Crime Fiction Police Procedural Suspense

Five figures gather 'round a shallow grave. They had all taken turns to dig. An adult-sized hole would have taken longer. An innocent life had been taken, but the pact had been made. Their secrets would be buried, bound in blood. Years later a headmistress is found brutally strangled, the first in a spate of gruesome murders that shock the Black Country.

When the putrid smell oozing out of an old mine shaft in the Cambrian hills’ ‘green desert’ of Wales turns out to be a corpse, DCI Evan Warlow and his team quickly slip into gear. But this is no pot-holing adventure gone wrong. Soon, Evan and the team are hunting for another missing person and discovering ghosts from the past that no one wants to confront. With the team stretched and confronting their own demons, DCI Warlow has his work cut out in unravelling a web of manipulation and lies.

One wrong does not justify another in the desolate landscapes of SENTA, the Bannau Brycheiniog army training grounds, DCI Warlow and his seasoned investigators find themselves ensnared in a deadly game of shadows. A man, recently released from prison after a 20-year wrongful conviction, is discovered dead, igniting a storm of doubt and suspicion. As long-buried secrets claw their way to the surface, the line between truth and deception blurs. With everyone involved in the original case now a potential suspect, they must tread carefully and confront the crimes of old as well as the present.

Detective James Corstorphine’s blood ran cold. His wife never left her clinic door unlocked. Inside, her receptionist sat bound and gagged, tears streaming down her face. “He’s taken Shamila.” But Shamila’s abduction is just the beginning. When human remains are discovered dressed as a scarecrow in a Highland farmer’s field, Corstorphine realizes the cases are connected. The victim worked at Carstairs State Hospital–the same institution where Shamila once treated the criminally insane.

Forced by a sense of duty and a need to reconcile the past, a woman with psychic powers faces a far greater challenge than she’d ever expected. A stalker? In Silence? These are the questions on Nell Gallagher’s mind as she drives through the empty streets of her hometown. Three successful, respected members of the community—each harboring a dark secret—have fallen to a killer’s murderous vengence.

Producer Jack Quick knows how to frame a story. So says Curtis Wade, the subject of Jack's new true crime docuseries, convicted of a young woman's murder four years prior. In the eyes of Jack's viewers, flimsy evidence and police bias influenced the final verdict...even though, off screen, Jack himself has his doubts. But when the series finale is wildly successful, a retrial sees Curtis walk free. And then another victim turns up dead.

Inspector Fenella Sallow is haunted by her past and obsessive about the truth…no matter how painful. When a body is found on an isolated footbridge in the scenic village of St. Bees, Fenella must piece together the events that lead to the grizzly death. All evidence points to a murder by the escaped serial killer dubbed "Mr. Shred". As the investigation heats up, Fenella and her team discover a world darker than most can imagine. And it soon becomes clear the killer is determined to teach the police a lesson.

When a body is found on a lonely cliff top path, the angelic face of a murdered teenager lies facing the rising sun. Strangled by the hands of an unknown killer, it falls to DI Tom Janssen and his fledgling team to find out how she came to be there. Destined for a career in medicine, one to rival that of her parents, Holly Bettany’s future was as bright as it had been privileged. Seemingly, all that could threaten this promising teenager’s life was Holly herself.

When a local journalist is found dead in an isolated spot on Roydon Common, lying beneath a hangman's noose on the anniversary of a teenager's suicide, DI Tom Janssen is asked to take on the investigation as a favor to local colleagues and must unpick the deceased man's life to discover how he came to be there. The dead man was working on something, a story he was keeping close to his chest, and even those closest to him, loved ones and colleagues, were kept in the dark. But what did he know that was so damaging as to be worth killing for?

A dead man on the beach. A detective with everything to prove. And a secret that won't stay buried. When a man’s body washes up on the North Yorkshire coast with a gunshot wound to the chest, DCI Tom Raven is handed the case. The only clue to the victim’s identity? A ring engraved with two names. Raven hasn’t set foot in Scarborough for over thirty years. Now he’s back – leading a murder investigation and facing ghosts from his past.

This set contains books seven to nine in the gripping, fast-paced crime fiction series featuring DCI Whitney Walker and forensic psychologist Dr. Georgina Cavendish: Ritual Demise, Mortal Remains, and Silent Graves.

Everyone in the small town of Denton is searching for Isabelle Coleman, a missing 17-year-old girl. All they've found so far is her phone and another girl they didn't even know was missing. Mute and completely unresponsive to the world around her, it's clear this mysterious girl has been damaged beyond repair. All Detective Josie Quinn can get from her is a name: Ramona. Currently suspended from the force for misconduct, Josie takes matters into her own hands as the name leads her to evidence linking the two girls.

The beautiful young woman is perfectly still, curled up in the trunk of the car, her long dark hair hiding her face. Her cotton blouse has ridden up a little, revealing two small dots an inch apart on her back. Just like the others. Guilt has kept FBI Agent Tori Hunter away from her home in Manchester Bay, Minnesota for 20 years, ever since her twin sister disappeared on the Fourth of July, when the girls should have been together. But when she receives an anonymous newspaper clipping about another missing girl, Genevieve, Tori is dragged back to the past.

One moonlit night, the bodies of two young people are discovered lying entwined on a blanket in the woods. The young man is clutching a red rose. It appears to be a lovers' suicide pact.... Until Detective Nikki Galena and DS Joseph Easter look more closely. Romeo and Juliet, as they decide to call them, were murdered somewhere else and brought to the woods. But why? Then another young couple are found dead, again beautifully posed as lovers.

Bruno Courrèges - provincial French police chief extraordinaire - is back in another delectable tale of mystery and suspense that unfolds in the gastronomically ravishing Dordogne.

The long-awaited performance by the special needs class should have been a triumph—a celebration of courage, perseverance, and joy. But when one student is violently killed, the celebration turns into a nightmare. Nicole Morgan was there. She saw it happen. But now, haunted and withdrawn, she’s barely speaking. It’s not the first time she’s witnessed death, and her silence may be the only thing keeping her alive. As Detectives Gardener and Powers dig into the case, they uncover troubling secrets buried deep within the school.

Trauma victims are not new to medical examiner Faith McIntyre, but this one is different. The unconscious woman clinging to life after a hit and run is FBI agent Macy Crow. What the woman from Quantico was doing in a dark alley after midnight is just one mystery. The other is more unsettling: Macy is Faith’s mirror image—the twin sister she never knew she had.

A man wanders lost on a filthy night in the Black mountains of Wales. Despite the valiant efforts of the rescue services, he does not survive. Is this an accident? Or malice aforethought? DCI Warlow and team are drawn into a mystery that soon spirals into more deaths and a poisonous trade. A devious killer is abroad. One that cares for nothing other than their own twisted greed. The dragon's breath taints everything it touches.

When Matt Ballard was starting out his career, three boys were murdered in the same area, the remote and bleak Gibbet Fen. When the main suspect was killed in a hit-and-run, the killings stopped. But Matt was not satisfied that the real murderer had been caught. Over 25 years later, Matt gets a photo in an unmarked envelope. It's of the Gibbet Fen crime scene. And the picture was taken before the murder took place. More photos arrive, relating to the historic murders, as well as intimate pictures of Matt's very secret private life.

On a chilly February night, during a screening of Psycho in midtown, someone sunk an ice pick into the back of Chanel Rylan's neck, then disappeared quietly into the crowds of drunks and tourists in Times Square. To Chanel's best friend, who had just slipped out of the theater for a moment to take a call, it felt as unreal as the ancient black-and-white movie up on the screen. But Chanel's blood ran red, and her death was anything but fictional.