Police Procedural Thriller

The last time DCI Jamie Carver involved a would-be victim in his hunt for a serial killer, it ended badly. Now they want him to do it again, only this time the 'victim' is a Dominatrix. As if he hasn't enough on his plate - a brutal killer poised to strike again; shadows of the past that still haunt his dreams; an investigation under mounting pressure to succeed; a beautiful woman whose bizzare lifestyle may be the key to finding the killer. And that's not counting the young girl whose life he's trying to save from ruin or the ambitious colleague scheming to bring him down.

Colin Dexter’s Chief Inspector Morse - the cranky, heavy-drinking, and exasperatingly brilliant sleuth of the Thames Valley Police - has become one of the most beloved detectives in fiction. Now, with this collection of 11 short stories, we can savor choice examples of his dry wit, devious cunning, and psychological insight at its best. Colin Dexter tantalizes us with six Inspector Morse adventures, ranging from bite-size morsels of intrigue to longer stories for listeners to sink their teeth into.

Sheriff Jericho Flynn's life in the Outer Banks of North Carolina is shattered following the mysterious death of his wife. A broken man, Jericho is forced to emerge from the depths of his despair when his only son is suddenly accused of an unspeakable crime. Murder. With his son shrouded beneath a cloud of suspicion, Jericho finds himself deeply immersed in the investigation and connects the murder with the recent disappearance of a child.

When Detective Mike West is called to investigate a murder in a Dublin graveyard, suspicion immediately falls on a local woman, Edel Johnson, whose husband disappeared some months before. But then she disappears. Evidence leads West to a small village in Cornwall, but when he arrives, he finds Edel has got there before him. Her explanation seems to make sense, but as West begins to think his suspicions of her are unfounded, she disappears again. Is she guilty? West, fighting an unsuitable attraction, doesn't want to believe it.

A dying man is murdered. A rich man's wife agrees to pay $3,000 for the return of a stolen box of rocks. A series of odd, inexplicable events is haunting Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police and drawing him alone into the Bad Country of the merciless Southwest, where nothing good can survive...including Chee. Because an assassin waits for him there, protecting a 30-year-old vision that greed has sired and blood has nourished. And only one man will walk away.

Her marriage over and career gone bust, Arly Hanks flees Manhattan for her hometown: Maggody, Arkansas. In a town this size, nothing much ever happens, so Arly figures she's safe as the town's first female chief of police - until the husband of one of the local barmaids escapes from state prison and heads for town. And that's not all. An EPA official with ties to polluting the local fishing hole has suddenly vanished off the face of the earth.

Jonathan Stride and Serena Dial are both investigating high-profile murders in Las Vegas. A celebrity is assassinated during a fling with a prostitute, and a young boy is killed in a brutal hit-and-run incident. When the cases converge, Jonathan and Serena find themselves racing the clock against a determined serial killer and searching for a connection to the unsolved murder of a showgirl years earlier.

Texas Ranger Rory Yates protects his home state wearing a five-pointed silver badge and carrying a Sig Sauer. When a native woman disappears on the summer solstice, clues point to a cold case. Yates, a quick-draw champion, partners with expert archer Ava Cruz of the Tigua Tribal police. The investigation leads to the edges of Texas’s most unforgiving landscape, where the officers take dead aim with every shot in their arsenals.

The Fens are burning, and Detective Nikki Galena faces a cat-and-mouse battle with a killer arsonist. Someone is lighting fires. First they target homes and businesses, but then a body is found at one of the crime scenes. More fires are lit. And at each one a single person dies. But the victims have led spotless lives, and apparently there's no connection between them. Meanwhile, the town is facing a very peculiar threat from a group of sinister Satanists led by a charismatic businessman. Who is burning with anger, and can Nikki stop them before anyone else dies?

The annual West Uist literary festival - The Gathering - always attracts the best in the business. But with the tiny island population suddenly doubling, the local police force is stretched to breaking point. And this year they have to deal with more than just drunken fights and rowdy behavior. Ranald Buchanan, the local poet, is found dead, with his head brutally caved in, and Inspector Torquil McKinnon is brought in to investigate.

Her blue eyes wide open, glossed over. A few specks of sand clung to her long, dark lashes. Her beautiful face, immobile, covered in sparkling flecks of sand. Who is the beautiful girl found at dawn, on a deserted stretch of white sand beach? What is her secret? FBI special agent Tess Winnett searches for answers relentlessly. With each step, each new finding, she uncovers unsettling facts leading to a single possible conclusion: Dawn Girl is not the only victim. Her killer has killed before.

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?

When an elderly local woman is found poisoned, Sheriff Walt Longmire begins an investigation that soon has him ensnared in a deadly spider's web. From Craig Johnson, author of the acclaimed novel The Cold Dish, comes this enthralling Sheriff Longmire mystery. With a distinctive literary flair, Johnson leads us into the wide open space of Absaroka County, Wyoming.

Criminologist Martin Knight lives a gilded life and is a thorn in the side of the police. But then his wife, Liz, goes missing. There is no good explanation and no sign of Martin.... To make things worse, Liz is the ex-girlfriend of DCI Craig Gillard who is drawn into the investigation. Is it just a missing person or something worse? And what relevance do the events around the shocking Girl F case, so taken up by Knight, have to do with the present? The truth is darker than you could ever have imagined.

On the Swedish coastline, the bodies of two victims of grisly torture and cold execution are discovered in a life raft. With no witnesses, no motives, and no crime scene, Detective Kurt Wallander is frustrated and uncertain that he has the ability to solve the case. After the victims are traced to Latvia, Major Liepa of the Riga police takes over the investigation. Thinking his work is done, Wallander slips back into his routine - until he is suddenly called to Riga and plunged into an alien world.

When the brutally beaten body of a young man is found in an alley, Eastvale's Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his colleague, Detective Constable Susan Gay, have no choice but to lock up the three Pakistani youths who seemingly started it all after an argument in a pub. But they're out in no time, and Banks is in big trouble with the chief for risking a racial incident with the arrest.

Gemma James is adjusting to professional and personal changes - and a future now intricately entwined with Duncan Kincaid. But her new responsibilities are put to the test when she is placed in charge of a particularly brutal homicide: The lovely young wife of a wealthy antiques dealer has been found murdered on fashionable Notting Hill. This case sets off warning bells for Duncan: It's far too similar to an unsolved murder in which an antiques dealer was killed in precisely the same way.

Everyone has secrets.... The beautiful young judge. The hardworking waitress. The handsome college student. Some are meant to be kept.... The victims are all different, but they will all have one gruesome detail in common. But others can kill.... A clever serial killer is stalking the streets of Seattle. Searching for this next victim. Creating a monument of madness that will be built victim by victim, piece by piece, bone by bone....

When Transom Shultz goes missing shortly after returning to his sleepy hometown of Fallen Mountains, Pennsylvania, his secrets are not the only secrets that threaten to emerge. Red, the sheriff, is haunted by the possibility that a crime Transom was involved in 17 years earlier - a crime Red secretly helped cover up - may somehow be linked to his disappearance.

Mackenzie Laughlin has reluctantly moved to the Villages as bodyguard to Daley Carrera, who claims someone is pranking her and her husband. Mac expects a simple case of petty squabbles between new and longtime residents. Instead, she hears rumors of squalid affairs and sinister disappearances that tie in to a missing persons investigation led by her partner, Jesse James Taft.