Police Fiction

Some call him friend or boss. Some call him husband or dad. Some call him son, even a favorite son. But the only title that matters to him is the one the media has given him: the Poet. A name he earned from the written words he leaves behind after he kills that are as dark and mysterious as the reason he chooses his victims. One word, two, three, a story in a poem, a secret that only Detective Samantha Jazz can solve. Because, he’s writing this story for her.

Tough and demanding LAPD Detective Kate Delafield is the leader of the investigation into a high-rise office building murder. The case is intriguing but routine - until Kate interviews the only witness, Ellen O'Neil. When Ellen O'Neil took her new job over the objections of her lover, she wasn't expecting to become embroiled in murder. The curiosity that Kate Delafield rouses is equally unexpected. But it is never far from Ellen's mind that she is merely a name on an interview sheet to the tight-lipped detective.

Clare Fergusson, St. Alban's new priest, fits like a square peg in the conservative Episcopal parish at Miller's Kill, New York. She is not just a "lady"; she's a tough ex-Army chopper pilot, and nobody's fool. Then a newborn infant left at the church door brings her together with the town's police chief, Russ Van Alstyne, who's also ex-Army and a cynical good shepherd for the stray sheep of his hometown.

A young "national model worker," renowned for her adherence to the principles of the Communist Party, turns up dead in a Shanghai canal. As Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau struggles to trace the hidden threads of her past, he finds himself challenging the very political forces that have guided his life since birth. Chen must tiptoe around his superiors if he wants to get to the bottom of this crime, and risk his career-perhaps even his life-to see justice done.

A lying ganglord. A troubled cop. A masked vigilante. Working a strategic investigation, DS Scott Cullen of Police Scotland’s Edinburgh Major Investigation Team closes in on a long-time adversary. Dean Vardy, Edinburgh’s latest kingpin. Before, every time they thought they had him, his lawyer got him off. Campbell McLintock, another of Cullen’s adversaries. But this time Vardy goes too far, murdering someone under his control. Or does he? After a witness dies, Cullen is soon desperately trying to hold the case together, with Vardy’s conviction dangling by a thread.

Cullen, Hunter and Bain return in a three-part novel, where each of them must face the Cold Truth. City of the Dead A body in a bin. Two cops at each other's throats. Acting DI Scott Cullen faces his worst fear–managing DS Brian Bain, his old boss and notorious loose cannon. But when Cullen is called through to Glasgow to investigate a murder, Bain is back on his home turf.

When a young woman turns up dead along the Mississippi River, rising-star Detective Kate Rosetti quickly realizes it’s the work of a notorious cross-country serial killer. To complicate matters, Kate’s troublemaking sister turns up out of the blue in need of a place to live, a strikingly handsome FBI agent appears at the crime scene, convinced this case belongs to him, and a certain British billionaire is a little too interested in the murder…and Kate. As she begins to close in on the killer, the investigation takes a turn for the personal.

Inspector Green explores a web of betrayal and deceit. In the dead of night, the phone rings in the missing persons unit of the Ottawa Police. A brutal blizzard is howling, and a wealthy social activist has not heard from his fiance in over 24 hours. Friends, family and police are mobilized to search the snowbound city. He comes to believe that his partner is fleeing for her life, possibly from his own family.

Josephine 'Jo' Fox hasn't set foot in Romsey in over twenty years. As an illegitimate child, her family—headed by her controlling grandfather—found her an embarrassment. Now, she wants to return to what was once her home and uncover the secret of her parentage. Who was her father and why would her mother never talk about him? Jo arrives the day after the Luftwaffe have bombed the town. The local pub has been completely destroyed and rescue teams are searching for the remains of the seven people known to have been in the pub at the time the bomb hit.

Christmas chaos at the Melson house usually involves wrapping paper and toys, not a broken window and a bare space under the tree. After a morning of questioning officers and chattering children, Amanda resigns herself to a very un-Christmas-y day. But can the heroes on the Pineville police force find a way to save the family's Christmas?

Death is reporter Jack McEvoy's beat: his calling, his obsession. But this time, death brings McEvoy the story he never wanted to write - and the mystery he desperately needs to solve. A serial killer of unprecedented savagery and cunning is at large. His targets: homicide cops, each haunted by a murder case he couldn't crack. The killer's calling card: a quotation from the works of Edgar Allan Poe. His latest victim is McEvoy's own brother. And his last...may be McEvoy himself.

When a leading Scottish politician doesn't turn up at work one morning, it seems like a simple missing persons case to Brian Bain. But then a big news story lands and things don't seem to be so clear cut. Meanwhile, the discovery of a body in Midlothian's Gore Glen leads DI Scott Cullen on a wild chase through nearby Gorebridge and across southern Scotland, while the press close in on Cullen over choices made on a previous case, unearthed during a new mysterious podcast about the police.

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?

Atlanta, 1974: It's Kate Murphy's first day on the job, and the Atlanta Police Department is seething after the murder of an officer. Before the day has barely begun, she already suspects she's not cut out to be a cop. Her male uniform is too big, she can't handle a gun, and she's rapidly learning that the APD is hardly a place that welcomes women. Worse still, in the ensuing manhunt she'll be partnered with Maggie Lawson, a cop with her own ax to grind.

The village of Badger's Drift is the essence of tranquillity. But when resident and well-loved spinster Miss Simpson takes a stroll in the nearby woods, she stumbles across something she was never meant to see, and there's only one way to keep her quiet. Miss Simpson's death is not suspicious, say the villagers. But Miss Lucy Bellringer refuses to rest: her friend has been murdered. She is sure of it.

It's the week before deer hunting season, as close to a statewide holiday as you get in Texas, and the locals are getting restless. Game Warden John Marlin has his hands full with poaching complaints coming in faster than he can write out-of-season tickets. Then a call of a different sort comes in. A man dressed up in some sort of deer costume has been shot at the Circle S ranch, and witnesses are reporting a massive wild-eyed buck prancing about the pasture in a lovesick frenzy.

Monk's house is being fumigated, and he has nowhere to go. Fortunately, his assistant Natalie and her daughter are kind enough to welcome him into their home. Unfortunately, their home is not quite up to Monk's standards of cleanliness and order. But while Monk attempts to arrange his surroundings just so, something else needs to be put straight. The death of a dog at the local firehouse - on the same night as a fatal house fire - has led Monk into a puzzling mystery.

A body found lying face down in a hallway becomes former big city Detective Dan Cutter's latest Stone County case. Though the blood and witnesses suggest one thing, his gut tells him something else is going on.

Work together, live together, and play together is the name of the game for Royce Locke and Sawyer Key. But one of those things changes when Chief Mendoza taps Sawyer to lead the new cold case unit. His first task: solve the Magnolia Murders that spanned three decades and suddenly stopped in 2000. Chaos ensues when a fourth Magnolia Queen contender is murdered during a preliminary round. With the pageant's hundredth anniversary looming, the pressure is on to produce results. Royce and Sawyer, along with their new partners, have to team up to solve the Magnolia Murders—old and new.

During intermission at the famed La Fenice opera house in Venice, Italy, a notoriously difficult and widely disliked German conductor is poisoned—and suspects abound. Guido Brunetti, a native Venetian, sets out to unravel the mystery behind the high-profile murder. To do so, he calls on his knowledge of Venice, its culture, and its dirty politics. Along the way, he finds the crime may have roots going back decades—and that revenge, corruption, and even Italian cuisine may play a role.