Police Suspense Thrillers

Detective Nikki Galena's friend and neighbor meets a tragic end, but there's more to his death than meets the eye. And someone terrible from DS Joseph Easter's past is back.

Belfast, 1980, is the apocalypse. Bombings, riots, army on the streets, low flying helicopters, and ever-present rain. The grinding Northern Irish civil war between Protestants and Catholics has been going for a decade now. Hated by both sides are the police. Sean Duffy Year 1 takes us into that world. Newly promoted Detective Sergeant Sean Duffy is given his first command at Carrickfergus CID.

DI Nikki Galena's close friend Helen Brook is involved in a serious accident where she is trapped in a collapsed cellar. After her hard-won recovery, Helen is still getting flashbacks to a man she says was down there with her and who confessed to a murder. But no trace of this man can be found. Then Helen tells Nikki that someone is watching her. But is all this in her friend's imagination and part of her post-traumatic stress?

Crime and criminals keep getting in the way of Detective Garda Sergeant Mike West's personal life. The woman he loves is living in his house, in his spare bedroom. It should be simple, but it isn't. He has a solution. A romantic weekend away, in a lighthouse on Clare Island. A stunning place, a beautiful woman. What could be more perfect? When one of the islanders dies in a bizarre and a tragic accident, West is roped in to help. But it isn't an accident, and there is more than one suspect. There's also more than one secret. Can West solve the case before someone else dies?

Chief Inspector Wexford finds nothing unusual in the disappearance of Rodney Williams, a husband and father who likely has run off with another woman. But when the man’s car and suitcase are discovered abandoned, can a body be far behind?

Hamish Macbeth ambles over to the nearby backwater of Drim, ostensibly to check out a posh English chap who is causing a most unusual problem. Single, wealthy, and terribly attractive, newcomer Peter Hynd has thrown the middle-aged matrons of Drim into a flutter and put their men, dour Highlanders whose feelings run deep, on a slow burn. Hamish’s instincts tell him this seemingly charming young man likes to stir up trouble, and it’s not long before the seething emotions transform the sleepy village into a hotbed of threats, domestic rows, and violent murder.

Grace Repton, a beautiful older woman, walks into the police station to tell Detective Matt Ballard she has information that could stop a murder. Her fiance, the infamous serial killer Jeremy Reader, has told her that he has a disciple who is going to kill using Reader's horrific methods. Reader murdered five women and was finally brought to justice by Detective Ballard. Reader is safely imprisoned in a high security prison, and claiming to be a reformed man who wants to help the police.

Inspector William Monk is ordered to investigate in a manner that will give the least possible pain to the influential family. But Monk, brilliant and ambitious, is handicapped by lingering traces of amnesia and by the craven ineptitude of his supervisor, who would like nothing better than to see Monk fail.

When a sniper kills four people on Boston Common, Boston homicide detective Mike Houston and his partner Anne Bouchard are sent to investigate the case. Amidst the blood and terror, Houston discovers similarities, likenesses the killer’s positioning, his choice of victims, and his code of ethics between the crime scene and his own training as a US Marine scout and sniper. And with the staging of the scene set for prime shock value, Houston has to wonder what it is this murderer intends to accomplish.

Who could have suspected that the exciting stag party for the groom would be the prelude to the murder of his close friend Charlie Hatton? And Charlie's death was only the first in a string of puzzling murders involving small-time gangsters, cheating husbands, and loose women. Now Chief Inspector Wexford and his assistant join forces with the groom to track down a killer....

It's June in Montreal, and Dr. Temperance Brennan, who has left a shaky marriage back home in North Carolina to take on the challenging assignment of Director of Forensic Anthropology for the province of Quebec, looks forward to a relaxing weekend in beautiful Quebec City. First, though, she must stop at a newly uncovered burial site in the heart of the city. The remains are probably old and only of archeological interest, but Tempe must make sure they're not a case for the police. One look at the decomposed and decapitated corpse, stored neatly in plastic bags, tells her she'll spend the weekend in the crime lab.

There are two sides to every story: yours and mine, ours and theirs, his and hers. Which means someone is always lying. When a woman is murdered in Blackdown, a quintessentially British village, newsreader Anna Andrews is reluctant to cover the case. Detective Jack Harper is suspicious of her involvement, until he becomes a suspect in his own murder investigation. Someone isn’t telling the truth, and some secrets are worth killing to keep.

Until a chance assignment takes GBI investigator Will Trent to the state penitentiary, and to a prisoner who says he recognizes the MO. The attack looks identical to the one he was accused of eight years earlier. The prisoner’s always insisted that he was innocent, and now he’s sure he has proof. The killer is still out there. As Will digs into both crimes, it becomes clear that he must solve the original case in order to reach the truth

Revellers are flocking into Greenborough for the yearly Dark Greenborough Festival, a three-day event celebrating local folklore, superstition, and the darker side of life. What the public doesn't know is that there has been a warning sent to the police, saying that Greenborough will be a very dangerous place this year. The anonymous letter ends with the Latin phrase, Mors certa, hora incerta: Death is certain, the hour uncertain.

DI Nikki Galena gets a series of anonymous calls. She is told the place, time, and who will die. But the messages are in a secret language used only by villains. Nikki and her team must decode the riddles and work out where the threats are coming from.

A skeleton is found in a shallow grave in the churchyard. But this was not an official burial. The victim was murdered decades ago. At the same time, Detective Nikki Galena and her team are investigating the brutal slaying of local businesswoman Madeline Prospero. She was a member of an exclusive and secretive drinking club called The Briar Patch. But they've got no suspects and no one is telling them the truth. Meanwhile, the buried skeleton leads them on a trail to the village of Quintin Eaudyke. This is a troubled place. In the late 70s and 80s a reign of terror was unleashed.

When a maid in the upper class Ellison household is strangled, Inspector Pitt is called in to investigate. He finds a world ruled by strict manners and social customs, where the inhabitants of the Ellison's neighborhood appear to be more outraged by the thought of scandal than they are by murder. Inspector Pitt finds a most unlikely ally in Charlotte, the Ellison's spirited daughter. But as the murders continue, Charlotte and Pitt find themselves drawn together by more than the investigation.

With their engaging plots, mellow Scottish ambiance, and droll humor, the Hamish Macbeth mysteries always provide a bonnie time. Death of an Addict continues the Hamish Macbeth tradition of superb entertainment, with some fascinating twists. When a recovering addict dies while recuperating near Lochdubh, our redheaded hero suspects foul play. To complete his investigation, Constable Macbeth must leave his idyllic home and travel to Amsterdam to match wits with big-time drug dealers.

New York Times best-selling author James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels began with this first hard-hitting entry in the series. In The Neon Rain, Detective Robicheaux fishes a prostitute's corpse from a New Orleans bayou and finds that no one, not even the law, cares about a dead hooker.

FBI Agent Ella Dark has studied serial killers from the time she could read, devastated by the murder of her own sister, and has gained an encyclopedic knowledge of murderers. But when Ella investigates a murder and realizes this is no ordinary dead body, she is at a loss: It’s pieced together with parts of multiple victims. How many people has this killer killed? And can Ella discover who did this—and why—before time runs out?