British Police Procedural

Detective Mary Hume stares at the crime scene in confusion. She's in an empty flat. Peeling wallpaper. A bloodstained chair in the middle of the room. But no body. Her sergeant hands her a burner phone. On it is a video clip. It shows a woman. Tied to the chair in the flat, a carving knife pressed to her throat. Placed in the woman's lap is a piece of cardboard. Written on it in blood-red is one word: DEADTOWN.

A child’s body surrounded by candles in misty woodland, scripture stuffed in his mouth. A jockey pinned down by horseshoes on desolate fenland, linked to a secret society called The Horsemen. A university student in black robes drifting on a river, dead, Satanic symbols carved into their flesh. As head of the Ritualistic Behavioural Crime unit, Harrison specialises in murders others can't solve. Secret societies. Occult practices. Religious obsession turned deadly.

A young woman is found dead in the village church. Shot through the heart with a crossbow. She thought she was safe there, but they found her in the end. DI Jemima Huxley thought Leighton Meadow was a safe place to raise her adopted ten-year-old son. But this is a village with many hidden secrets. And this case is hitting really close to home. The victim turns out to be a Czech student who went missing on a night out in Prague. How did she end up dead in a Welsh church?

After a woman's body is found in a local beauty spot, her heart surgically removed, D.I. Andy Ross and his team are called in to investigate. But this time, they face a criminal mastermind unlike any they have before, who soon becomes known as The Doctor. All evidence points to romantic connections between the killer and his prey, with an eerie lullaby left playing on an old tape recorder next to the victims.

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?

A Detective Superintendent of the Nottinghamshire Police Force is found brutally murdered in the idyllic Clumber Park. The victim used to run the same Unit that DI Rob Loxley is now a part of. That was until a drug bust went badly wrong, resulting in the deaths of four officers. Corruption was suspected, and Rob is something of an expert on that. As the new DI of the unit, it falls to Rob to investigate the murder and find the killer, but this means dealing with Anti-Corruption, a worrying prospect at best.

An early-morning jogger is murdered in Hyde Park. It's the center of London, but no one saw him enter the park, no one saw him die. He carries no identification, only a water-logged phone. As the pieces unravel, it's clear that the dead man had a history of deception. Is the murderer one of those that loved him? Or was it someone with a vengeance? It's proving difficult for DCI Isaac Cook and his team at Challis Street Homicide to find the guilty person—not that they'll cease to search for the truth, not even after one suspect confesses.

A group of children play. Not far away, in the ditch on the other side of the farmyard, the body of a young woman. The nearby village hides as many secrets as the community at the farm, a disparate group of people looking for an alternative to their previous torturous lives. Their leader, idealistic and benevolent, espouses love and kindness, and somebody's not following his dictate. The second death, an old woman, seems unrelated to the first, but is it? Is it part of the tangled web that connects the farm to the village?

The body of a wealthy businessman is discovered in the river, but this was no accidental drowning. He was shot before his body entered the water. The police question the dead man's young girlfriend and his two adult children, all of whom are hoping to inherit his fortune. Before the killer is found, the dead man's girlfriend is murdered, and pressure mounts for Geraldine and her team to solve the case. Geraldine's partner is called away to work undercover. Soon after he leaves, their baby vanishes along with the child minder.

As the head of the Major Investigation Team, Detective Inspector Laura Warburton must catch a killer that is preying on vulnerable women. The case strikes dangerously close to home for Laura. Once a victim of domestic violence at the hands of her ex-fiancé, Laura escaped with a shattered reputation, a drinking problem and tormented memories. With the body count piling up, Laura barely holds herself together as she finds and pieces together the fragmented clues at the crime scenes. Like breadcrumbs, the clues lead her down a dark road to a past she wishes to forget.

With his longtime girlfriend, Ellie, detective Peter Pascoe is off to Thornton Lacey for an exciting weekend reunion with a few of his college friends. However, upon arrival, he finds no cause for celebration. Instead, there's been a triple homicide, and one of his friends-the chief suspect-is missing.

What's the secret of Patrick Aldermann's success? Well, he was bequeathed his aunt's gardened estate after her sudden death; his wife's wealthy father died leaving the couple a hefty inheritance; and several fatal mishaps among colleagues have allowed the milquetoast to rise in his company with alarming speed. His boss fears he's hired a serial killer-a suspicion that's compelled the CID's Andrew Dalziel and Peter Pascoe to investigate. Is it possible the mild-mannered accountant, whose only real side passion seems to be roses, has a thorny edge?

A family outing to Tattershall Castle comes to a chilling end when eleven-year-old Tommy Burton disappears without a trace in broad daylight. All that remains in his place is a small blue teddy bear. DS Karen Hart and her team are called in to investigate the unusual circumstances—but for DI Morgan the crime scene is eerily familiar.

DC Sophie Jones was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Viciously bludgeoned one night in a dark alley, she is left fighting for her life in hospital, leaving no clues as to why she was there or what might have motivated the attack. For Detective Karen Hart, fiercely protective of her young protégée, this is already deeply personal: an attack on Sophie is an attack on the whole team. When a car workshop near the crime scene is linked to local mobster Quentin Chapman, the man Hart has spent years trying to bring down, it’s hard not to jump to the most obvious conclusion.

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.

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.

Who killed Danute Zukas, a twenty-three-year-old Lithuanian woman, in July, 2014? In Wiltshire, England, the Crime Review Team investigates cold cases and has successfully resolved more than a dozen. Headed by former police detective Gus Freeman, the team uses old witness statements plus fresh clues to start the hunt again. Danute Zukas arrived in Bath, England, in March, 2011, worked in a late-night bar, and was well liked and happy. Then in April, 2012, she quit her job and disappeared.

CASE FILE #18–June 2008. Katherine Alford was found dead in her car at a local beauty spot. The devoted mother had received an urgent phone call late in the evening, and asked a neighbor to babysit for ten minutes. She never returned. Gus Freeman and his team uncover failings in the initial police investigation, but every eyewitness they re-interview can’t offer fresh clues, they only add to the mystery. Who did Katherine dash out of the house to meet?

On the bed, the naked bodies of a man and a woman. "Bullet in the head's not the way to go," Larry Hill, Isaac Cook's detective inspector, said. "Do you recognize him?" Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook said. "James Holden, from what I can see." "Rent by the hour?" "Not according to her handbag. There's a business card. She worked for the man." "You know this will be all over the media within the hour," Isaac said. "James Holden, a proponent of the sanctity of the marital bed, man and wife. It's bound to be."

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.