails to spot a small Japanese child hiding in the furniture department of Harrods. Weeks later, she's still unclaimed; Diamond is unable to forget the frightened eyes of the silent little girl and takes on the challenge of uncovering her identity.

Capitaine Roger Blanc, an investigator with the anticorruption unit of the French Gendarmerie, was a bit too successful in his investigations. He finds himself removed from Paris to the South of France, far away from political power. Or so it would seem. The stress is too much for his marriage, and he attempts to manage the breakup while trying to settle into his new life in Provence in a 200-year-old half-ruined house. At the same time, Blanc is tasked with his first murder case.

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.

Delia Williamson, a waitress and mother of two young girls, is reported missing. She is soon found in a public park, hanging from the crossbar of a children's swing set. The postmortem reveals that she has been murdered. Her current partner, her ex-husband, and a traveling salesman who frequented her restaurant are all suspects. Before Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond can solve the mystery, more will die. But even as he pursues a killer, he finds himself pursued by a secret admirer.

In The Golden Egg, as the first leaves of autumn begin to fall, Vice Questore Patta asks Brunetti to look into a minor violation committed by the mayor’s future daughter-in-law. Brunetti has no interest in helping his boss amass political favors, but he has little choice but to comply. Then Brunetti’s wife, Paola, comes to him with a request of her own. The mentally handicapped man who worked at their dry cleaners has just died of a sleeping pill overdose, and Paola loathes the idea that he lived and died without anyone noticing him, or helping him.

First-year detective Kathleen Doyle is a plucky Irish redhead of humble origins and modest means. Chief Inspector Michael Acton is her antithesis: a British lord turned cop. He's tall, handsome, and enigmatic - to a fault. He also has a knack for solving London's most high-profile crimes. Acton selects Doyle out of the newbie squad to partner with him on a series of investigations because she always knows when someone is lying - a trait that comes in handy when interviewing suspects and witnesses.

A young "national model worker," renowned for her adherence to the principles of the Communist Party, turns up dead in a Shanghai canal. As Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau struggles to trace the hidden threads of her past, he finds himself challenging the very political forces that have guided his life since birth. Chen must tiptoe around his superiors if he wants to get to the bottom of this crime, and risk his career-perhaps even his life-to see justice done.

Aleksander Granovsky has dedicated his life to exposing the brutality of the Russian penal system. In two days, he will be tried for the crime of smuggling essays to the West. It is a show trial, and there is no doubt he will be convicted and executed, yet before he dies, he intends to tell the truth one more time. But this is Moscow, where death is never heroic. While writing his final speech in his government flat, Granovsky is surprised by an assassin, who pierces his heart with the point of a rusty scythe.

A brilliant reporter, haunted by her husband's death.... A disgraced cop, tangled in a web of lies.... Two unlikely heroes, brought together by one unthinkable crime.... Listen to the first three episodes of this addictive series, brought together for the first time in one volume.

When a skeleton is discovered half-buried in a construction site outside of ReykjavIk, Inspector Erlendur finds himself knee-deep in both a crime scene and an archeological dig. Bone by bone, the body is unearthed, and the brutalizing history of a family who lived near the building site comes to light along with it. Was the skeleton a man or a woman, a victim or a killer, and is this a simple case of murder or a long-concealed act of justice?

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.

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.

When a cold case dossier lands on Captain Benny Griessel's desk, he and his partner Vaughn Cupido, fellow member of the Hawks elite police unit in South Africa, reluctantly set to work reviewing the evidence of the disappearance - and possible murder - of ex-cop Johnson Johnson on the world's most luxurious train line. Two fellow travelers might have the answers Griessel and Cupido need - but they too seem to have disappeared into thin air, and the few clues that exist suggest a cover-up.

Judge Dee Renjie, Empress Wu's newly appointed Imperial Circuit Supervisor for the Tang Empire, is visiting provinces surrounding the grand capital of Chang'an. One night a knife is thrown through his window with a cryptic note attached: "A high-flying dragon will have something to regret!"

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.

Early one morning, Silvio Lupanello, a big shot in the village of Vigata, is found dead in his car with his pants around his knees. The car happens to be parked in a rough part of town frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers, and as the news of his death spreads, the rumors begin. Enter Inspector Salvo Montalbano, Vigata's most respected detective, who has his doubts about the way Silvio died.

From a young age, 28-year-old Embla Nystrom has been plagued by chronic nightmares and racing thoughts, but she has learned to channel most of her anxious energy into her position as Detective Inspector in the mobile unit in Gothenburg, Sweden, and into sports. A talented hunter and prize-winning Nordic welterweight, she is glad to be taking a vacation from her high-stress job to attend the annual moose hunt with her family and friends. But when Embla arrives at her uncle's cabin in rural Dalsland, she sees an unfamiliar face has joined the group.

With the lovely Priscilla Halburton-Smythe away in London, Hamish Macbeth, the constable of the small Scottish town of Lochdubh, pines for company during the long Scottish winter. He gets his wish - and more - when a troupe of flashy, urbane filmmakers clamors into the nearby town of Drim. Before long bedlam erupts around their make-believe mystery - and culminates in the sudden appearance of one very real corpse.