Crime Fiction Detective

"Rarely have I read descriptions that have left me gasping, in both their hilarity and their painful truth. A wonderful read." ―Louise Penny recommending G.M. Malliet's novel WICKED AUTUMN "Nobody notices a bartender." So thinks the protagonist of this original short story by award-winning author G.M. Malliet. On overhearing a conversation one evening, the bartender of the title is inspired to try his hand at a copycat crime. He realizes his ordinary appearance and ability to blend in might help him evade detection, and in the days before security cameras were installed on nearly every ...

It’s hiking season in Black Rock Falls, and the small town in Montana is flooded with visitors. But when a hiker finds a human skull on a deserted trail in the woods that surround the town, Detective Jenna Alton is called in to investigate. With no missing persons reported, Jenna has no leads. Then her team makes a shocking discovery - the body of another hiker, a young man, tied to a tree and riddled with bullets. Could the two murders be linked? As more bodies are found, Jenna and her deputy David Kane know that they must venture deep into the forest to find and face the killer.

Jason Brazel is an out-of-work journalist who lives in Penrith with his family and mother-in-law, Amita. She knows everyone and everything that’s going on in this corner of the Lakes. So when it’s discovered that Madeline Forbisher, one of Amita’s fellow regulars at the bingo club has died, found by the postman outside her crumbling country home close to Ullswater Lake, she senses immediately this is no accident. The trouble is, no one else seems to take her suspicions seriously. That is, until she enlists the help of her friends at the Penrith Bingo Club.

Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He suspected, also, that someone had been blackmailing her. Then, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life with a drug overdose. But the evening post brought Roger one last fatal scrap of information. Unfortunately, before he could finish reading the letter, he was stabbed to death.

Adrienne is looking forward to a nice, relaxing cruise—especially when she hears that this time, the theme is beauty and pampering. Unfortunately, “beauty and pampering” means something different for the cruise passengers! When one of the passengers is killed by a lethal beauty injection, it's up to Addy and the gang to uncover the truth of whose flawless face doesn’t match the ugliness within. This time around, the investigation is aided by the Swan of the Seas’ new captain, Jonathan Ellman, who seems vaguely familiar to Adrienne and the others… Praise for A.R. Winters: "The ...

During a walk on the beach, Lea’s adventurous canines find a body under the pier. The discovery ignites her inner sleuth. Ignoring police warnings about interference, she convinces her sister to start their own investigation of the brutal murder. They learn of several possible motives, but which of the victim’s acts resulted in his tragic demise? An affair with a married woman; Mistreatment of peers in his relentless pursuit of success; or Unsavory dealings with corrupt individuals. Can the sisters solve the mystery before they get in trouble with the police, or worse…. Will they put ...

Isobel's move to Hong Kong was meant to be the opportunity of a lifetime. But when she unwittingly witnesses a brutal murder, she becomes entangled in a sinister web of corruption that threatens to consume her. Isolated, vulnerable, and far from home, her only hope lies with two unlikely allies. Enter Leo and Allissa, fresh from their triumph in Kathmandu. These intrepid detectives are thrust into a pulse-pounding race against time to get Isobel out of the city before she becomes the next victim.

Bound by blood but divided by troubles as old as Cain and Abel, Moses Reed and Aaron Fox were first introduced in Kellerman’s bestselling Bones. They are sons of the same strong-willed mother, and their respective fathers were cops, partners, and friends. Their turbulent family history has set them at odds, despite their shared calling. Moses—part Boy Scout, part bulldog, man of few words—is a no-frills LAPD detective.

In August 1949, Detective Chief Inspector Bryce and his new bride Veronica are holidaying in the East Anglian resort of Felixstowe. During afternoon tea in the Palm Court of their hotel, a man dies at a nearby table. He has been poisoned. Reluctant to get directly involved, Bryce nevertheless agrees to help the inexperienced local police inspector get to grips with his first murder case, turning his honeymoon into a ‘busman’s holiday’.

When a body is found on a lonely cliff top path, the angelic face of a murdered teenager lies facing the rising sun. Strangled by the hands of an unknown killer, it falls to DI Tom Janssen and his fledgling team to find out how she came to be there. Destined for a career in medicine, one to rival that of her parents, Holly Bettany’s future was as bright as it had been privileged. Seemingly, all that could threaten this promising teenager’s life was Holly herself.

According to the courts, Jacko Argyle bludgeoned his mother to death with a poker. The sentence was life imprisonment. But when Dr. Arthur Calgary arrives with the proof that confirms Jacko's innocence, it is too late - Jacko died behind bars followinga bout of pneumonia. Worse still, the doctor's revelations reopen old wounds in the family, increasing the likelihood that the real murderer will strike again.

Police officer Sebastian Clifford never planned on becoming a private investigator. But when a scandal leads to the disbandment of his London based special squad, he finds himself out of a job. That is, until his cousin calls on him to investigate her husband’s high-profile death, and prove that it wasn’t a suicide. Clifford’s reluctant to get involved, but the more he digs, the more evidence he finds. With his ability to remember everything he's ever seen, he's the perfect person to untangle the layers of deceit.

Luke Fitzwilliam does not believe Miss Pinkerton's wild allegation that a multiple murderer is at work in the quiet English village of Wychwood and that her local doctor is next in line. But within hours, Miss Pinkerton has been killed in a hit-and-run car accident. Mere coincidence? Luke is inclined to think so - until he reads in the Times of the unexpected demise of Wychwood's Dr. Humbleby....

When London’s finest jazz musicians, the Dizzy Heights, are booked to play the glitzy Midsummer Ball at a country house in Oxfordshire, they expect a weekend filled with flappers and toffs having a roaring good time. But the festivities at Bilverton House take a turn for the worse when the group are stranded by a summer storm. And when a member of the Bilverton family turns up dead in a locked room in an apparent suicide, Skins, Dunn and Ellie realize this is going to be a much tougher gig than they thought.

Just two weeks to go before the Cherringham Charity Christmas Concert. Choir rehearsals are in full swing. Then the worst thing happens: Kirsty Kimball, one of the singers, is found dead from a severe allergic reaction to one of the home-made rehearsal cakes. Jack is pulled in to help bolster the depleted choir - and soon he's convinced that Kirsty's death was no accident. Sarah agrees, and the two of them are soon immersed in the jealousies, rivalries, and passions of Cherringham's Rotary Club choir.

Set in the wilds of Maine, this is an explosive tale of an estranged son thrust into the hunt for a murderous fugitive - his own father. Game warden Mike Bowditch returns home one evening to find an alarming voice from the past on his answering machine: his father, Jack, a hard-drinking womanizer who makes his living poaching illegal game. An even more frightening call comes the next morning from the police: They are searching for the man who killed a beloved local cop the night before - and his father is their prime suspect.

A newcomer to Nashville with a troublesome problem requests an emergency meeting with private detective Cooper "Coop" Harrington. When she fails to keep her appointment, Coop and Annabelle, his friend and assistant, become worried and go in search of their new client. Their hopes for a quiet Sunday are dashed when they discover her dead body.

A Cupcakes-And-Crime Caper Roger Owen’s business isn’t doing well, and when he takes his wife and son to glitzy, glamorous Las Vegas for some quality family vacation time, he brings along a surprising +1: his mistress! "Winters will have you giggling into your book!" Life seems to pick up for Roger when he wins a huge jackpot… until someone gleefully kills him on the casino floor. Caught in the hot seat as suspect number one, Roger’s wife Wendy hires Tiffany and Ian to clear her name and to solve the mystery of who really killed Roger Owen—even though it may very well be black ...

Come along as two legends of the Victorian era meet, in The Adventure of the Artful Dodger! As newlywed-to-be Dr. John Watson counts down the remaining fortnight until his wedding to Miss Mary Morstan, Baker Street plays host to a man Holmes admiringly dubs “criminal royalty,” the one-time Artful Dodger, himself. Now well-beyond his long-ago past as a master pickpocket, and known simply as Jack Dawkins, the Dodger comes bearing a warning that a new danger has arisen to the youth of the East End, as the most insidious leader of a gang of child thieves since Fagin himself has taken to ...

Baghdad is holding a secret superpower summit, but the word is out, and an underground organization in the Middle East is plotting to sabotage the talks. Into this explosive situation appears Victoria Jones, a young woman with a yearning for adventure who gets more than she bargains for when a wounded spy dies in her hotel room. The only man who can save the summit is dead. Can Victoria make sense of his dying words? "Lucifer...Basrah...Lefarge."