British Detective

Alan Woolsham was at the top of his game. He was an acclaimed television star in England and had come to New York to film four special TV shows dealing with British antiques. The shows were to be taped at the Whitney Museum, and Alan hoped to open up a whole new viewing audience for his wildly successful show. But things didn’t go as planned. Murder does have a way of changing things. So much for stardom in the States. Marty and her husband, Jeff, were in New York City for what the hype promised to be a television and museum extravaganza about British antiques. Marty, an art and antique ...

Book 2 in the Batterton Police Series. Jensen Bartholomew is Zooming with his brother, Cedric, when the door behind Cedric opens and a figure enters covered head to foot in a black gown and wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. As Jensen watches, the figure wraps something around Cedric’s neck and pulls it tight. Cedric struggles to free himself and his feet stamp a furious tattoo on the worn lino beneath them, but the figure does not relent. Cedric sinks out of sight. The figure leans in close to the screen and points through it at Jensen. In a deep and gravelly voice, it says, ‘You’re next.’...

If there was one piece of advice Olive Crisp always followed, it was that “one should never attempt to solve a crime on an empty stomach..." 1970s. Cambridge, England. A SMALL-TIME ART HEIST: When two separate robberies take place at the Fitzwilliam Museum simultaneously, while Olive and Hugo are visiting the galleries, they set about investigating who could have committed the crimes. A COSY COMMUNITY: Meanwhile, Blythe faces a romantic dilemma when she's forced to decide between the two conflicting sides of her heart: being a bookshop owner or becoming a wife. And Olive has to confront ...

Ruth Galloway receives a phone call that bears shocking news. A friend of hers from college, Dan Golding, has been killed in a fire at his Lancashire home. Her shock turns to alarm when she gets a letter from Dan. He has made a discovery that will change archaeology forever but he needs Ruth's advice. Even more alarming, he sounds vulnerable and frightened. DCI Harry Nelson is also rediscovering his past. Up north for a holiday, he meets his former colleague Sandy MacLeod, now at Blackpool CID.

How would you cope if someone who despised you was in control of your well-being? Suppose that person was about to oversee all the essential parts of your life, money included. Will a twisted conscience allow you to do whatever is needed to stop the inevitable? Chloe lives a deceitful life. Every personality she has ever portrayed has led her to betrayal. The daughter, the friend, the carer, and the thief. Where will her skills of deception take her next? Certain that she’s doing the right thing, DI Heather allows herself to be controlled by her emotions. A seed of doubt appears when she ...

World War II has finally come home to Britain, but it takes more than nightly air raids to rattle intrepid spy and expert code breaker Maggie Hope. After serving as a secret agent to protect Princess Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, Maggie is now an elite member of the Special Operations Executive–a black ops organization designed to aid the British effort abroad–and her first assignment sends her straight into Nazi-controlled Berlin, the very heart of the German war machine. Relying on her quick wit and keen instincts, Maggie infiltrates the highest level of Berlin society, gathering information to pass on to London headquarters. But the secrets she unveils will expose a darker, more dangerous side of the war–and of her own past.

What promises to be a tranquil evening in the early years of Holmes and Watson’s time at Baker Street is interrupted via a letter sent by a curator at the British Museum, who rather imperiously demands Holmes appear before him that night in the museum’s archives, and lend aid to what he describes as a threat to his honour, and perhaps his very life. Plunging out into the intemperate night, Watson joins Holmes as he enters into the vast after-hours reaches of the world’s largest museum, and there, in the darkness, meets a man whose secret past stands in contrast to the circumstances of...

DS Kat Ballantyne came to the crime-writing festival for an escape. Instead she’s walked straight into a murder scene. Moments before he’s due on stage, a famous novelist is found dead in a locked room. It looks like natural causes, but Kat sees tiny clues that suggest murder. As she investigates, she uncovers literary rivalries, personal vendettas and hidden agendas. Is there anyone who didn’t have a motive to murder Mark Swift?

When the body of a renowned archaeologist is discovered deep within the haunting caverns of Wookey Hole, a rusted trowel lodged in her throat, the echoes of ancient history awaken a modern-day murder mystery. DI Harriet "Harry" Lambert and DS Tom Reed return in this gripping sequel to The Taunton Tension, drawn into a web of academic rivalries, buried secrets, and dangerous obsessions. What begins as a tragic death soon unearths something far older—and far deadlier. A lost Saxon sword, a hidden chamber, and a cryptic warning suggest the past is not as silent as it seems. As the ...

Everyone who knew him seemed to like Charles Culverhouse. But when Detective Chief Inspector James Thaw and Detective Sergeant Kevin Friday begin to investigate his death they soon learn that everyone close to him had a motive to kill him. Not even the cause of death could be easily determined, and as the two detectives dig further into the case the more they see that nothing is as it seems. With a list of suspects, none of whom have an alibi, the case takes one unexpected turn after another. Leading to a shocking conclusion that no one could have predicted,. No one, that is, except ...

Guy Fawkes Night, fireworks light up the sky—but something far more sinister unfolds below. A neighbour vanishes into a backyard shed and never comes out alive. Three children are seen acting strangely on the harbour. By morning, a body is found on the shore: Harry Mansfield, a known troublemaker with a long list of enemies. Detective Nick Lewis is called in to investigate. But every step into Harry’s past leads to more shadows—seedy bars, shady alibis, and people with secrets they’d kill to keep. Then, a key witness turns up dead. Now, what began as a routine investigation becomes ...

The best-kept secrets are the deadliest. When a private boarding school pupil drowns in a lake on the grounds, DI Fiona Williams is called in to investigate. Security around the school grounds is tight, making it a closed community. Fiona thinks the death was due to a secret society initiation rite that went wrong, but the school denies the societies exist, and her investigation hits a wall of silence. A second pupil dies, but the silence continues. The school is concerned with its reputation and upholding traditions, the influential parents care only about protecting their children, and ...

'This book was epic. I enjoyed it from the first page till the end!' - Bookbub reader Man-eating soap star Melody Montague is divorcing her first husband, fellow actor Patrick Hunt, but there's a problem. Melody's copy of the pre-nuptial agreement has been lost, an oversight that stands to cost the actress several million pounds. Charged with sorting out the unholy mess are ex-barrister turned private eye Maggie Bainbridge and her faithful assistant Jimmy Stewart. So far, so perfectly routine. But the players start to die, and each time, the killer leaves his deadly calling card. A severed ...

Smoke hides many truths … and many sins … After a case of industrial espionage leads to a manic pursuit gone fatally wrong, private investigator Thomas Blume is forced to face the agonizing pain of his role in a seemingly innocent bystander’s death. But when the victim’s wife shows up the next day suggesting a mysterious deeper conspiracy with much more going on beneath the surface, Blume is drawn into a case involving dangerous organized criminals, a seedy London underworld, and gangsters with nothing to lose. Now, with police closing in and a mob boss hunting him, can Blume ...

Two fourteen-year-old girls go missing from an exclusive boarding school. Did they abscond, or have they been kidnapped? The girls’ parents - and indeed the parents of many other pupils – have considerable influence in very high places. Pressure is quickly brought to bear to get Scotland Yard involved. Concern for the girls’ safety is paramount. Detective Chief Inspector Adair and three of his officers are assigned to help the local police. Initially there is little to go on, but Adair soon determines that the children didn’t leave voluntarily. The first step – to ascertain how ...

Two more cases for Philip Bryce 1. In the City of London, a well-respected barrister is murdered in his chambers.The City Police ask for the help of Scotland Yard, and Detective Chief Superintendent Bryce investigates. 2. The Board of a large pharmaceutical company is meeting. One of the directors dies suddenly. The cause is clearly cyanide poisoning. But was it self-administered, or could it be murder? The local police inspector believes it was a case of suicide, but when he is taken seriously ill and admitted to hospital, and his sergeant almost simultaneously has a mental breakdown, ...

For an instant the two trains ran together, side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth witnessed a murder. Helplessly, she stared out of her carriage window as a man remorselessly tightened his grip around a woman's throat. The body crumpled. Then the other train drew away. But who, apart from Miss Marple, would take her story seriously? After all, there were no suspects, no other witnesses...and no corpse. This title was previously published as What Mrs. McGrillicuddy Saw!

The most original crime novel in years - British ‘Golden Age’ sleuth meets American hard-boiled crime! It’s the summer of 1920: Kit Aston travels to San Francisco for his cousin’s marriage to the mysterious Dain Collins. When a private investigator tailing Dain Collins is killed, Kit Aston, his fiancée Mary and Aunt Agatha team up with Pinkerton detective, Dashiell Hammett, in a case involving murder, kidnap and the theft of a certain legendary bird from Malta. The latest Kit Aston mystery is a delightful reimagining of some of Dashiell Hammett’s greatest novels: the Maltese ...

Dr Chandrix isn’t a typical blackmailer. He’s tricky, devious, artful, and he isn’t interested in money. What he craves is knowledge and power, and he knows exactly how to get them. When Special Branch Police skilfully trap him, justice seems certain. That is until their agent disappears. The case now in ruins, they recruit a reluctant Dutch psychologist spotted in Brighton. It now falls on Dr Straay to confront this man, an old enemy, and find a way to stop him before someone else disappears…

If there’s one thing detective Bath Peter Diamond has no patience for, it’s a dumb git trying to get involved in one of his investigations - for example, a Philip Marlowe-wannabe private investigator like the self-styled Johnny Getz. But fate has saddled Diamond with this trial. A Bath antiques dealer, “Seppy” Hubbard, has disappeared without a trace, and his daughter has hired Getz to find him. When a body is discovered in Seppy’s locked-up store, the missing persons case becomes a murder investigation, and now Diamond has to collaborate with the insufferable private eye.