Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Police Procedurals

At first glance, the murder of Peggy Frampton looks like a burglary gone wrong. But DS George Cross, with his meticulous methods, thinks otherwise. The victim, a former mayor of Bristol, is now an online influencer whose forthright opinions attract the kind of attention that most people would like to avoid. There's no shortage of suspects. Cross's investigation will lead him from Peggy's unfaithful husband to her gambling-addicted son, to a scorned former lover with a grudge. But she also has political enemies in her past.

DS George Cross has always wondered why his mother left him when he was a child. Now she is back in his life, he suddenly has answers. But this unexpected reunion is not anything he's used to dealing with. When a disturbing case lands on his desk, he is almost thankful for the return to normality. The body of a monk is found savagely beaten to death in a woodland near Bristol. Nothing is known about Brother Dominic's past, which makes investigating difficult. How can Cross unpick a crime when they don't know anything about the victim? And why would someone want to harm a monk?

When a hand is found in Gallows Wood, PC Lucy Halliday and her specialist search dog Moss must find the rest of the body. What they uncover is a killer's dumping ground. Like every case since her husband's mysterious disappearance, Lucy wonders if this one will bring her closer to the truth. Nico was a journalist with a reputation for getting buried in his work; Lucy is certain that this time he delved too deep.

Bristol detective DS George Cross, champion of the outsider, the voiceless and the dispossessed. DS George Cross can be rude, difficult and awkward with people. But his unfailing logic and dogged pursuit of the truth means his conviction rate is the best on the force. An outsider himself, having been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, DS Cross is especially drawn to cases concerning the voiceless and the dispossessed. Now, Cross is untangling the truth about a young woman who died three days ago.

After an elite criminal profiling unit is shut down amid a storm of scandal and mismanagement, only one person emerges unscathed. Forensic psychiatrist Doctor Alexander Gregory has a reputation for being able to step inside the darkest minds to uncover whatever secrets lie hidden there, and soon enough he finds himself drawn into the murky world of murder investigation. In the beautiful hills of County Mayo, Ireland, a killer is on the loose. Panic has a stranglehold on its rural community, and the Garda are running out of time.

DS George Cross can be rude, difficult and awkward with people. But his unfailing logic and dogged pursuit of the truth means his conviction rate is the best on the force. So when his police colleagues dismiss the death of a man as a squabble among Bristol's homeless community, Detective Sergeant George Cross is not convinced.

Superintendent Alan Markby and Meredith Mitchell are in desperate need of a holiday—and the Cotswold village of Parsloe St John seems the perfect choice. Their neighbour, retired journalist Wynne Carter, is as convivial as the village itself and, over a glass of blackberry wine, indulges in her latest obsession, Olivia Smeaton, a racy old lady whose life—and death—she is convinced are not all they seem.

DI Annie Delamere and her colleague DS Zoe Everett are off duty and enjoying a walk on the Peak District’s vast moorlands when they stumble across a mutilated corpse. The victim is unclothed and his tattoos indicate an affinity with the occult. While Annie is put in charge of the case her long-term partner, MP Sheena Pearson, is confronted by a group of far right extremists. Rather than back down Sheena chooses to stand her ground–and almost pays for it with her life.

DS George Cross can be rude, difficult, and awkward with people. But his unfailing logic and relentless pursuit of justice means his conviction rate is the best on the force. When a ravaged body is found in a local demolition site, it is up to Cross to piece together the truth from whatever fragments he can find. DS Cross has little to go on, but from the faint tan lines on the body and strange scars on his forearms, an identity gradually emerges. Cross mounts an investigation that will uncover jealousy, ambition and a family tearing itself apart.

Callum is lured to an isolated boathouse by an attractive older woman. When she gets him alone, she knocks him out with a single blow. Surrounded by hills and lakes, Still Waters is home to a close-knit community of wealthy retirees. It's an unlikely setting for violence. The police don't take Callum's disappearance seriously: he's 24-years-old, after all. But Callum's mother, a Still Waters resident, knows that something is very wrong. Then a body is discovered floating in the lake. Head bashed in. But it's not Callum. And someone tweets: Come out to play one last time, Alice.

When terrorists use a drone to bring down a plane on one of London’s busiest shopping centres, it ignites a chain of events that will draw in the innocent and the guilty alike. DC Max Wolfe finds himself caught in the crossfire between a tech-savvy terrorist cell and a revenge-seeking, Bible-quoting murderer called Bad Moses.

One cold January morning in 1980, on a beach in Kerry, the body of a newborn baby is found in its most sheltered sand dune. When local police are called to the incident, Garda Mary Shea is first on scene. The Dublin major crimes team are called to investigate and because Mary is able to get crucial, female witnesses to cooperate, lead detective Matt Foley takes her under his wing in his bid to solve the biggest case of his career. More questions than answers are found when it becomes clear many locals conduct secret lives—but who would do such a thing?

When PC Lucy Halliday and her search dog Moss find a body in the grounds of Bracken House, DCI Jack Ellis must work out who killed Lauren Shaw and why. Linking a ten-year-old cold case to a series of sexual assaults in the area, the investigation takes both Lucy and Jack the lengths of the country, from Southampton to Newcastle, where their professional and personal boundaries are stretched to the limit.

It was just an ordinary Wednesday lunchtime when Detective Martha Munro's life changed forever. Her sergeant is speaking, but she barely hears what he's telling her. Your mother has been shot dead. Your four-year-old daughter has been taken. There are no leads. Who would want to hurt her family? Martha realizes it's time to ask herself some hard questions about her late father. He led the anti-corruption squad at Scotland Yard. It's rumored he kept a list of everyone who worked for him, from coppers to criminals. And just being on the list was a sure-fire way to lower your life expectancy.

When a senior Metropolitan Police officer and High Court judge die in quick succession, criminal profiler Doctor Alex Gregory is convinced their deaths are linked to the most shameful case of his career: the notorious wrongful conviction of Carl Deere, an innocent man found guilty of a series of heinous murders perpetrated by the ‘Soho Killer'. Four years later, released from prison and with his record wiped clean, Deere is an invisible spectre with a new name and a new face.

The odd couple of detection, the brilliant but cranky Arthur Bryant and John May of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit, return in a tense, atmospheric new thriller that keeps you guessing right to the end. This time the detectives are up against a series of bizarre murders that defy human understanding, and a killer no human hand may be able to stop.

With her daughter on an archaeological dig, the only bodies DI Shona Oliver expects to find are long dead. But when a corpse from the 1980s is unearthed, Shona quickly realises that it may be one of the missing “Girls in the Glen”, victim of a notorious serial killer. Shona’s superiors want her to stop looking to the past, and focus on a fresher crime scene. The attempted shooting of a local politician who likes to stoke controversy. As Shona finds herself pulled between crimes past and present, she soon realises that the secrets buried on Beild Moss are reaching into the present day.

A blood-soaked hammer is discovered in a lorryload of wood delivered to a local pub. DI Shona Oliver appears to have a murder weapon, but where is the victim? Then a call comes in that local forest ranger and ex-soldier John MacFarlane isn’t answering his phone. There’s no sign of MacFarlane at his cottage, and the only clue the team have to go on is a bloody trail in the snow which ends abruptly and leads to nowhere. A manhunt begins.

On New Year’s Day, a wealthy family is found slaughtered inside their exclusive gated community in north London, their youngest child stolen away. The murder weapon is a gun for stunning cattle, leading Detective Max Wolfe to a dusty corner of Scotland Yard’s Black Museum devoted to a killer who thirty years ago was known as the Slaughter Man. But the Slaughter Man is now old and dying. Can he really be back in the game?

It started with the judge. He was about to sentence five of Cork's most notorious criminals. But his body has just turned up, beaten and broken, on an isolated road in his burned-out car. Now four members of a rival gang have been shot, and in retaliation three civilians have been blown up. To Katie's horror, Cork is becoming a gang battleground like Dublin. Can Katie save the city? Can she save herself?