Police Detective Mysteries

Amazing news has spread across the Scottish countryside. The most famous of highland bachelors, police sergeant Hamish Macbeth, may actually marry at last. The entire village of Lochdubh adores Macbeth's bride-to-be. Josie McSween is Hamish's new constable, and she is a pretty little thing, with glossy brown hair and big brown eyes. The local folk think that Josie is quite a catch, but Hamish couldn't be more miserable.

After getting canned from the Seattle PD, brilliant, wisecracking Thomas Prescott follows his sister Lacy to Philadelphia, where she swims on the Drexel University team. While Thomas’s slapstick antics mask a keen analytic mind, it’s his nose for trouble that leads him again and again into dicey situations. The ex–homicide detective is not long in Philly before getting caught up in two high-powered criminal cases. Thomas stumbles into a crime scene amid the Occupy Philadelphia protests. Activist Brooke Wexley has been strangled within sight of city hall.

Another day, another hijacked body. And just 13 hours to solve a murder…Detective Vincent Graves has made a habit of dying. Waking up in someone else’s body isn’t pleasant, especially when it's inside a coffin with tons of dirt pressing down on it. Once he’s out, he learns his soul has 13 hours to find the borrowed body’s killer. With the help of a brilliant FBI agent, Vincent’s quest for clues leads to a looming supernatural presence. And escaping the dark threat may be impossible with his ever-ticking clock… Can Vincent close the case in time?

Cambridgeshire, September 1813: Detective Stephen Lavender and Constable Ned Woods are lured to an isolated estate in the deadly marshland surrounding Ely, to investigate a murder.

In the small hours of a Sunday morning in the city of Bath a policeman on beat duty is shot dead by an unseen gunman - the third killing of an officer in Somerset in a matter of weeks. The emergency services are summoned. Ambitious to arrest the Somerset Sniper, the duty inspector, Ken Lockton, seals the crime scene, which is confined by the river on one side and a massive retaining wall on the other. He discovers the murder weapon in a garden - and is himself attacked and left for dead. Enter Peter Diamond, Bath's burly CID chief....

Ken Bishop needed to kill his siblings. Well, not all five of them. But at least three. Maybe four. He needed the money from his mother's estate to pay off his gambling debts, and he needed it in a hurry. So, he killed a sister. Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent Danny Carlisle investigates the murder, a woman at a nursing home with only days to live. A woman suffering from dementia. The family said the death was a blessing and the police wanted Carlisle to let it go, but Carlisle just could not let someone get away with murder. It just wasn’t right. Bishop knows it wasn’t ...

On Lansdown Hill, near Bath, England, a battle between Roundheads and Cavaliers that took place over 350 years ago is annually reenacted. Two of the reenactors discover a skeleton that is female, headless, and only about twenty years old. One of them, a professor who played a Cavalier, is later found murdered. In the course of his investigation, Peter Diamond butts heads with the group of vigilantes who call themselves the Lansdown Society, discovering in the process that his boss Georgina is a member.

London, 1879. Crowds have gathered at Islington's chilly Agricultural Hall to place their bets on who will become the next world champion in a six-day, 500-mile speed-walking race, the wobble. When one of the highly favored contenders dies under suspicious circumstances, Sergeant Cribb also has a race on his hands - to pursue a ruthless murderer.

When John Heppel, a visiting writer to Lochdubh, first proposes forming a writers' circle, the idea is met with much enthusiasm from local residents. However, once the classes get underway, attendance quickly falters due to one undeniable fact: John Heppel is a long-winded, consummate bore. But is dullness a motive for murder? Hamish Macbeth wouldn't ordinarily think so. So when Heppel is found dead, Hamish begins looking for deeper meaning in the writer's stories.

When the body of a boy is found in the filthy sewers of Bluegate Fields, Inspector Pitt is called to investigate. The boy was clearly upper class, so what was he doing in one of London's most dangerous slums? The boy's parents refuse to answer police queries. What are these proper, prosperous people hiding? With the help of his wife and helpmate, Charlotte, Inspector Pitt intends to find out.

First-year detective Kathleen Doyle is a plucky Irish redhead of humble origins and modest means. Chief Inspector Michael Acton is her antithesis: a British lord turned cop. He's tall, handsome, and enigmatic - to a fault. He also has a knack for solving London's most high-profile crimes. Acton selects Doyle out of the newbie squad to partner with him on a series of investigations because she always knows when someone is lying - a trait that comes in handy when interviewing suspects and witnesses.

When mourners gather in the village of Lower Gladdock, the grave is found to be already occupied. The victim is soon linked to a tragedy that tore the village apart five years ago and is handed over to the Bexford police to solve. Detective Sergeant Guy Poole is hoping to put his traumatic past behind him and settle into his new station at Bexford. Now history is threatening to raise its head again, and he has a murder case to contend with. Detective Inspector Sam Brock has a new recruit to take under his wing, and he's determined this one isn't going to die.

Belfast, 1985. Amid the Troubles, Detective Sean Duffy, a Catholic cop in the Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary, struggles with burnout as he investigates a brutal double murder and suicide. Did Michael Kelly really shoot his parents at point-blank range and then jump off a nearby cliff? A suicide note points to this conclusion, but Duffy suspects even more sinister circumstances.

The "maddog" murderer who is terrorizing the Twin Cities is two things: insane and extremely intelligent. He kills for the pleasure of it and thoroughly enjoys placing elaborate obstacles to keep police befuddled. Each clever move he makes is another point of pride. But when the brilliant Lieutenant Lucas Davenport, a dedicated cop and a serial killer's worst nightmare, is brought in to take up the investigation, the maddog suddenly has an adversary worthy of his genius.

When Scotland is hit by the recession, Police Constable Hamish Macbeth notices that the Highland people are forced to come up with inventive ways to lure tourists to their sleepy towns. The quaint village of Braikie doesn't have much to offer, other than a place of rare beauty called Buchan's Wood, which was bequeathed to the town. The savvy local tourist director renames the woods "The Fairy Glen," and has brochures printed with a beautiful photograph of a kingfisher rising from a pond on the cover. It isn't long before coach tours begin to arrive.

Kate Rosetti is supposed to be taking the week off. After all, she’s the maid of honor in her sister’s wedding, and Jane Rosetti will kill her if she’s too busy chasing a murderer to participate in the long-anticipated nuptials. Unfortunately, the police chief has news for Kate. When a severed hand shows up in a box at the precinct and a local jewelry store is robbed, Kate is called in to help investigate a not-quite-homicide. But with such a high-profile diamond heist combined with random body parts appearing ad nauseum, this case is unlike anything the department has seen before.

Haunted by the serial killer she never caught, Detective Kimberley King leaves her job in New York and relocates to the sleepy town of Dead Woman Crossing, Oklahoma. Kimberley hopes to bring her daughter Jessica up close to her family, far from the bad memories the city holds. But her quiet new home is not the peaceful place she dreamed of. Within days of her arrival, Kimberley is called to the scene of a terrible crime: her friend Hannah, a single mother, has been brutally murdered while her one-year-old daughter was sleeping nearby.

Detective Porter and the team have been pulled from the hunt for Anson Bishop, the Four Monkey Killer, by the feds. When the body of a young girl is found beneath the frozen waters of Jackson Park Lagoon, she is quickly identified as Ella Reynolds, missing three weeks. But how did she get there? The lagoon froze months earlier. More baffling? She's found wearing the clothes of another girl, missing less than two days.

Detective Tracy Crosswhite isn’t one to lose her cool. Until her interrogation of the taunting and malicious Erik Schmidt, a suspect in two cold case killings. Schmidt also has unnerving ties to the monster who murdered Tracy’s sister, stirring memories of the crime that shaped Tracy’s life. After a critical mistake during a shooting exercise, Tracy breaks.

Colin Dexter’s Chief Inspector Morse - the cranky, heavy-drinking, and exasperatingly brilliant sleuth of the Thames Valley Police - has become one of the most beloved detectives in fiction. Now, with this collection of 11 short stories, we can savor choice examples of his dry wit, devious cunning, and psychological insight at its best. Colin Dexter tantalizes us with six Inspector Morse adventures, ranging from bite-size morsels of intrigue to longer stories for listeners to sink their teeth into.