British Police Procedural

The youth theatre cast are in their places but Gus Lynch’s female lead is missing, that is, until she’s found in the boot of his car. Detective Inspector Stephen Ramsay and Sergeant Gordon Hunter are assigned to head the murder enquiry, meanwhile violence is escalating on the Starling Farm Estate as police battle to contain the latest outbreak of joyriding. Is the death of Gabriella connected to the events at Starling Farm? When another death occurs, investigations suggest a possible link, and Ramsay realizes what could have provoked someone to kill...and kill again.

You are Dead is the 11th thrilling crime novel in Peter James' Roy Grace series, narrated by Daniel Weyman. They were marked for death. The last words Jamie Ball hears from his fiancée, Logan Somerville, are in a terrified mobile phone call. She has just driven into the underground car park beneath the block of flats where they live in Brighton. Then she screams and the phone goes dead.

Billie-Rose's bloodstained body is found in the kitchen of her ground-floor flat. She's been strangled to death, there's a deep laceration to her upper thigh, and a wooden chess-piece grasped tightly in her hand. Daubed on the wall in Billie-Rose's own blood is a strange symbol: a bishop's mitre. All Detective Jack MacIntosh can think is: He's back. Four years earlier, four young women were also strangled to death in their own homes, the same deep wound to the thigh, the same weird symbol scrawled on the wall. The work of the killer they call the Bishop. Is he back to kill again?

A hot summer on the Northumberland coast and Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son strangled, laid out in a bath of water and covered with wild flowers. This stylized murder scene has captured Inspector Vera Stanhope’s attention. And then another body is discovered in a rock pool, the corpse again strewn with flowers. Vera must work quickly to find this killer who is making art out of death. As local residents are forced to share their deepest, darkest secrets, the killer watches, waits and plans to prepare another beautiful, watery grave.

In the usually peaceful town of Eastvale, a simmering tension has now reached breaking point. An antinuclear demonstration has ended in violence, leaving one policeman stabbed to death. Fired by professional outrage, Superintendent 'Dirty Dick' Burgess descends with vengeful fury on the inhabitants of Maggie's Farm, an isolated house high on the daleside.

Driving home during a swirling blizzard, Vera Stanhope's only thought is to get there quickly. But the snow is so heavy that she becomes disorientated and loses her way. Ploughing on, she sees a car slewed off the road ahead of her. With the driver's door open, Vera assumes the driver has sought shelter, but when she inspects the car she is shocked to find a young toddler strapped in the back seat. Afraid they will freeze, Vera takes the child and drives on, arriving at Brockburn, a run-down stately home she immediately recognises as the house her father, Hector, grew up in.

Ellie White is found dead at the bottom of her own garden, propped up against a stone fountain. Detective Inspector Bethany Smith arrives at the scene of the crime still dressed in her funeral attire. Her head thick with emotion. Her colleagues think she's mad. But she wants to be there. She needs to be there. Even if what she sees makes her skin crawl. The next day another body is discovered. The victim has suffered a similar gruesome fate. Left for dead at the bottom of his garden where the creepy-crawlies can get to him.

A faceless corpse is discovered in a tranquil, hidden valley below the village of Swainshead. And when Chief Inspector Alan Banks arrives, he finds that no-one is willing to talk. Banks's frustration only grows when the identity of the body is revealed. For it seems that his latest case may be connected with an unsolved murder in the same area five years ago. Among the silent suspects are the Collier brothers, the wealthiest and most powerful family in the area.

A Dedicated Man is the second novel in Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks series, following on from Gallows View. Near the village of Helmthorpe, Swainsdale, the body of a well-liked local historian is found half-buried under a dry stone wall. Harry Steadman has been brutally murdered. But who would want to kill such a thoughtful, dedicated man? Chief Inspector Alan Banks is called in to investigate and soon discovers that disturbing secrets lie behind the apparently bucolic facade.

Susan Grey’s fiftieth birthday party promised to be a talked-about event—an over-the-top extravagant gathering of a hundred guests at her sprawling Georgian home. But it would be talked about for all the wrong reasons… From an escalated argument to the disappearance of an expensive piece of jewelry, the party was quickly spiraling out of control. But the worst was yet to come—Susan suffered a horrific fall down the grand staircase. Was it an accident, or was she pushed? For DI Grace Roth, relegated to desk duty, this could be a high-profile case and a chance to redeem herself.

Scott Jericho thought he'd worked his last case. Fresh out of jail, the disgraced former detective is forced to seek refuge with the fairground family he once rejected. Then a series of bizarre murders comes to light - deaths that echo a century-old fairground legend. The police can't connect the victims. But Jericho knows how the legend goes; that more murders are certain to follow. As Jericho unpicks the deadly mystery, a terrifying question haunts him. As a direct descendant of one of the victims in the legend, is Jericho next on the killer's list?

Nigella Parker has a deep-rooted fear of fire and a talent for solving arson cases. When a charred figure is found beside Sir Christopher Wren’s Monument to the Great Fire of London, Nigella is dragged into a case pitting her against a murderous artist creating sculptures using burnt flesh. Nigella partners with Colm O’Leary of Scotland Yard to track the arsonist. The pair are more than colleagues. But their past isn’t the only buried history as they race to connect the dots between an antique nail and a long-forgotten architect dwarfed by the life's work of Sir Christopher Wren.

She looked like she’d drifted off to sleep, curled up in her white dress, blonde hair floating in the breeze. They called it the Angel Murder. Eighteen-year-old Angelica Brock is found dead at a local beauty spot, dressed in a pure white nightgown, her white-blonde hair arranged around her. For years her death is a mystery, her killer the one who got away for a whole generation of police.

When prison inmate and former police officer John Brace says he’s willing to give up information about the location of a dead body in return for protection for his family, Vera knows that she has to look into his claims. But opening up this cold case strikes much closer to home than Vera anticipates as her investigation takes her back in time to The Seagull, a once-decadent and now-derelict nightclub where her deceased father and his friends used to congregate.

As the snow falls in Newcastle, Detective Joe Ashworth and his daughter, Jessie, travel home on the busy Metro. When the train stops unexpectedly due to bad weather, Jessie notices that one woman doesn’t leave, and when trying to wake her they find that the passenger has been fatally stabbed. With no witnesses DI Vera Stanhope looks into the victim’s past and discovers she lived for years on Harbour Street, in a run-down Northumberland fishing town.

Doc Powers is one case away from a complete breakdown. Grief-stricken over the death of his wife, his reliance on booze and drugs fills his life with startling hallucinations. As he battles his demons, his efforts to stay coherent fail to keep a cunning psychopath behind bars. With a bloody trail of death spreading, Doc fears both he and his colleague are next on the killer's hit list.

Life seems perfect in Valley Farm, a quiet community in Northumberland. Then a shocking discovery shatters the silence. The owners of a big country house have employed a house-sitter, a young ecologist named Patrick, to look after the place while they’re away. But Patrick is found dead by the side of the lane into the valley - a beautiful, lonely place to die.

DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but her hippy neighbours keep her well-supplied in homebrew and conversation so she has more tolerance for them than most. When one of them goes missing she feels duty-bound to find out what happened. But her path leads her to more than a missing friend... It's an easy job to track the young woman down to the Writer's House, a country retreat where aspiring authors gather to workshop and work through their novels. It gets complicated when a body is discovered and Vera's neighbour is found with a knife in her hand.

It was just an ordinary Wednesday lunchtime when Detective Martha Munro's life changed forever. Her sergeant is speaking, but she barely hears what he's telling her. Your mother has been shot dead. Your four-year-old daughter has been taken. There are no leads. Who would want to hurt her family? Martha realizes it's time to ask herself some hard questions about her late father. He led the anti-corruption squad at Scotland Yard. It's rumored he kept a list of everyone who worked for him, from coppers to criminals. And just being on the list was a sure-fire way to lower your life expectancy.

When human remains are discovered under Bradford’s derelict Odeon car park, DS Nikita Parekh and her team are immediately called to the scene. Distracted by keeping her young nephew out of trouble, Nikki is relieved when the investigation is transferred to the Cold Case Unit, and she can finally focus on her family. But after the identity of the victim is revealed, she’s soon drawn back into the case. The dead man is a direct link to her painful past. As the body count begins to rise, Nikki must do everything she can to stop the killer in their tracks before anyone else gets hurt.