International Police Procedurals

A man falls to his death in Western Scotland. From a distance another man watches. He approaches the body, tucks a book into the dead man's pocket, and leaves. When the Scottish police show visiting detective chief inspector Domenic Jejeune the book, he recognises it as a call for help. Back in Saltmarsh the brutal murder of a researcher has everyone looking at the man's controversial studies as a motive.

The discovery of a corpse washed up on a beach in an Icelandic backwater sparks a series of events that propels the village of Hvalvik's police sergeant Gunnhildur into deep waters. Although under pressure to deal with the matter quickly, she is suspicious that the man's death was no accident and once she has identified the body, sets about investigating his final hours. The case takes Gunnhildur away from her village and into a cosmopolitan world of shady deals, government corruption and violence.

When a troubled teenager disappears from an orphanage and is found murdered, her body arranged on a bed of feathers, veteran investigator Holger Munch and his team are called into the case. Star investigator Mia Kruger, on temporary leave while she continues to struggle with her own demons, jumps back on the team and dives headfirst into this case - just in time to decode the clues in a disturbing video of the victim before she was killed, being held prisoner like an animal in a cage.

young woman is murdered in her Oslo flat. One finger has been severed from her left hand, and behind her eyelid is secreted a tiny red diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star – a pentagram, the devil’s star. Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case with his long-time adversary Tom Waaler and initially wants no part in it. But Harry is already on notice to quit the force and is left with little alternative but to drag himself out of his alcoholic stupor and get to work. A wave of similar murders is on the horizon. An emerging pattern suggests that Oslo has a serial killer on its hands....

As the chief of police in Paris's seventh arrondissement, Commissaire Adamsberg has no jurisdiction in Ordebec. Yet, he cannot ignore a widow's plea. Her daughter Lina has seen a vision of the Ghost Riders with four nefarious men. According to the 1000-year-old legend, the vision means that the men will soon die a grisly death. When one of them disappears, Adamsberg races to Ordebec, where he becomes entranced by the gorgeous Lina - and embroiled in the small Normandy town's ancient feud.

When the Cayman Islands police investigate a burglary, Constable Nora Sommer recognizes the victim from a past she's desperate to forget. As thefts continue, consuming the department's focus and resources, Nora can't shake her newfound knowledge—a guilty man living a happy life…behind a lie. A missing girl adds further strain, and with little evidence in either case, Nora develops an improbable theory she's determined to prove. How far will Nora go to right the wrong one man will do anything to hide?

Sonchai Jitpleecheep - John Burdett’s inimitable Royal Thai Police detective with the hard-bitten demeanor and the Buddhist soul - is summoned to the most shocking and intriguing crime scene of his career. Solving the murder could mean a promotion, but Sonchai, reeling from a personal tragedy, is more interested in Tietsin, an exiled Tibetan lama based in Kathmandu who has become his guru.

Kraken is enjoying life as a family man, content to spend his days with Alba and their young daughter, Deba. But there's no rest for the weary, especially when you're the most famous investigator in Vitoria. Kraken and Esti are charged with investigating the mysterious disappearance of two sisters and finding it hard to make any headway when a wealthy businessman's murder appears to shine a light on the case. The man was poisoned with a medieval aphrodisiac - a crime that has eerie similarities to one detailed in the novel everyone in Vitoria is buzzing about.

On a gloomy morning in Vigàta, a call from Fazio rouses Inspector Montalbano from a nightmare. A man called Giugiù Nicotra has been found dead in the skeletal workings of a construction site, a place now entombed by a sea of mud from recent days of rain and floods. Shot in the back, he had fled into a water supply system tunnel. The investigation gets off to a slow start, but all the evidence points to the world of construction and public contracts, a world just as slimy and impenetrable as mud.

A female vicar named Sarah Hussain is discovered strangled in her Kingsmarkham vicarage. Maxine, the gossipy cleaning woman who finds the body, happens to also be in the employ of former Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford and his wife. When called on by his old deputy, Wexford, who has taken to reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as a retirement project, leaps at the chance to tag along with the investigators. Wexford is intrigued by the unusual circumstances of the murder, but he's also desperate to escape the chatty Maxine.

With two street gangs on the brink of war, Detective Michael Kelly must solve a murder before the entire town goes up in flames. Boston Homicide Detective Michael Kelly just took his latest case. It seemed simple enough: A convenience store clerk gunned down in cold blood. There’s just one catch...the store was under the protection of the Irish mob. Now the city is a powder-keg, and Kelly must solve the murders before it explodes in further bloodshed. Brian Shea has served as both a military officer and law enforcement Detective.

The Terrorists is the last Martin Beck mystery, finished just a few weeks before Per Wahlöö’s death. The book is, in effect, a marvelous summing up of the series. The story centers on the visit of an American senator to Stockholm. Martin Beck tries to protect him from an international gang of terrorists, while they decide that Beck too should be removed from the scene.

It's clearly no ordinary drowning. When a young girl is pulled from the watery depths, a piece of concrete tied around her waist and two mysterious circular patches on the back of her neck, Detective Louise Rick is immediately called out to Holbaek Fjord. Her name was Samra, and when the police learn that she was a member of Holbaek's sizeable Muslim immigrant community, they immediately assume it was an honor killing. Yet her mother insists Samra had done nothing dishonorable.

When a body turns up on a high-speed train passing through France, Germany, and Italy - clearly the work of a serial killer - authorities wonder: Whose jurisdiction is it? FBI Special Agent Adele Sharp - triple agent of the US, France, and Germany - is called in as the only one capable of maneuvering the layers of authority and of tapping her brilliant mind to stop the killer. But as more victims turn up - on other trains, in other countries - the case grows increasingly complex.

Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune hopes an overseas birding trip will hold some clues to solving his fugitive brother’s manslaughter case. Meanwhile, his longtime nemesis Laraby has been drafted in as cover to investigate an accountant’s murder. With the manslaughter case poised to claim another victim, Jejeune learns that his girlfriend, Lindy, is in grave danger, and she needs Jejeune. Soon, he is faced with a further dilemma. He can speak up on a secret he has discovered to Laraby’s case, knowing it will cost his job on the north Norfolk coast he loves. Or he can stay silent and let a killer escape justice.

THE MAUS TRAP A quiet winter vacation in the Alps. A romantic and secluded hotel. Only nine guests. A famous crime novelist who is being stalked. Three shots, one dead body—a new case for Penny Küfer. Each book in the series features a complete, standalone mystery—perfect to enjoy in any order.

One murdered, one missing. Both are almost identical. Detective Nik Pohl has seen every shade of darkness in his career. Not used to playing by the rules, he finds himself frozen out by his superiors. What’s worse, now he’s being blackmailed by a shadowy businessman into investigating a seemingly crimeless disappearance. A young woman, Viola, left her home months ago, leaving a letter to her parents saying she wouldn’t be coming back. With a little digging Nik discovers the case of an almost identical-looking woman, who went missing in similar circumstances.

Hamburg 1947: It is the year of extremes. After a bitterly cold winter of starvation, the bombed city groans under excruciating heat. And Chief Inspector Frank Stave is confronted with a new case. In the ruins of a shipyard, the corpse of a boy is found and Stave's hunt for the killer leads him into the world of "wolf children" - orphaned children who have fled from the Occupied Eastern Territories and are now united in gangs. When two more bodies are discovered Stave is under even increasing pressure....

On a hot June day the body of a 16-year-old girl washes up on a river bank outside of Frankfurt. She has been brutally murdered, but no one comes forward with any information as to her identity. Even weeks later, the local police have not been able to identify her. Then a new case comes in: a popular television reporter is attacked, raped, and locked in the trunk of her own car. She survives - barely - and is able to supply certain hints to the police having to do with her recent investigations into a child welfare organization and the potential uncovering of a child pornography ring with members from the highest echelon of society.

A devastating terror attack strikes at the heart of Birmingham... but is all as it seems? When DI Zoe Finch and her colleagues rush to respond to a terrorist attack, the city is plunged into chaos. But Zoe begins to suspect that all is not as it seems. Could the attack be a smokeshield for other criminal activity? And are Zoe's own colleagues involved in that cover-up?