British Crime Mystery

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...

When a body is discovered floating in a Thames river lock one dreary morning, Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James are summoned from Scotland Yard to Chiltern Hills. The dead man is Connor Swann, son-in-law of two of London's most renowned opera personalities. And prints on the corpse's neck suggest that Swann was strangled.

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 ...

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.

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.

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?

“M.G. Cole is a brilliant new addition to the echelon of British crimewriters.” Peter James "Dark, grim, tense. A compelling new voice." PAUL FINCH, author of the Detective Mark Heckenburg novels. REVENGE IS ONLY HALF THE STORY An unreported missing person. A crime that lurks undetected. A temptation that corrupts the incorruptible. Only when a corpse is uncovered are these dark secrets revealed. But the dead can’t speak. They can’t accuse. And they certainly don’t pay their debts. It’s up to DCI David Garrick’s investigation team to connect the dots and unearth a most ...

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.

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.

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.

A young woman is dumped, injured and unconscious, in a private hospital's parking lot. She is an amnesiac with no memory prior to her discovery by hospital personnel. Detective Inspector Peter Diamond of the Bath homicide squad is unwilling to become involved. He has other, more important cases to solve: a woman has plunged to her death from the roof of a local landmark while half the young people of Bath partied below, and an elderly farmer has shot himself.

STAND-ALONE MURDER MYSTERY, #12 IN THE SERIES. MEET MAVERICK BRITISH DETECTIVE DI SKELGILL... "MAD, BAD AND JUST A LITTLE BIT COZY."WHEN DI SKELGILL TAKES under his wing a talented fell-runner – his underprivileged cousin, Jess – little does he realise in what jeopardy he places her. For Cumbria is being targeted by the infamous ‘county lines’ drug gangs. As turf wars break out, Jess inadvertently finds herself in the crossfire – but family ties blind her to the danger of her association with Skelgill. As the body count increases, Skelgill finally recognises the threat to his ...

A solstice sunrise reveals a mysterious death at Cotswold’s standing stones. Can a rural police officer illuminate the truth before darkness falls?Passionate and hard-working community cop and café owner, Sergeant Keya Varma, serves up lattes and law in equal measure. Yet her dedication to her dual duties is tested when a festive midsummer gathering turns deadly at an ancient ring of stones. Aided by her fellow officers, this dedicated detective delves into the puzzling demise of a vibrant young woman. With no apparent cause of death and the community united in grief, Keya wonders if the...

A rare stamp and a corpse are discovered in Bath within hours of each other. As he investigates, Inspector Peter Diamond discovers that both the person who found the stamp and the victim belong to the Bloodhounds, an elite group of mystery lovers, who now urge Diamond to bring the murderer to justice. But there's a hitch: the body lies inside a padlocked houseboat and the only key is in the pocket of a man with an airtight alibi.

When Scotland Yard superintendent Duncan Kincaid takes Gemma, Kit, and Toby for a holiday visit to his family in Cheshire, Gemma is soon entranced with Nantwich's pretty buildings and the historic winding canal, and young Kit is instantly smitten with his cousin Lally. But their visit is marred by family tensions exacerbated by the unraveling of Duncan's sister Juliet's marriage. And tensions are brought to the breaking point on Christmas Eve with Juliet's discovery of a mummified infant's body interred in the wall of an old dairy barn.

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.

The Hangman's third victim twists in the wind outside Inspector Hilary Casgrain’s new home. It's not the ‘Welcome To Elk Ridge’ message she was expecting. Hilary Casgrain just moved halfway across the country for a fresh start. She’s desperate to trade the shootings, corruption, and gangs of the city for small-town law enforcement. And she’s convinced that a steady diet of nothing more serious than drunken tourists and fender benders is just what she needs to get her life back on track. But a serial killer spoils Hilary’s dreams of a low-key career change. Her arrival in Elk ...

The past can hurt you… Jude has lived her life under an assumed name, and a shadow. Her father was the Butcher of Bricknell, her mother potentially complicit in his crimes. Now she has her mother’s diaries and answers are finally within her grasp. Her search for information brings her back to the Butcher’s home town and to a local book club for true crime fanatics. Soon though, the past and present collide as a member of the club is found dead. Days later the group receives an email from their dead friend, which appears to describe a murder. One which has yet to occur. With Jude as ...

STAND-ALONE MURDER MYSTERY, #4 IN THE SERIES. MEET MAVERICK BRITISH DETECTIVE DI SKELGILL... "MAD, BAD AND JUST A LITTLE BIT COZY."BY THE TIME Detective Inspector Skelgill becomes the tenth person to be stranded on secluded Grisholm (Pigs’ Isle in Old Norse) where a writers’ retreat is taking place, one of the assembled literati is already dead. Though natural causes may provide the explanation, a second ‘accidental’ death and a raft of curious experiences convince Skelgill that a cold and calculating killer is at large. But where is his evidence? Set around Derwentwater in the ...

As changes loom at Bexford police station, Detective Sergeant Guy Poole seeks a distraction and finds it in the camaraderie of a village pub team. But when one of his new friends is murdered, Poole quickly realizes that he and his new partner must learn to work together seamlessly, or risk letting the killer slip through their fingers. “This final book of the series is one of the best. It’s packed with action and has so many characters that it’s a challenge to figure out who the murderer is. I thoroughly enjoyed this series and highly recommend it to everyone.”