Crime Thrillers Police Procedural

Chief Inspector Van Veeteren knew that murder cases were never as open-and-shut as this one: Janek Mitter woke one morning with a brutal hangover and discovered his wife of three months lying facedown in the bathtub, dead. With only the flimsiest excuse as his defense, he is found guilty of a drunken crime of passion and imprisoned in a mental institution.

There are places in this world where you can enter, but never leave... After witnessing and helping to solve many cases with FBI agent Emma Griffin, PI Dean Steele should get an honorary FBI badge as a reward. With Fall and its festivities rapidly approaching, Dean gets an urgent call. Four years ago, in the quiet town of Harper, three teens were murdered against the backdrop of Halloween. Their body parts were found in the most bewildering way. The body count has now risen and there are still no answers. When the family of the first victim hires Dean to get to the bottom of it, he is ...

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours. Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret.

The Inspector Banks novel In a Dry Season was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and won an Anthony Award. Cold Is the Grave won the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award. It takes the aging, solitary inspector from his cozy Yorkshire cottage into the dark underworld of London. The assignment is a favor asked by Banks' boss and greatest enemy: Chief Constable Riddle.

FBI special agent Mercy Kilpatrick has been waiting her whole life for disaster to strike. A prepper since childhood, Mercy grew up living off the land — and off the grid — in rural Eagle’s Nest, Oregon. Until a shocking tragedy tore her family apart and forced her to leave home. Now a predator known as the cave man is targeting the survivalists in her hometown, murdering them in their homes, stealing huge numbers of weapons, and creating federal suspicion of a possible domestic terrorism event.

In the wake of an earthquake, the water level of an Icelandic lake drops suddenly, revealing the skeleton of a man half-buried in its sandy bed. It is clear immediately that it has been there for many years. There is a large hole in the skull. Yet more mysteriously, a heavy communication device is attached to it, possibly some sort of radio transmitter, bearing inscriptions in Russian. The police are called in and Erlendur, Elinborg, and Sigurdur Olii begin their investigation, which gradually leads them back to the time of the Cold War when bright, left-wing students would be sent from Iceland to study in the "heavenly state" of communist East Germany.

Delia Williamson, a waitress and mother of two young girls, is reported missing. She is soon found in a public park, hanging from the crossbar of a children's swing set. The postmortem reveals that she has been murdered. Her current partner, her ex-husband, and a traveling salesman who frequented her restaurant are all suspects. Before Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond can solve the mystery, more will die. But even as he pursues a killer, he finds himself pursued by a secret admirer.

Some call him friend or boss. Some call him husband or dad. Some call him son, even a favorite son. But the only title that matters to him is the one the media has given him: the Poet. A name he earned from the written words he leaves behind after he kills that are as dark and mysterious as the reason he chooses his victims. One word, two, three, a story in a poem, a secret that only Detective Samantha Jazz can solve. Because, he’s writing this story for her.

When fire crews are called to a blaze at the home of a Kilwinnoch GP they make a grisly discovery: the charred remains of the doctor and his entire family. But is this a tragic accident or an horrific, calculated murder? DCI Duncan Bone's worst fears are confirmed when a cryptic message is found at the scene hinting at a grudge against the medical profession.

Sheriff Jericho Flynn's life in the Outer Banks of North Carolina is shattered following the mysterious death of his wife. A broken man, Jericho is forced to emerge from the depths of his despair when his only son is suddenly accused of an unspeakable crime. Murder. With his son shrouded beneath a cloud of suspicion, Jericho finds himself deeply immersed in the investigation and connects the murder with the recent disappearance of a child.

In Leon's fifth Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery, the beating of renowned art historian Dotoressa Brett Lynch draws the contemporary Venetian police detective out of his warm and loving home and into the yearly onslaught of acqua alta, the torrential winter rains. Brett, an American who spearheaded a recent exhibition of Chinese pottery in Venice, lives with her lover, Flavia Petrelli, the reigning diva of La Scala. With his open mind and good sense, Brunetti finds himself more fazed by Flavia's breathtaking talent than by the nontraditional relationship between the two women. Brunetti's deliberate and humane investigation to uncover a motive for Brett's beating takes him to dark, wet corners of Venice and into a sinister web of art theft, fakery, and base human desires.

Readers of Robert Dugoni, Kendra Elliot, and Ann Cleeves will be captivated by Kay Jennings’ sensational 7th installment in the Port Stirling Mystery series. A body hanging from a rafter. An estranged husband bent on revenge. Police Chief Matt Horning and State Department Special Agent Fern Byrne return in a thrilling tale of international intrigue that begins with a heartbreaking death on a mysterious island in the Pacific Ocean, and ends up on powerful desks in Washington, D.C. West Coast billionaire Rohn Reid calls his old friend, the U.S. Secretary of State, to tell him he’s just ...

After a long week lobbying on Capitol Hill, all Karina Cardinal wants to do is chill with Netflix and her boyfriend, Patrick Dunne. Instead, she's slipping her aching feet into red stilettos for his parent's annual holiday bash. When she accidentally interrupts Patrick's father in his study, her embarrassment is tempered by suspicion that Martin Dunne and his dapper, secretive guest are hiding something. Maybe the painting she barely glimpses right before it disappears behind a secret panel.

In the heart of Scotland's whisky country, a killer lurks amongst the casks. When renowned distillery guide Hamish Durie drops down dead during a whisky tasting, seemingly poisoned by his family's own liquid gold, DCI Bone is thrust into a world where tradition and treachery collide. Peeling back the layers of deception, Bone uncovers a toxic blend of deep rooted family feuds, corporate back-stabbings, and a sinister connection to Glasgow's underworld kingpin, Frankie Feelan.

Capitaine Roger Blanc, an investigator with the anticorruption unit of the French Gendarmerie, was a bit too successful in his investigations. He finds himself removed from Paris to the South of France, far away from political power. Or so it would seem. The stress is too much for his marriage, and he attempts to manage the breakup while trying to settle into his new life in Provence in a 200-year-old half-ruined house. At the same time, Blanc is tasked with his first murder case.

Longtime defense attorney Mickey Haller is recruited to change stripes and prosecute the high-profile retrial of a brutal child murder. After 24 years in prison, convicted killer Jason Jessup has been exonerated by new DNA evidence. Haller is convinced Jessup is guilty, and he takes the case on the condition that he gets to choose his investigator, LAPD Detective Harry Bosch.

Detective Hannah Shor is desperate to prove her worth to her superiors - and herself. When a middle-aged man is found stabbed to death in his apartment, she might just get her chance. But then she finds that the deceased was a vile Internet troll, sexually harassing women on Twitter. Hannah starts wondering if she really wants to catch his killer.

Thinking that she has been summoned by German immigrant Agnes Otto to usher a new life into the world, midwife Sarah Brandt is greeted by the news of an untimely death instead. It seems that Agnes' beautiful younger sister, Gerda, had fallen into the life of a "charity girl". Caught up in the false glamour of the city's nightlife, she would trade her company and her favors for lavish gifts. And now she was dead - victim, no doubt, of one of her "gentlemen friends".

When the putrid smell oozing out of an old mine shaft in the Cambrian hills’ ‘green desert’ of Wales turns out to be a corpse, DCI Evan Warlow and his team quickly slip into gear. But this is no pot-holing adventure gone wrong. Soon, Evan and the team are hunting for another missing person and discovering ghosts from the past that no one wants to confront. With the team stretched and confronting their own demons, DCI Warlow has his work cut out in unravelling a web of manipulation and lies.

WHEN THE PAST CALLS… RUN FOR YOUR LIFE… Praise for the series: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Holy crap what a way to end a book! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Couldn’t put it down! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ If you want to get in at the beginning of a good series, this is the one! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I can't wait to read the next in the series ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A refreshing change. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Will keep you guessing till the last pages and thinking after the ink is dry! "Dark, grim, tense. A compelling new voice." - PAUL FINCH, author of the Detective Mark Heckenburg novels. A drowned woman… A stately home… A family ...