Police Crime

When the body of a young woman is found in her own backyard, a week after her disappearance, evidence leads investigators to a chilling conclusion. She is not the first victim of a serial killer no one knew existed. She most definitely is not the last. FBI Special Agent Tess Winnett joins the local detectives assigned to the case and searches for answers in the intriguing investigation that offers a plethora of forensic evidence, yet no viable leads. When another body is found, the search intensifies, and details about the killer's unusual signature emerge.

An entire family is murdered and, by a quirk, a young girl is left unharmed. For 15 years, she believed the killer had been caught, and he's now on death row, awaiting execution. While trying to be content with her adoptive family, she's living in relentless uncertainty and the fear of remembering what really happened that night when she was five years old. She's The Watson Girl.

Former London policeman Alan Banks relocated to Yorkshire seeking some small measure of peace. But depravity and violence are unfortunately not unique to large cities. His new venue, the quaint little village of Eastvale, seems to have more than its fair share of malefactors---among them a brazen Peeping Tom who hides in night's shadows spying on attractive, unsuspecting ladies as they prepare for bed.

Two teens make a horrifying discovery in the sand of Miami Beach. Detective Eva Hernandez is called in the middle of the night to a scene with little evidence to identify the victim. She has no way of knowing the series of events ahead that will draw her into a complicated web of deceit and murder.

After the body of a brutally murdered young woman is recovered from the Gulf of Mexico far from shore, FBI Special Agent Tess Winnett is called in to assist with the profiling of the murderer. Although only one body has been found, every detail about the gruesome crime points to the work of a serial killer. Have there been others left to die far at sea, where no one will ever find them? Is there a connection to be found, or is Tess searching for evidence that doesn’t exist?

Officer Danny Sullivan has just become Detective Danny Sullivan, the first in a family line of Boston police officers to do so. It's a milestone the whole family can celebrate. But quickly, his new position turns into something more than he ever anticipated. His first case with a new partner throws him into a web of secrets, half-truths, and dead women. The conclusion he draws puts him at odds with everyone in his life, and the young detective must decide whether to risk everything to prove his theory that more women are about to die.

DI Nikki Galena: A police detective with nothing left to lose, she's seen a girl die in her arms, and her daughter will never leave the hospital again. She's gotten tough on the criminals she believes did this to her. Too tough. And now she's been given one final warning: make it work with her new sergeant, DS Joseph Easter, or she's out.

The annual West Uist literary festival - The Gathering - always attracts the best in the business. But with the tiny island population suddenly doubling, the local police force is stretched to breaking point. And this year they have to deal with more than just drunken fights and rowdy behavior. Ranald Buchanan, the local poet, is found dead, with his head brutally caved in, and Inspector Torquil McKinnon is brought in to investigate.

They call him el Carnicero—the Butcher. He is the most powerful drug lord on the planet, and when the city of New York incurs his wrath, he utters a single word: “¡Venganza!” With military precision, he strafes Central Park with 4,000 pounds of cocaine, killing hundreds of innocent people enjoying a summer afternoon.

Kelly Roth, FBI profiler, returns home to Syracuse to stop a sadistic serial killer. Three murders in three separate jurisdictions in central New York State have the same pattern: women killed by fatal headshots from a hunting rifle. Kelly Roth is sent from Virginia to help the local police. Each victim was found murdered in a remote area or in a quiet park. The media call him “The Park Killer.” But Kelly doesn’t think the killer lurks in the bushes. She thinks he hunts his victims somewhere else.

Some places seem too beautiful to be touched by horror. Summit Lake, nestled in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, is that kind of place. But two weeks ago, Becca Eckersley, a first-year law student and daughter of a powerful attorney, was brutally murdered there. Now the town is reeling with grief, and the police are baffled.

Mike and Callie Simpkins moved north to restart their lives and get their finances back on track. Their son Braxton immerses himself in an online game-world of crime and gangs. When he decides to meet some of the players in the real world, tragedy strikes. Detective John Swift must untangle a web of virtual and real crimes in order to solve this complex mystery. And as the family copes with unimaginable grief, even Braxton’s stepfather, Mike, comes under suspicion.

Longtime detective partners TJ Samms and Shane Jordan are called out to a crime scene in North Seattle. At first, the case appears to be a run-of-the-mill shooting, but quickly turns into something far more complicated. The investigation that follows will alter the lives of everyone involved, and in the end, nothing will ever be the same for the men and women of Seattle Homicide.

When DCI Lesley Clarke suffers an injury and is told to relocate from Birmingham to rural Dorset, she's expecting some peace and quiet. But before she even starts her new job, she witnesses a murder at the iconic Corfe Castle. Lesley must get to know her new team, learn a new patch, and solve the mystery. What's more, team are mourning the loss of her predecessor, DCI Tim Mackie, who allegedly committed suicide. But was Mackie's death suspicious? And did it involve someone in her team?

As Acting DC Scott Cullen works with DC Craig Hunter to track down a witness who didn’t show during a court case, they stumble upon another crime–two homeless women, dying of a suspected heroin overdose. As they investigate, they uncover a far-reaching criminal empire, dealing death and misery to Edinburgh’s underclass. And come across another investigative team who may not be exactly on the same side. As the case brings two cops together and drives a wedge between another pair, can Cullen and Hunter rescue the witness and bring her assailant to justice?

On a windswept moor, a child emerges from the mist with a story no one wants to believe. The farmer who finds her assumes she’s simply lost. But when she utters a chilling phrase—“We went to see the old ones”—he realises something is terribly wrong. As Detective Evan Warlow battles his own demons, he and the team are pulled into a case of ritualistic secrets, long-buried crimes, and the whispers of something darker lurking in the mist.

Gus Freeman is a retired detective inspector who has spent the past three years alone. Freeman’s wife, Tess, died from a brain aneurysm six months to the day after his retirement. He is still coming to terms with his enforced solitary existence. His old boss wants Gus to head up a Crime Review Team investigating cold cases. Old witness statements plus fresh clues, and the hunt would be on. But Freeman wonders whether his superiors need his old-style methods.

A report of a body sends homicide detective Peter Brandt to a murder scene in one of the city's wealthiest neighborhoods. Without realizing it, he has just stepped into the case of his life. It will take all his experience and skill to find a killer unlike anyone he's encountered.

In August 2009, a 39-year-old policewoman went missing in Tamil Nadu. A month later, her heavily decomposed body was discovered in a drain by a graveyard. She had been brutally violated and killed. As the investigation started, the police detected a pattern in more than a dozen unsolved rape-and-murder cases with mutilated bodies of women turning up in graveyards, drains and empty fields along the highways. It didn’t take the police too long to find out that the perpetrator was a trucker named M Jaishankar.

New Orleans Requiem is written in Donaldson's unique style: A hard-hitting, punchy, action-packed prose that’s dripping with a folksy, decidedly southern, sense of irony. Add in Donaldson's brilliant first-hand knowledge of forensics and the sultry flavor of New Orleans, and the result is first class forensic procedural within an irresistibly delectable mystery.