Small Town Crime

It’s Lew Ferris’s first day as the newly-elected Sheriff of McBride County, and already things are heating up in the Wisconsin Northwoods. The tragic drowning of a teenage girl draws an eerie parallel to the unsolved murder of another teen thirty years earlier, but one of Lew’s new subordinates—Alan Stern, Chief of the Deer Haven Police Department—has ruled it an accidental death by drowning.

Police Officer Jemima Cotton expected Little Cote to be a quieter pace of life. But, unlike London, everyone knows everyone, and beyond the cake sales and coffee mornings, tea parties and village fetes, the neighbours aren't all the best of friends. When Jemima is unpacking her mugs and teabags in her new home on Foxglove Close, she's called to attend her first murder investigation. She's excited, until she discovers it's only a few doors down from her. And she hasn't even met her new neighbours yet.

Why is it being built here, and why so quickly? These are the questions Cole, Bart, and Teddy, the three principals of True Triangle Construction, ask themselves when they are hired to finish a project for a mysteriously wealthy homeowner. Nestled in the mountains outside of Jackson, Wyoming, the house is a masterpiece, unlike anything they've done before. Once finished, it promises to be the architectural prize of Jackson and could put True Triangle on the map. But despite the project's lure, the owner is intent on having it built in a matter of months.

Handywoman Barb Young has lived in the sleepy coastal town of Bullford Point for over fifty years—and in that time, not much has happened, unless you count that business where a bush turkey managed to board the ferry a couple of years ago. When Joe Griffiths returns from Sydney after six years of drug addiction, jail and, eventually, rehab, Barb offers him a job, hoping to help him turn his life around. However, when another new resident of Bullford Point is murdered, Joe becomes the prime suspect.

Jimmy is a kid growing up fast on the poorest street in town. He tries to do everything right and look out for his mum and his younger brother. His older brother is in jail, so it's up to Jimmy to hold things together. But small-town life is unforgiving if you're from the other side of the tracks.

Anthony grew up without any knowledge of his father. Only when his mother dies does he unlock the secrets she kept for 20 years. Each discovery leads him closer to the people who knew his father best. Including the man who killed him.

Nothing casts a more sinister shadow over our nation's history than the gruesome lynchings that happened between 1882 and 1937, claiming 4,680 victims. Often, in a show of racist violence, the lynchers tortured their victims before murdering them. Most killers were never brought to justice; some were instead celebrated as heroes, their victims' bodies displayed or even cut up and distributed as trophies.

In a small town in rural America, murders of little girls have been going on for a long time. Can the FBI stop him before he kills again?

Welcome to Beaumont Cove, a slowly decaying tourist town at the edge of the world, and the place where Maggie James’s worst fears for her estranged twin sister, Lilly, have come true. Lilly is dead, and Maggie has arrived to identify her body. Lilly’s husband, Mike, is in custody for her murder. With the help of the local sheriff, a retired private investigator, and a strange but friendly carnival psychic, Maggie begins to uncover the truth about what really happened to her sister. But the truth comes at a price....

The Australian outback is beautiful, idyllic, peaceful, and all Detective Bo Campbell has to do is fit in. Within a day of his arrival, however, he's asked to cover up the murder of a local Aboriginal woman found in bushland. When he discovers she's not the only one, his whole world comes crashing down. In 1982, north-western New South Wales is plagued by corruption, deaths in custody and inequality. Sent to the remote area after he accidentally shot and killed his partner in a bungled drug raid in Newtown, Bo finds himself caught in a trap and being squeezed by a ruthless group.

When irascible Farmer Guy Beardon meets a very dirty death in his own farmyard, it seems like an accident initially - despite the fact that he was widely disliked. Only his daughter, Lilah, is prepared to defend his memory. And when, slowly, Lilah begins to suspect foul play, no-one is eager to help her investigate. Suspicion becomes certainty when two more deaths occur - and both of them are unmistakably murder. There is certainly no shortage of suspects, and it falls to local Policeman Den Cooper to investigate the mysterious deaths.

Karen Slocombe isn’t sure why she visited SuperFare that day - as a committed member of the Food Chain group and a regular stallholder at local farmers’ markets, it’s a place she would normally avoid. Luckily for Karen, she leaves moments before a bomb explodes. Only a few days later, Karen finds herself in the midst of another horrific crime. When friends from the Food Chain group start warning Karen not to tell the police certain details, her suspicions are instantly aroused. Could the two events be linked?

With Peaceful Repose Cemetery, Drew Slocombe is determined to revolutionise the entire death industry. Unfortunately, Drew’s Gravedigger has just discovered that their cemetery has one too many corpses when the body of an elderly woman is found. The police seem to think that the body is that of a vagrant, but for Drew things don’t add up. The mystery deepens when Genevieve Slater turns up at Drew’s door. As a man looking to escape both money worries and marriage problems, Genevieve proves impossible to resist.

Jon Frederick spent his adolescence protecting his mentally ill brother and worrying about his parents' farm as it headed toward bankruptcy. So when Mandy Baker, the alluring new girl in town, pursued him, he was easily enamored. But on the day he ended their tryst, Mandy vanished. There is no doubt in the small Minnesota town of Pierz that the flirtatious girl is dead, and there is little doubt that Jon got away with murder.

When the body of a herdsman is discovered in a farm building, Detective Sergeant Den Cooper is more than happy to cast local farmer Gordon Hillcock in the role of chief suspect. After all, it is a well-known fact that there was no love lost between Gordon and the victim. And besides, Den has a little grudge of his own - Gordon is currently dating his ex-fiancée, Lilah. However, Den did not plan on Lilah’s determination to protect her new lover....

When the biggest legal case of her career brings Eliza Carmody back to Kinsale, the hometown she thought she had left forever, she witnesses an old friend commit a crime that sends her on a dangerous quest to uncover the mysteries of her childhood that the rest of the town seems willing to ignore. With her friend on the run and the police investigating the bones of an unidentified dead body at a historic homestead near town, Eliza becomes convinced that the truth lies in her memories of the New Year’s Eve years ago when her friend Grace disappeared from Kinsale forever.

Hitler, Mussolini and Pope Paul V are on fire. Fireworks explode and flaming tar barrels are being dragged through the streets. Bonfire Night in Lewes is the closest England comes to Mardis Gras. In their fifth adventure, Morley, Miriam and Sefton find themselves caught up in the celebrations and the chaos. On the morning after the night before, Sefton goes for a swim in Pells Pool, the oldest freshwater lido in England - in the very centre of Lewes - where he discovers a woman’s body. She has drowned. Is it a misadventure or could it be...murder?

The body of Reginald Williamson had been well concealed under a bush in Middlesbury Common and the murder efficiently carried out - a single stab wound to the chest. Reggie’s dog had been killed just as efficiently. With no clues or obvious motive, the case is going nowhere. Then he gets a break. Warren’s instincts tell him that the informant is dodgy - a former police officer under investigation. But when Warren hears the incredible story he has to tell, he's glad to have given him a chance to speak.

In Middlesbury, a rally is being held by the British Allegiance Party - a far-right group protesting against the opening of a new Mosque. When the crowd disperses, a body is found in an alleyway. Tommy Meegan, the loud-mouthed leader of the group, has been stabbed through the heart. Across town, a Muslim community centre catches fire in a clear act of arson, leaving a small child in a critical condition. And the tension which has been building in the town for years boils over.

At an AA meeting, handyman and part-time investigator Jay Porter meets a recovering addict who needs his help. In the midst of another grueling northern New Hampshire winter, Amy Lupus’ younger sister, Emily, has gone missing from the Coos County Center, the newly opened rehab run by Jay’s old nemeses, Adam and Michael Lombardi. As Jay begins looking into Emily’s disappearance, he finds that all who knew Emily swear that she’s never used drugs. She’s a straight shooter and an intern at a newspaper investigating the Center and the horrendous secret hidden in it - or beneath it.