British Police Mysteries

The career of playwright Joy Sinclair comes to an abrupt end on an isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands when someone drives an 18-inch dirk through her neck. Called upon to investigate the case in a country where they have virtually no authority, aristocratic Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers grapple for both a motive and a murderer. Emotions run deep in this highly charged drama, for the list of suspects soon includes Britain’s foremost actress, its most successful theatrical producer, and the woman Lynley loves.

Virtual romance becomes a terrifying obsession in Peter James' tenth Roy Grace novel, Want You Dead.... Single girl, 29, smouldering redhead, love life that's crashed and burned. Seeks new flame to rekindle her fire. Fun, friendship and - who knows - maybe more? When Red Westwood meets handsome, charming and rich Bryce Laurent through an online dating agency, there is an instant attraction. But as their love blossoms, the truth about his past, and his dark side, begins to emerge.

William Fawkes, a controversial detective known as The Wolf, has just been reinstated to his post after he was suspended for assaulting a vindicated suspect. Still under psychological evaluation, Fawkes returns to the force eager for a big case. When his former partner and friend, detective Emily Baxter, calls him to a crime scene, he's sure this is it: the body is made of the dismembered parts of six victims, sewn together like a puppet - a corpse that becomes known as "The Ragdoll".

Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley, the eighth earl of Asherton, has brought to Howenstow, his family home, the young woman he has asked to be his bride. But the savage murder of a local journalist is the catalyst for a lethal series of events that shatters the calm of a picturesque Cornwall village and embroils Lynley and St. James in a case far outside their jurisdiction - and a little too close to home.

Two skeletons are discovered in the grounds of St Mary's Choir School. This was not a centuries-old Christian burial. They are wearing modern-day clothes, and there is evidence of foul play. Consecrated land has been sadistically violated.

Detective Inspector Gilbert Markham is a rising talent of the Bromgrove police force. He is on the trail of the murderer when another life is brutally claimed. Who is the savage killer lurking in this innocent place?

Roy Grace, creation of the CWA Diamond Dagger award-winning author Peter James, faces his most complex case yet in Dead If You Don't. Shortly after Kipp Brown and his teenage son, Mungo, arrive at the Amex stadium for their team's biggest-ever football game, Mungo disappears. A short while later Kipp receives a text with a ransom demand and a warning not to go to the police if he and his wife want to see their son alive again.

With his partner away on a honeymoon, Yorkshire detective Andrew Dalziel tries to beat the blues by taking a vacation of his own. But after getting caught in a torrential rain and running into a funeral procession, he winds up accompanying a crowd of upper-class mourners to a crumbling country house. Dalziel isn't known for his elegant manners, but he has bigger problems than not fitting in: The owner of the home has died under unusual circumstances, and soon more bodies are turning up.

When the police are unable to find a body, they are forced to dismiss a homeless veteran’s claim that he witnessed a homicide. But after he is found murdered in the same spot two days later, DI Bliss and the Major Crime Unit set their sights on catching a ruthless killer. Elsewhere, when the daughter of a cuckooed family is reported to have attempted suicide, Jimmy Bliss and DC Penny Chandler have their doubts and vow to uncover the truth. But the situation is about to get much worse, and violence is certain to erupt on the city streets.

When Dr. Nathan Frost, a lecturer in German literature at Oxford University, is invited to a lavish party at the country house of a wealthy businessman, he knows there'll be a price to pay. After all, as an expert on the legend of Faust and Mephistopheles, he can recognize a deal with the devil easily enough. But even he's not expecting such a sinister end to the evening.

For LA producer Larry Brooker, this is the movie that could bring the fortune that has so long eluded him.... For rock superstar, Gaia, desperate to be taken seriously as an actor, this is the role that could get her an Oscar nomination.... For the City of Brighton and Hove, the publicity value of a major Hollywood movie being filmed on location, about the city's greatest love story - between King George IV and Maria Fitzherbert - is incalculable.

The CID's Andrew Dalziel prefers simple killers. Not a crackpot who fancies himself Hamlet and taunts authorities with lofty quotes from the Bard. Dubbed the Yorkshire Choker, he's already taken three lives in four weeks and promises more tragedy to come. To help nab the serial strangler, Peter Pascoe has enlisted the help of linguistics professors, psychologists, and psychics-all of it nonsense to the grounded Dalziel.

When Constable Evan Evans and his new fiancée decide to travel south from home in Llanfair, Wales, to visit his mother in Swansea, they're not expecting the disturbing news that greets them on their arrival: the young thug convicted of murdering Evan's father several years earlier is suspected of murder once again.

DS Kat Ballantyne is still reeling from a revelation that turned life as she knew it upside down. But when a dog walker discovers the body of a woman among the standing stones known locally as the Three Sisters, there’s no time to focus on her own troubles. Kat is drawn back to work to investigate. At first, the death appears to be an accident. But then Kat discovers an infinity symbol branded onto the dead woman’s abdomen.

It's 1996. Detective Sergeant Tom Thorne is a haunted man. Haunted by the moment he ignored his instinct about a suspect, by the horrific crime that followed and by the memories that come day and night, in sunshine and shadow. So when seven-year-old Kieron Coyne goes missing while playing in the woods with his best friend, Thorne vows he will not make the same mistake again. Cannot. The solitary witness. The strange neighbour. The friendly teacher. All are in Thorne's sights. This case will be the making of him...or the breaking.

The table is set for family dinner; roast chicken, wine for them and juice for their darling boy, a vase of fresh daisies from the garden for decoration. But the food is cold, and the flowers are wilting. You might think they were sleeping in the next room, if it wasn’t for the blood dripping crimson onto the carpet.

In England's shadowy corners, from misty woods to ancient university halls, criminal psychologist and head of the Ritualistic Behavioural Crime unit Dr Harrison Lane, confronts the country’s most challenging crimes. A boy's body with cryptic messages. A man pinned down by horseshoes. A student etched with strange symbols. Each scene is a piece of a terrifying puzzle only Harrison can solve. As he unravels these ritualistic killings, Harrison digs up long-buried secrets that shake quiet towns to their core. But the deeper he delves, the more his own past threatens to engulf him.

When Detective Mark Turpin is assigned the task of investigating the death of a local businessman, the case is first thought to be one of accidental drowning. Until a bullet hole is found where the victim fell into the River Thames. Then a number of graves are unearthed at a disused airfield site being redeveloped by the dead man, exposing a horrific secret and plunging Mark into one of the darkest investigations of his career. After two more bodies are discovered amongst the burnt-out ruins of a building on a nearby industrial estate, Mark realises that a serial killer is at large.

You are Dead is the 11th thrilling crime novel in Peter James' Roy Grace series, narrated by Daniel Weyman. They were marked for death. The last words Jamie Ball hears from his fiancée, Logan Somerville, are in a terrified mobile phone call. She has just driven into the underground car park beneath the block of flats where they live in Brighton. Then she screams and the phone goes dead.

What's playing at the Calliope Club may draw a furtive crowd, but as far as the CID's Andrew Dalziel can tell it's all perfectly legal. His partner, Peter Pascoe, begs to differ. From what he hears, an actress's violent ordeal on film looked all too real. When she turns up unharmed, it appears his suspicions were wrong . . . if Andrew and Peter can trust what they see. Because if this dirty business is well and good, why has the film in question vanished? Why has the theater been set ablaze? And why has its proprietor been beaten to death?

Struggling with his new role as a detective chief inspector, John Tanner is warned of a convicted psychopath’s early release. When a couple is found later that day; the man stabbed to death, the woman with her throat cut, he's forced to assume the convict is responsible. But when the male victim turns out to be heir to a global pharmaceutical company, and his twelve-year-old son is nowhere to be found, he has to start looking closer at the victim’s family, and their sprawling stately ancestral home.