British Crime Mystery

In the peace and tranquility of the woods at Pinehills on a Saturday afternoon, a mobile phone begins to ring. The phone belongs to DC Smith, and it isn't unusual that the call is from Kings Lake Central police station; what is unusual is the fact that he seems to be the subject of an investigation rather than taking part in one. What can the links be between a prisoner's violent death in another county, the disappearance of two teenagers, and the highest profile case in Kings Lake for many years?

After the horrors of their last case, DCI Kett and the rest of Norfolk Constabulary’s Extreme Crime Task Force are in need of a break. And that’s just what they think they’re getting when Superintendent Clare takes them on a team building exercise in the middle of a quiet Norfolk village. But what was supposed to be a weekend of recovery and fun soon becomes something much more sinister, when two local men turn up dead—poisoned by a horrific new designer drug nicknamed Jaw Breaker.

Claire Barclay is enthusiastic about her British Mystery Book Tour business. She enjoys taking her guests, usually from America, to the settings of mystery novels where bodies are long dead. Her neighbor's plea for help to deal with a recently murdered well-known author unsettles her. She leaves the body to the police and takes her guests to Cornwall, including a British tourist who far is too interested in the dead author.

Thirty years ago, a group of five child detectives: Tommy, Luke, Tess, Jane and Daniel, along with their dog, Dexter, made the national press with their crime solving. Nicknamed the Magpies, their adventures were written up as novels by author Reginald Troughton and released to children around the world, including a ten-year-old Declan Walsh. But now, someone is targeting the Magpies, with Reginald brutally murdered while writing a last "lost" adventure.

STAND-ALONE MURDER MYSTERY, #15 IN THE SERIES. MEET MAVERICK BRITISH DETECTIVE DI SKELGILL... "MAD, BAD AND JUST A LITTLE BIT COZY."VIRILE; HANDSOME; RUTHLESS. When gamekeeper Lawrence Melling takes over at traditional Lakeland sporting estate Shuteham Hall he soon ruffles the feathers of not only elderly Lord Edward Bullingdon and his younger model wife Miranda, but also their adult offspring and fellow estate workers. Meanwhile local conservationists perceive an existential threat to rare hen harriers nesting on nearby Over Moor. And when Miranda’s jewellery worth a six-figure sum goes ...

A picture-perfect murder? A photographer is killed and abandoned in a macabre display on the banks of the Hay River. Constable Ezra McCann’s home is nearby and his celebrity family feel like they're targets. McCann is on the alert. He also has a strong suspicion that the new nanny is not who she seems, and that’s one more thing keeping him awake at night. Can Inspector Hilary Casgrain and the small Elk Ridge Police Department handle a crime with international overtones? Or is this really a homegrown killer stalking anyone who gets in his way? When a second body is discovered nearby, ...

Detective Sara Hirst has moved from London to Norfolk Police's Serious Crimes Unit. She wants to know the truth about her father, who has connections to the area. Her mother won't tell her the real story. A new job. A new place. Same old problems. Sara's first call-out is to a decomposing body discovered in a ditch on a local farm. How does the murder relate to a recent spate of thefts? Who wanted the victim dead? Then the case grows very personal.

Detective Joseph Easter's daughter discovers a cottage hidden in some trees on a large fenland farm. Someone has been living there. The farm owner's wife has been receiving sinister pagan artifacts, including a witch's knife. Are they some sort of warning or message? Joseph and his daughter search the cottage and find an old satchel. Inside are photos of a beautiful girl, Jennifer Cowley. She went missing 15 years ago. She'd been stalked by a young man, who was convicted of her murder, even though her body was never found.

As the mists roll over the fens and enigmatic lights twinkle in the distance, only the locals know their way along the hidden paths through the mysterious watery terrain of one of England's most beautiful and sometimes dangerous places. Detective Matt Ballard may have retired but there's still plenty going on in the fens to keep him busy. Someone trashes an old lady's garden and daubs her isolated cottage with hateful graffiti. Emilia Swain seems to be totally harmless, so why is she being targeted?

Detective Sergeant Chris Waters got the call at 05.29 that July morning. This is it, said DCI Reeve, you'll be first there, it's all yours, you're the crime scene manager. Suddenly, after months of waiting and wondering, Waters finds himself in at the deep end, and alone at the scene of a puzzling murder. As the investigation proceeds, the detectives at Kings Lake Central find themselves visiting familiar places and talking to some familiar faces, while old enmities reappear in the incident room. Before this is over, Chris Waters will need to make a career-changing decision.

When Matt Ballard was starting out his career, three boys were murdered in the same area, the remote and bleak Gibbet Fen. When the main suspect was killed in a hit-and-run, the killings stopped. But Matt was not satisfied that the real murderer had been caught. Over 25 years later, Matt gets a photo in an unmarked envelope. It's of the Gibbet Fen crime scene. And the picture was taken before the murder took place. More photos arrive, relating to the historic murders, as well as intimate pictures of Matt's very secret private life.

When 14-year-old Zoe Johnson doesn't come home on a Monday night in early December, the alarm bells in Kings Lake Central police station do not ring straight away - after all, she's from the Dockmills, one of the toughest estates in the town. But for Detective Sergeant DC Smith, due to retire in just three weeks' time, there are some strange echoes of the case that has haunted him for the past 13 years. Maybe it's simply his over-developed sense of irony, or maybe, in his final days as a police officer, Smith must look once more into the eyes of a serial killer.

One moonlit night, the bodies of two young people are discovered lying entwined on a blanket in the woods. The young man is clutching a red rose. It appears to be a lovers' suicide pact.... Until Detective Nikki Galena and DS Joseph Easter look more closely. Romeo and Juliet, as they decide to call them, were murdered somewhere else and brought to the woods. But why? Then another young couple are found dead, again beautifully posed as lovers.

When a flamboyant local celebrity is framed for murder in her peaceful English village, Judith knows she should keep her head down. After all, a quiet retirement was the plan. But with a past as colourful as hers, she might be the only person who can unravel this deadly puzzle. There's just one problem: the charming DS Raymond Collins and the razor-sharp DC Sarah Eastly are getting a little too curious about the mysterious new retiree in their midst. And Judith's got more than a few secrets she'd rather keep buried... From garden parties to hidden bodies, this deliciously twisted cozy ...

Two weeks of rest and recuperation - that's what the doctor ordered. Detective Sergeant DC Smith could listen to some music, make some of his own, and maybe even catch up on his reading; he is almost looking forward to it. And then there is a knock on the door. It's only his next-door neighbor, but it is the beginning of a sequence of events that will bring him face to face with some of the darkest episodes and the most dangerous people from his own past.

STAND-ALONE MURDER MYSTERY, #7 IN THE SERIES. MEET MAVERICK BRITISH DETECTIVE DI SKELGILL... "MAD, BAD AND JUST A LITTLE BIT COZY."ONE WEEK AFTER THE DEATH of his 93-year-old twin brother, the reclusive Declan Thomas O’More is found murdered in his study at the ancestral family estate, rambling and isolated Crummock Hall. Suspicion immediately falls upon his five great nieces and nephews, who between them stand to inherit the considerable proceeds of their grandfather’s will - along with a valuable library of antiquarian books, a collection that is Declan’s lifetime work. And yet each...

Discover your new favorite crime fiction series! A beautiful teen is killed on a glorious June afternoon, hidden in plain sight, and discovered by an anonymous caller. Did her secrets die with her? Or are they still alive - with the power to seduce and destroy the lives of a select few? DC Holly Towns is on the team that has to untangle a far-reaching web of sex, drugs, and money, and solve a crime that threatens to tear the city apart. Are the victim’s two best friends the next targets? With a suspect list of movers and shakers, even with all the hard work in the world, no one has more ...

Who is willing to fully face up to their past? A group of teenagers promise to never tell. Ten years later one of them feels compelled to reveal their closely guarded secret. DI Fiona Williams is pursuing an unusual house burglar who takes personal trinkets while leaving valuable items behind when she is asked to review a case ruled as suicide. She's reluctant to choose between the cases, but there's a second unexplained suicide and she's forced to make a harder decision between making an arrest and saving a colleague. As she digs deeper into the deaths, seemingly unrelated current events ...

STAND-ALONE MURDER MYSTERY, #6 IN THE SERIES. MEET MAVERICK BRITISH DETECTIVE DI SKELGILL... "MAD, BAD AND JUST A LITTLE BIT COZY."SUMMONED TO AN ISOLATED maximum-security hospital, DI Skelgill inadvertently catches the eye of a notorious female serial killer. Does she read his censorious thoughts? Is this the trigger that turns a routine investigation into a rollercoaster of murder, mayhem, escapes and hostage taking? And what of the establishment? Are these crises purely coincidental, or is some conspiracy afoot? Could it be blackmail, corruption, a power struggle ... or something ...

Mark Randall lay dead in a field near Lowacre long before Smith had done what he had to do in Belfast. By the time he went back to work, the investigation was well underway. "It's not my case," he says more than once, and he really doesn't need it to be; he has enough to think about as it is. But going around the Norfolk countryside dotting the i's and crossing the t's, speaking to the local farmers and the Brothers of St. Francis from Abbeyfields, Smith begins to suspect that the investigation might be heading in entirely the wrong direction.