Detective Jane Phillips

DI Jane Phillips was a star detective driven by a relentless quest for justice. But then she stepped outside the law. Now, demoted and suffering with PTSD, she finds herself facing the deadliest threat of her career - a serial killer who is preying on vulnerable women, murdering them in a shocking and bizarre ritual. A master of deception, he selects his victims at random. Or so it seems. But as Phillips investigates, she begins to see a method in the killer's madness. Perhaps these victims aren't random at all....

Several young women have recently drowned in Manchester's vast network of canals. A coincidence? Or something more sinister? When star detective DCI Jane Phillips begins to investigate, her finely tuned instinct tells her these are no accidents. And when she discovers that each of the drowned women has a mysterious circular bruise on the back of her neck, Phillips is sure of it—she's up against a very clever serial killer. But how are the victims being chosen? And who will be next?

When fifteen-year-old Hollie, daughter of the UK's biggest munitions dealer Sir Richard Hawkins, vanishes without a trace, the race is on to find her. But the family's worst nightmare is realized when they receive a video of Hollie tied to a chair with a masked man holding a gun to her head. The ransom demands are simple—pay four million pounds or they'll never see their daughter again. DCI Jane Phillips is assigned to the case and soon realizes that Hollie has been kidnapped by an especially ruthless gang—who will stop at nothing to get what they want.

Victoria Carpenter, a high-ranking government official, is found hanging in her garage—an apparent suicide. But her husband has another theory—he is convinced she was murdered. And when the post-mortem results confirm foul play, DCI Jane Phillips and her Major Crimes team find themselves on the hunt for her killer. As Phillips begins to dig, she realizes there are powerful and wealthy people who may have wanted Victoria dead. People who are willing to do whatever it takes to stop her investigation.

The body of a naked woman is discovered in a Manchester park. Her murder has all the hallmarks of a notorious killer known as the Suffolk Strangler. But there's a problem—the Strangler is serving a life sentence in prison.

On a weekly Zoom call with her most valuable client, Antonia Berry is beyond horrified when she witnesses his murder—four hundred miles away—live on her laptop screen. DCI Jane Phillips and the Major Crimes Unit begin to investigate and at first it seems the victim is just a regular guy with no obvious enemies or connections to crime. But then, when a woman is killed in a seemingly random hit-and-run, they discover the two victims are closely connected. A coincidence? Or a double murder?

Thirty years ago, gangland enforcer Archie Boothroyd was brutally slain in an apparent ritual killing. The case was never a high priority for the police—after all, it meant one less gangster on the streets—and his murderer was never caught. Now, almost three decades later, when Paul Bradley—a close friend of Boothroyd's—is murdered in exactly the same way, DCI Jane Phillips and the Major Crimes Unit are called in to investigate. Is Bradley's death the work of a copycat? Or has the original killer finally returned?

After a lengthy leave of absence, DCI Jane Phillips is back in Major Crimes, neck deep in the most macabre murder investigation of her career. The naked body of a famous sportsman has been laid out in a churchyard, wrapped in a white shawl, surrounded by flowers. Stranger still, his heart is missing. With such a high profile victim, the pressure to find the murderer is instant and extreme. And it only increases when the killer strikes again—leaving behind another mutilated body, posed in exactly the same way.

The strangled body of Sir Walter Venables, a retired Crown Court Judge, is discovered in his Cheshire mansion. When DCI Jane Phillips and the Major Crimes team are called to investigate, they discover that Venables sent hundreds of violent criminals to prison over the years. Meaning the list of people who might want him dead reads like a who's who of Manchester's dark underworld. Then a second body turns up. Former Chief Constable Jack Todd, killed in exactly the same way.

When the victim of a brutal car bomb attack is identified as a senior executive at one of the United Kingdom's biggest oil companies, DCI Jane Phillips and the Major Crimes Unit are tasked with finding the three shadowy figures seen fleeing the scene. Phillips begins to suspect that the attack may be the work of eco-terrorists, a theory that gains weight when, days later, the CEO of an airline is fatally stabbed in broad daylight. With a global energy conference due to arrive in town and the eyes of the world on Manchester, the pressure mounts to stop the gang before they strike again.

Somebody is targeting police officers in the worst way imaginable—burning them alive in a series of large-scale arson attacks. When DCI Jane Phillips and the Major Crimes Unit are assigned to the case, forensic evidence suggests the fires display the unique signature of Manchester's most prolific arsonist, Archie Pearson. There's only one problem—Pearson has been in prison for almost twenty years.