British Crime Fiction

Yorkshire Dales, Summer 1997. Vicky Mott slips out the door of her remote cottage, and into the pale dawn light. She scrawls a note for her friends. Gone to see the sunrise. V xxx That's the last anyone ever hears from twenty-year-old music lover Vicky. Another victim of the Fellside Strangler? That would make Vicky the fourth young woman to lose her life this summer. Snatched by a mysterious killer who stalks the fells . . . But Vicky's body is never found.

A routine missing person enquiry takes a grisly turn when a young couple drag a box containing human remains out of a Somerset river. The victim was a surveillance expert investigating an exaggerated injury claim—a murder with an obvious motive, until a police officer is implicated and suspended. Still brooding after his recent brush with police Professional Standards, Detective Chief Inspector Nick Dixon is on extended leave, helping his pregnant fiancée, Detective Sergeant Jane Winter, fight for her place on the major investigation team.

It's only 10 days since Douglas Remfry's release from prison, having served seven years for rape, and now he's dead: naked on a bare mattress in a grubby north London hotel room, his head hooded and his hands tied with a brown leather belt. Someone knew he was coming out. Someone wanted to mete out some punishment of his own. And when a second sex offender is found dead, DI Tom Thorne knows he has a vicious, calculating vigilante on his hands.

DS Karen Hart’s happy world is shattered the moment she finds her fiancé Mike’s mother murdered on what should have been a night of celebration. And even worse, someone has sewn the soft skin around Lorraine’s eyes shut… Karen’s entire soul aches to uncover Lorraine’s killer. But her team cannot let her be a part of the investigation, and she is forced to watch from the sidelines.

All has been quiet in Liverpool, suspiciously quiet… So, when a frantic 999 call comes into Hale Street Police Station reporting a missing woman, it seems like there’s work to do. Except for DI Sheridan Holler there are questions. Why did Caroline Crow take her purse, suitcase and even tell friends she was going away? There’s no reason to suspect foul play…until a severed, burned hand is delivered to another address.

DS Lucas Walker is off duty. He's supposed to be showing his little sister Grace the Australian outback, on her visit from Boston, but instead they're headed out bush- where Walker's cousin has been mining for boulder opal. Something seemed off when Walker heard that Blair wanted to get out of Kanpara, so he and Grace are en route to bring him home to Caloodie. But Kanpara is in Channel Country, and a major flood is on the way.

The multimillion-copy and New York Times bestseller B. A. Paris returns with a triumphant, unsettling next suspense novel, When I Kill You. Who is watching Nell Masters? Nell Masters is certain someone is following her. The hairs on the back of her neck rise when she travels to and from work...

Constable Nick patrols his rural Yorkshire beat on foot or on his trusty Francis Barnett motorcycle. But as beautiful as the villages are, they conceal real human drama. Nick is on hand to help out when Aidensfield decides to enter the Best Kept Village competition and finds itself the victim of a dirty tricks campaign by its rivals. Then there is the mystery of the spontaneously combusting hen-house, and Nick has to cope with the consequences when the vicar tries a novel way of keeping the churchyard tidy.

MI6 operative Duncan Grant has been officially missing in action for the last six months. Going on deep-cover to hunt down those responsible for the death of a close ally. Half a world away, enjoying sedate retirement under new identities, former Albion agents are being murdered. And now there's only one left. Given an ultimatum to save the last Albion or face expulsion from the agency he's sacrificed so much for, Grant has no choice but to pursue both missions at the same time.

Disgraced Detective Dave Slater is stuck on gardening leave, down in the quiet Hampshire town of Tinton, with just one last chance to redeem himself. He must search for mousy young journalist Ruth Thornhill. Months ago, she vanished from her home, her London job, her life. But the Met don't want to know. Now Slater's boss slips him the file, asking him to investigate discreetly, with the help of an unlikely new assistant. Bedraggled fifty-something Detective Norman Norman.

He will find the truth. Even if it kills him. Five months ago, DCI Robert Kett’s wife Billie was snatched from a London street. Five months of no leads, no evidence, and no suspects. Until now. When a routine police search uncovers a chamber of horrors beneath one of the city’s most expensive houses, detectives find a clue that points to Billie’s fate, and to the identity of her kidnapper - an enigmatic killer known as the Pig Man.

From acclaimed author Quintin Jardine comes the latest gripping mystery in his bestselling Bob Skinner series, perfect for fans of Ian Rankin and Peter May.

When a hit-and-run accident leaves eight-year-old Lee Sanders in critical condition, DI Freya Bloom and DS Ben Savage arrive on the scene in rural Lincolnshire. But the investigation they thought would be simple, soon develops into something far more sinister. The driver of the car is found in a nearby ditch, and she didn't die of natural causes. Poppy Gray, a nineteen-year-old girl with a bright future ahead of her, had only one known friend, a troubled boy who rarely speaks. Leading a simple life, Poppy had been filled with the joys of spring. But she knew something.

Hercule Poirot comes out of retirement to solve one of the most vexing cases of his career. The quiet village of King’s Abbot is still reeling from the death of the widow Ferrars from an overdoes of Veronal, when not twenty-four hours later it is learned that the man she planned to marry, Roger Ackroyd, has been brutally murdered. Prior to his death, Ackroyd had been reading an article in the Evening Post to discover who had been blackmailing his wife over poisoning her first husband. But before he could learn who the blackmailer was, he was stabbed through the neck in his own study.

When Dr Raymond Ferens moves to a practice at Milham in the Moor in north Devon, he and his wife are enchanted with the beautiful hilltop village lying so close to moor and sky. At first they see only its charm, but soon they begin to uncover its secrets - envy, hatred and malice. Everyone says that Sister Monica, warden of a children's home, is a saint - but is she? A few months after the Ferens' arrival her body is found drowned in the mill-race. Chief Inspector Macdonald faces one of his most difficult cases in a village determined not to betray its dark secrets to a stranger.

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford wait anxiously for a letter from Russia that may contain information of international importance hidden beneath the stamp. The letter is anticipated by more than just the Beresfords, and they must fight to keep the information from getting into the wrong hands.

Chloe Todd believes her baby daughter is sleeping peacefully in her pram in the back garden. She lifts away the blanket to check on her – and gasps in shock. Chloe's neighbor calls the police. But all is not as it seems . . . Chloe Todd is in a loveless marriage. Her husband a villain who works for a man called Dean Rawlins. Rawlins has been missing for a year. Det Superintendent Hedley Sharp arrested Rawlins just before he went missing. Something he's had to live with. Hedley is suspicious but his inspector is on Chloe's side – a bone of contention throughout the investigation.

When new victims of the still-at-large serial killer known as the Red Reaper start to appear in London, DCI Declan Walsh and his team are placed back on the case—but everything isn't what it seems. For a start, the deaths are different, and the calling card is new. It could be a copycat, apart from one thing... They know what Declan did to the real Red Reaper a year earlier. Something only Declan and the closest members of his team keep secret. Is this the real Reaper, back to gain revenge on Declan and his family—or is this a protégé, staking his own claim to the serial killer name?

When a high-flying adman is stabbed to death on a company weekend in the English Lake District, local detective Daniel Skelgill finds himself wrenched from his rural Cumbrian comfort zone. As the investigation unfolds, DI Skelgill is led a merry dance between London and Edinburgh, at every turn confronted by uncooperative suspects—colleagues, wife and lovers of the deceased—each of whom is possessed of motive and opportunity. Is this a crime of passion, a professional hit, or a cleverly calculated killing borne out of greed and jealousy?

The last thing DS Stephanie Johnson and DS Andy Carter expected during their much-needed canal holiday was a murder. When retired folk musician Annie Shipton is found stabbed through the neck at the helm of her barge, the couple can’t help investigating the seemingly impossible crime. Nobody else boarded Annie’s boat—so how was she killed from behind?