Traditional Detectives Police Procedural

The death of Adam Penhallow on the eve of his birthday seems, at first, to be by natural causes. He was elderly after all. But Penhallow wasn't well liked. He had ruled over his estate with an iron will and a sharp tongue. He had played one relative off against another. He was so bad tempered and mean that both his servants and his family hated him. It soon transpires that far from being a peaceful death, Penhallow was, in fact, murdered.

Nobody likes The Complaints - they're the cops who investigate other cops. Complaints and Conduct Department, to give them their full title, but known colloquially as 'the Dark Side', or simply 'The Complaints'. Malcolm Fox works for The Complaints. He's just had a result, and should be feeling good about himself. But he's middle-aged, sour and unwell.

An Adam Dalgliesh mystery. Set in her beloved East Anglia, Death in Holy Orders is the fourteenth novel in P.D. James' Adam Dalgliesh series and a thrilling work of crime fiction filled with intrigue and suspense. Death in Holy Orders is set in an Anglican theological college on a desolate stretch of the East Anglian coast, a location which she has made particularly her own.

When the body of Rufus Moorcroft, a middle-aged widower with a distinguished war record, is found in his summerhouse, the verdict is suicide. But both reporter Jill Francis and her lover, Detective Richard Thornhill, approaching the case from different angles, discover there's more to it than that. The sixth instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series.

Hotelier Stephen Sanderson is dead. Stabbed after hosting a police officer’s wedding. Chief Superintendent David Ashworth is a family friend of the victim and assigns the case to Meredith. Sanderson had a past that the family would rather keep quiet if it’s not related to his murder, but Sanderson’s life style provides the police with many suspects, including some in his own family.

When Detective Chief Inspector John Shadow is called to Kirkdale Castle to investigate the death of a handsome racehorse trainer during a shooting party, he’s immersed in painful childhood memories. His father had been shot in the line of duty at Kirkdale, but his killer was never apprehended. Shadow suspects the two deaths may be linked and is determined to discover the truth, but dealing with the aristocracy is more complicated than he bargained for and the inhabitants of Kirkdale Castle are as unhelpful as ever.

When a close colleague is brutally attacked, Inspector John Rebus is drawn into a case involving a hotel fire, an unidentified body, and a long forgotten night of terror and murder. Pursued by dangerous ghosts and tormented by the coded secrets of his colleague's notebook, Rebus must piece together the most complex and confusing of jigsaws. But not everyone wants the puzzle solved - perhaps not even Rebus himself ...

From P.D. James, one of the masters of British crime fiction comes the second novel to feature the famous female detective Cordelia Gray of the Pryde Detective Agency. Set on the sinister Courcy Island, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is a thrilling murder mystery. Clarissa Lisle hopes to make a spectacular comeback in a production of The Duchess of Malfi, to be played in Ambrose Gorringe's sinister castle at Courcy Island. Cordelia is there to ensure her safety following the appearance of a number of poison-pen letters.

The body of Joanna Franks was found at Duke's Cut on the Oxford Canal at about 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 22nd June 1859. At around 10.15 a.m. on a Saturday morning in 1989 the body of Chief Inspector Morse - though very much alive - was removed to Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital. Treatment for a perforated ulcer was later pronounced successful.

An Ex-Cop Who Lost Everything. A Killer Who Will Stop At Nothing. In the exclusive enclave of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a woman who builds custom guitars is murdered. A disgraced ex-cop turned private investigator is hired by the dead woman's father and immediately becomes the target of a violent ex-convict. An enigmatic music star performs damage control on her links to the dead woman. And a professional killer who idolizes Keith Richards is brought into town by a mysterious employer. Dead Wood is what great mysteries are all about: love, hate, faith and vengeance, all wrapped up in an ...

A social media shaming. A killer with a message. A deadly combination. When the body of a man is left in the city centre set up as a realistic police crime scene, DI Hannah Robbins is forced to enter a world that can break a person, a case and a reputation. Social media platforms light up, and Hannah is pitted against the raging online monster and a killer who has already lost everything. Can she catch the killer and put him behind bars, or will she become part of his sadistic game?

Lucy Durmast waits patiently in front of the judge at her own murder trial, refusing to utter a single word. Kenneth Carline, an employee of her father's, was found poisoned to death after eating a meal that Lucy herself had prepared. Kenneth was set to marry another, and Lucy, it seems, was jealous. But what should have been an open-and-shut case of envy-driven murder becomes complicated when primary detective Trevor Porritt suffers permanent brain damage. C. D. Sloan inherits the file - and immediately begins poking holes in what looked like an airtight case.

When a woman's skeleton is discovered in a shallow grave, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Gilchrist is tasked with finding her murderer. But a psychic's warnings, coupled with markings on a rusted cigarette lighter found among the rotted remains, take Gilchrist on a journey into his own past - a journey that brings him closer to discovering the identity of the person whokilled his brother in a hit-and-run case some thirty-five years before.

Venetia Aldridge QC is a distinguished barrister. When she agrees to defend Garry Ashe, accused of the brutal murder of his aunt, it is one more opportunity to triumph in her distinguished career as a criminal lawyer. But just four weeks later, Miss Aldridge is found dead at her desk.

His young son is recently dead, his traumatised daughter is going through hell and his station chief is out for his blood – or at least his career – when DS Pete Gayle is called to a murder scene on a residential street in Exeter.A body has been found, horrifically tortured and left outside a women’s refuge. She is quickly identified as a resident, the victim of domestic abuse. But the obvious suspect was three hundred miles away, so who did this? And why? Haven’t these women been through enough?Touched by the plight and the resilience of the shelter’s residents, Pete must track ...

James Randolph is murdered early one evening and his body found a few hours later. When the police arrive, they discover that Randolph's safe has been ransacked, and discarded wrapping paper litters his bedroom floor. Perhaps by chance or perhaps by design, Trent seems to have been the last person, other than the murderer, to see Randolph alive. But this is only one aspect amongst many which connect Trent with the murder and stimulate his interest.

DI Joe Faraday, badly injured on holiday in the Middle East, is convalescing in the UK. Four deaths in a suspicious farmhouse fire drag him back to work before he’s truly fit. His partner, meanwhile, wants to adopt a young Palestinian child. Both privately and professionally, Faraday is under threat. Bazza Mackenzie, Pompey drug-lord, is facing financial meltdown as property markets collapse across the globe.

In Inspector Montalbano’s coastal town of Vigàta, a surge of migrants have been coming in by boat, and all the town’s hands are on deck to help the arrivals. At the heart of the scene are the police - on the lookout for the people smugglers responsible - and long night shifts are rendering Inspector Montalbano and his officers exhausted. Then one night, while Montalbano is enduring yet another gruelling stint at the port, a separate crime is committed - unexplained, unexpected, and unpleasant. Elena, the dressmaker at the town’s famous tailors, has been found dead....

Bombs are exploding in London, but life seems to have planted more subtle booby-traps for Miles Flint, a spy. The job appeals to Miles. He doesn't want action; he wants, just for once, not to botch a case. Having lost one suspect, Miles becomes too involved with another, a young Irishwoman. His marriage and home seem ready to crumble. But Miles is given one last chance for redemption: a trip to Belfast, which becomes a flight of terror and murder. Can the voyeur survive in a world of violent action?

Commander Adam Dalgliesh is already acquainted with the Dupayne Museum in Hampstead, and with its sinister murder room celebrating notorious crimes committed in the interwar years, when he is called to investigate the killing of one of the trustees. He soon discovers that the victim was seeking to close the museum against the wishes of both staff and fellow trustees. Everyone, it seems, has something to gain from the crime.