Traditional Detectives Police Procedural

Scotland Yard's eminent Detective John Coffin was a mere sergeant. Anticipating a promotion, he buys a house that needs repairs and proves a catalyst to dire events. Workmen find the body of an adolescent boy under the floor - and Coffin, though it's not his case, keeps up with an investigation that comes to center on his own neighbors. Attracted to Rose Hilaire, the sergeant learns that her son was a friend of the murder victim and of other missing boys.

When Octavia Garamond passed away, she left explicit instructions in her will: The police must be present at her funeral, and the coroner should be exceptionally thorough when examining her body. Amelia Kennerly is perplexed to find herself the sole executor of her great-aunt's will, as she barely knew her. Further questions arise when the local parson is anything but happy to conduct Octavia's service. Then someone breaks into Octavia's home and tears the house apart. It seems the old lady's words may have been eerily prescient: "Hell is empty, and all the devils are here."

In Catherine Aird’s Stiff News, a letter received by an old woman’s son after her death alerts Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan that one woman’s death by natural causes in a local nursing home may actually be murder. But that is just the beginning of the odd goings-on in this nursing home catering to former members of a WWII regiment.

Jimmy Suttle has barely got his feet under the desk at his new job. Having flown in the face of his superiors on his first big case he now finds himself trying to track down a hugely skilled killer before another innocent dies and before the media tear the force apart. Jimmy is facing a case that could end his career. And his life.

Muriel Ethel Galloway passed away at home, twitching and grasping at objects only she could see. Her family mourns, sad but unsurprised that an old woman suffering from heart disease should die suddenly. But when Mrs. Galloway's son receives an anonymous call alerting him that his mother's life was put in jeopardy by her doctors, he demands action from the Calleshire police.

September 1940 is finally drawing to a close. With London having endured the Blitz for nearly a month, people are calling for vengeance: Britain should retaliate even harder with their own bombing campaign in enemy territory. But once again the night heralds more destruction. At Custom House, anxious residents dutifully head to the nearest public air-raid shelter as the warning siren wails. When dawn brings the all-clear people disperse, but one man remains - he's dead, stabbed through the heart.

It's a double mystery: Two young men have vanished, and the investigation leads to two troubling clues in two different locations - a scorched van and a peculiar bloodstain in an abandoned airport hangar.

A tough-love school for troubled teens opens its doors in Trout Run, New York. What could go wrong? The locals are thrilled. The North Country Academy promises more jobs and more money flowing into town. But all Police Chief Frank Bennett sees is a throng of juvenile delinquents unpacking on his turf. Then Frank's worst fears are confirmed. An Academy teacher leading a wilderness expedition is mauled to death by a bear. Evidence points to sabotage.

Here are 12 ingenious, witty mysteries showing the author at her best, including: the curious disappearance of Lord Listerdale, the strange meeting on a train of a feckless man and a beautiful girl, and Philomel Cottage and the extraordinary country house visit of Edward Robinson. Each is expertly narrated by Hugh Fraser.

That Miss Beatrice Wansdyke had died is not particularly surprising. A chemistry mistress at the Girls’ Grammar School in Berebury, she was a longtime sufferer of diabetes who managed to live her modest life to a ripe old age. But one thing is odd - Beatrice Wansdyke died a very wealthy woman. What was an old schoolteacher doing with a small fortune? Meanwhile, Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan, Calleshire’s finest investigator, learns he is about to become a father. But with ominous players hell-bent on pursuing Miss Wansdyke’s money, will he live see his child’s first birthday?

Diner food slinger, Maggie Dwyer didn’t intend to be an amateur sleuth. Who does? She’s simply looking forward to a life writing her first novel. Then again, what else is a girl to do when her grandmother dies and leaves her an all expenses paid mansion in Louisiana? Dream come true, right? Until she learns her grandmother died under suspicious circumstances. Until she learns her grandmother died while investigating a series of crimes that occurred at a delinquent boys’ home in a neighboring parish. Toss in a couple of roommates who will make the trek from the Northwest to the bayou ...

When a signalman discovers a mutilated body inside a railway tunnel near Groote Park, it seems to be a straightforward case of a man struck by a passing train. But Inspector Vandam of the Middeldorp police isn’t satisfied that Albert Smith’s death was accidental, and he sets out to prove foul play in a baffling mystery which crosses continents from deepest South Africa to the wilds of northern Scotland, where an almost identical crime appears to have been perpetrated.

A murder in Paris brings Commissaire Adamsberg out of the Icelandic mists of his previous investigation and unexpectedly into the region of Nîmes, where three old men have died of spider bites. The recluse has a sneaky attack, but is that enough to explain the deaths of these men, all killed by the same venom?

Fitness trainer Erik Lingoss is found dead in his West London flat, his head smashed by one of his own dumbbells. His heartlessly dumped girlfriend, blood on her clothes and hands, is the prime suspect. She had means, opportunity and motive. But is the case as clear-cut as it seems? Handsome Erik Lingoss had clients in his places; and he seemed to engender powerful emotions. If it was a crime of passion, there was plenty of that to go round: love strong as death, jealousy cruel as the grave.

Some people need killing, but Derwood Flynn is retired and doesn't do that sort of thing anymore. He wants a quiet life, rebuilding the broken relationship with his teenage daughter. When a hurricane ravages the landscape and washes a murder victim from the failing dam of a local lake, Derwood teams with vivacious DA Maggie Kidd to uncover a decades-old conspiracy of death and deception.

DC Paul Winter has gone undercover in an attempt to infiltrate the inner circle of the city's premier drug lord Bazza McKenzie.

A detective by chance, not by choice. A quiet Florida town until… They beat the town’s business owners within an inch of their lives. No one speaks of the crime. This time, they beat the wrong man. Clint Rugbee, ex-Marine, lay in the room next door. He rescues Ralph by shooting the two guys holding him hostage. The investigation begins with Clint accepting a detective’s badge from the lady interim chief without having an ounce of police experience. Then, the fun begins. Can Detective Rugbee and Interim Police Chief Maisie Bray solve the town’s problems before losing the town they love?

Detective Jack Mackinnon’s career is in serious trouble. Still in the Detective Chief Inspector’s bad books and excluded from the Major Investigation team, Mackinnon is assigned the case nobody wants. As Mackinnon investigates, he discovers a horrifying link to a crime committed a decade ago. Not forgotten. And never forgiven...

Most days, the counters at Maish's Deli on Chicago's North Side are crowded with elderly Jewish men who trade stories and crack wise. But today, the mood at Maish's is grim. Someone has vandalized the local temple - the fifth in a row - and stolen a priceless Torah, and only Abe Lieberman can set things right. A veteran cop whose low-key attitude and sardonic humor conceal an intense commitment to justice, Lieberman is taking the break-in very personally - the synagogue's president just happens to be his wife.

The third book in the recently revamped Nantucket mystery series. When two children make a grisly discovery on Sconset beach, Detective Meredith Folger finds herself with a perplexing case on her hands. The crime lab can tell her only that the newly unearthed skeletal remains belonged to a woman who was strangled to death somewhere between two and 10 years ago - a conclusion that sends Merry sifting through old missing-persons files. But then a shocking piece of news changes everything.