Police Fiction

Cecil Younger, local Alaskan investigator, is neither good at his job nor great at staying sober. When an old Tlingit woman, unimpressed by the police's investigation, hires him to discover why her son, a big-game guide, was murdered, he takes the case without much conviction that he'll discover anything new.

Everyone has secrets.... The beautiful young judge. The hardworking waitress. The handsome college student. Some are meant to be kept.... The victims are all different, but they will all have one gruesome detail in common. But others can kill.... A clever serial killer is stalking the streets of Seattle. Searching for this next victim. Creating a monument of madness that will be built victim by victim, piece by piece, bone by bone....

Midlands police chase a serial killer who inflicts death by the new urban weapon of choice. Given the targets seem enveloped in love affairs and deceitful liaisons, Chief Inspector Gavin Roscoe suspects a motive of jealousy and revenge. But as the number of victims increases, the connection between them wears thin. Is it really a broken heart holding the crossbow? And if it's not some crazed Cupid, who has their finger on the trigger? Plucky Detective Sergeant Sunita Roy doesn't think they are looking in the right places. Yet without evidence, her theory won't hold water.

Winter comes early to the rural native community of Stone Cross, Alaska - and so does hunting season. Caribou and moose are a major source of food through the long, dark months ahead. But Arliss Cutter has come here for a very different game. A federal judge is receiving death threats and refuses protection. Cutter and his deputy Lola Teariki have been assigned to shadow him on his trip to this icy outland to make sure that he's safe. But they quickly discover that no one is ever really safe in a place like this. And no one is above suspicion....

When an old friend of DI Declan Walsh is murdered and an old enemy restarts their vendetta against him, he's placed in charge of solving the case alongside his fellow detectives in the Last Chance Saloon Crime Unit; DCI Alexander Monroe, DS Anjli Kapoor, DC Billy Fitzwarren, Doctor Rosanna Marcos and her assistant DC Joanne Davey, realizing in the process that somewhere in Whitehall a new narrative is being written for the murder.

When the body of an anonymous young Hispanic woman dressed as Queen Marie Antoinette is dredged from the Detroit River, the Detroit Police Department wants the case closed out fast. Wayne County coroner Dr. Bobby Falconi gives the woman’s photo to his old pal August Snow, insisting August show it around his native Mexicantown. August’s good friend Elena recognizes the woman immediately. Her story is one the authorities don’t want getting around - and she’s not the only young woman to have disappeared during an ICE raid only to turn up dead a few weeks later.

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.

It was a crime of senseless violence. On a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse, an elderly farmer was bludgeoned to death, his wife left to die with a noose around her neck. As if this didn't present enough problems for Ystad police inspector Kurt Wallander, the dying woman's last word, his only tangible clue, were foreign. If publicized, they could be the match that would inflame Sweden's already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments.

Belfast, 1988. A man is found dead, killed with a bolt from a crossbow in front of his house. This is no hunting accident. But uncovering who is responsible for the murder will take Detective Sean Duffy down his most dangerous road yet, a road that leads to a lonely clearing on a high bog where three masked gunmen will force Duffy to dig his own grave. Hunted by forces unknown, threatened by Internal Affairs, and with his relationship on the rocks, Duffy will need all his wits to get out of this investigation in one piece.

As the mists roll over the fens and enigmatic lights twinkle in the distance, only the locals know their way along the hidden paths through the mysterious watery terrain of one of England's most beautiful and sometimes dangerous places. Detective Matt Ballard may have retired but there's still plenty going on in the fens to keep him busy. Someone trashes an old lady's garden and daubs her isolated cottage with hateful graffiti. Emilia Swain seems to be totally harmless, so why is she being targeted?

#1 Bestseller in Psychological Thrillers in Kindle Store!After years as a homicide investigator in a big city, Detective Sidney Becker accepts the position of police chief in her hometown—a peaceful mountain community in Oregon. Life is good. Beautiful scenery. Low crime. Close to family. Then a woman is found brutally murdered in the woods. The staging of the body resembles a victim found in the same area years earlier. The case went cold. Now the killer has come out of hiding. The only clue found at the crime scene is an origami butterfly with a handwritten verse inside. Sidney finds ...

A brutal home invasion shocks Brattleboro's small Asian community, but no one is talking. Undeterred, Joe Gunther digs deeper and discovers a cross-border smuggling route carrying drugs, contraband, and illegal aliens into and out of Canada. Operating below the radar for years, competition between underworld rivals is bringing it into the light with deadly consequences.

Change is afoot at Kings Lake Central police station. A most unexpected new detective inspector takes up his post this Monday morning, and the oldest detective in the place takes a momentous decision. Around them, other officers are considering their own situations, and even the building itself seems to be facing an uncertain future. But life and death go on, nevertheless, and by lunchtime someone will make a grim discovery on the Norfolk saltmarshes. A stranger seems to have suffered a slow and agonizing death out there.

"And see if there's any news about the missing girl." Life, as Smith used to say, is just one thing after another - as one investigation ends, a new one begins. But for reasons unknown to the rest of her team, DCI Cara Freeman will be haunted by the next case for the Kings Lake Central murder squad. They find themselves delving into the seamy side of life in the town, and one of their number will have departed before this new investigation is over. Perhaps Detective Sergeant Chris Waters should have seen it coming, but he has a lot more than work on his mind these days.

Gentle by name, gentle by nature. Everyone in the sleepy Scottish town of Lochdubh adores elderly Mrs. Gentle - everyone but Hamish Macbeth, that is. Hamish thinks the gentle lady is quite sly and vicious, and the citizens of Lochdubh think he is overly cranky. Perhaps it's time for him to get married, they say. But who has time for marriage when there's a murder to be solved? When Mrs. Gentle dies under mysterious circumstances, the town is shocked and outraged.

Gold Dagger-winner and best-selling author in the United Kingdom, Ian Rankin crafts absorbing crime novels with solidly drawn characters and first-rate plotting. In Strip Jack, he portrays a shocking murder investigation that exposes the sordid side of Edinburgh politics and society. Detective John Rebus suspects a set-up when a respected Member of Parliament is caught in a police raid on a brothel—and his flamboyant wife suddenly disappears.

A young woman's body is found in a remote barn on the Fens. Before she was killed, one of her fingers had been cut off. Who is inflicting this violence and why? The young woman in the barn had been kept captive for some time. And the case shows strong similarities to an unsolved murder in Derbyshire. When another woman is found alive with similar injuries, the case grows even more complicated.

Late on a spring night in 1920, five boys cross the Yorkshire dales to the ruins of Fountains Abbey, intent on raising the Devil. Instead, they stumble over the Devil himself, sitting there watching them. Terrified, they run for their lives, leaving behind a book on alchemy stolen from their schoolmaster. The next morning, a body is discovered in the cloisters of the abbey--a man swathed in a hooded cloak and wearing a gas mask.

In this fascinating tale set in 1919, the Thomas family leaves New Orleans for Chicago as part of the Great Migration, seeking equality denied in the South. They are confident and optimistic. But hope is extinguished when they are met by 6,000 National Guard troops deployed to quell an earlier race riot. Linda and Ben prepare their nephew Trey to lead the family through the treacherous landscape of a big city plagued by segregation, police violence, and corruption. Is he ready? They devise a risky plan to challenge real estate covenants banning Blacks from buying homes in white ...

It's their usual Thursday girls' night in, and best friends Skye, Elena, and London are enjoying hanging out at Skye's house in New Mexico, eating junk food, drinking wine, and playing with Skye's little children, Carter and Abigail. Until the intruders arrive. Hearing the horrific screams from Elena and Skye, London hides the children, tiptoes out to see what has happened . . . and disappears. After Carter raises the alarm, Detective Alyssa Wyatt is called in to investigate a bloodbath that appears to have no motive, no evidence, and worse still—no sign of London.