Widowed van driver Bob Naylor is prodded into joining the Chichester Writers' Circle by his teenage daughter. Bob writes limericks and jingles, and fears he will be out of his class amongst the literati. But the members of the circle come from all walks of life and practice many forms of writing, from fantasy to household hints. There seems to be nothing about any of them to incite a serial killer. However, there is an arsonist in their midst, burning his victims to death, and Bob becomes a suspect.

The story opens with the apparently accidental drowning of a sixth form student in the Norfolk countryside. As a matter of routine, or so it seems, the case passes across the desk of Detective Sergeant Smith, recently returned to work after an internal investigation into another case that has led to tensions between officers at Kings Lake police headquarters. As an ex-DCI, Smith could have retired by now, and it is clear that some of his superiors wish that he would do so.

"So I thought I might take up paragliding. You know, buy one on eBay and just jump off the cliff one morning." Emily Willows is middle-aged, widowed, wealthy, and bored. When she makes those flippant remarks to her son over coffee one Friday, she has no inkling that within a few hours she will be facing the most terrifying situation of her life.

Was the biggest case of his career the worst mistake he ever made? Ten years ago, DCI Jack Logan stopped the serial child-killer dubbed "Mister Whisper", earning himself a commendation, a drinking problem, and a broken marriage in the process...When another child disappears a hundred miles north in the Highlands, Jack is sent to lead the investigation and bring the boy home. But as similarities between the two cases grow, could it be that Jack caught the wrong man all those years ago?

Crimebusting duo DI Jackman and DS Evans are back, solving another crime that will make your skin crawl. Twenty years ago: a farmer and his wife are cut to pieces by a ruthless serial killer. Now: a woman is viciously stabbed to death in the upmarket kitchen of her beautiful house on the edge of the marshes. Then a man called Daniel Kinder walks into Saltern police station and confesses to the murder. But DI Rowan Jackman and DS Marie Evans of the Fenland Constabulary soon discover that there is a lot more to Daniel than meets the eye.

More than 50 years ago, Peter Lovesey published a short story in an anthology. That short story caught the eye of the great Ruth Rendell, whose praise ignited Lovesey’s lifelong passion for short form crime fiction. On the occasion of his hundredth short story, Peter Lovesey has assembled this devilishly clever collection, 18 yarns of mystery, melancholy, and mischief, inhabiting such deadly settings as a theater, a monastery, and the book-publishing industry.

During intermission at the famed La Fenice opera house in Venice, Italy, a notoriously difficult and widely disliked German conductor is poisoned—and suspects abound. Guido Brunetti, a native Venetian, sets out to unravel the mystery behind the high-profile murder. To do so, he calls on his knowledge of Venice, its culture, and its dirty politics. Along the way, he finds the crime may have roots going back decades—and that revenge, corruption, and even Italian cuisine may play a role.

D.I. Duncan McAdam is dispatched home to the Misty Isle. A body has been found buried in a remote location on the Waternish peninsula. Well-preserved in the peat, Isla Matheson—missing for the better part of two decades—is revealed to a shocked island community. A teenage runaway is dead...and no one is talking.

Detective Sergeant Chris Waters got the call at 05.29 that July morning. This is it, said DCI Reeve, you'll be first there, it's all yours, you're the crime scene manager. Suddenly, after months of waiting and wondering, Waters finds himself in at the deep end, and alone at the scene of a puzzling murder. As the investigation proceeds, the detectives at Kings Lake Central find themselves visiting familiar places and talking to some familiar faces, while old enmities reappear in the incident room. Before this is over, Chris Waters will need to make a career-changing decision.

Northern Ireland, spring 1981. Hunger strikes, riots, power cuts, a homophobic serial killer with a penchant for opera, and a young woman’s suicide that may yet turn out to be murder: on the surface, the events are unconnected, but then things—and people—aren’t always what they seem. Detective Sergeant Duffy is the man tasked with trying to get to the bottom of it all. It’s no easy job—especially when it turns out that one of the victims was involved in the IRA but was last seen discussing business with someone from the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force.

On Christmas Eve, DCI Mackenzie Jones is called to a shooting at a remote farmhouse. Ralph Mallender believes his father lies dead inside. When three more bodies are discovered, it's clear a festive family gathering has turned into a gruesome tragedy. At first it seems like an open and shut case: a murder suicide committed by Ralph's volatile brother Cameron. Then new evidence makes Mack suspect the man who reported the crime is in fact the perpetrator. But Mack isn't the only one with a stake in the case.

Get three absolutely gripping crime thrillers set on the UK's atmospheric north Norfolk coast from number one best-selling British author J M Dalgliesh in this great value collection.

Four in the morning, mid-December, and snow blankets St. Andrews School. Student Alex Gilbery and his three best friends are staggering home from a party when they stumble upon the body of a young woman. Rosie Duff has been raped, stabbed and left for dead in the ancient Pictish cemetery. The only suspects are the four young students stained with her blood. Twenty-five years later, police mount a cold case review. Among the unsolved murders they're examining is that of Rosie Duff. But someone else has his own idea of justice.

When a failed entrepreneur is temporarily left in charge of his aunt's huge gothic home, he knows he must be able to make a profit from it somehow. Murder, he decides, is the only way to do it. For Madingley Grange is the perfect venue for a 1930s murder-mystery weekend, and Simon Hannaford – with the reluctant help of his long-suffering sister – soon hatches a plan for money-spinning mayhem. From the conservatory to the claret cellar, the clues are carefully sprinkled. But when the guests arrive, it is obvious that the game won't be going as planned.

Five years ago, DCI John Lomond led the search for notorious Glasgow child-killer ‘The Sandman', until personal tragedy forced him off the case. In Lomond's absence, the killer was never found. Now, with nothing but work left in his life, Lomond remains obsessed with the case–despite the nightmares it brings. When a child is abducted in similar Sandman fashion from an affluent Glasgow suburb, Lomond is brought in to find them before it's too late.