Showing results by author "Val McDermid" in All Categories

A brand-new collection of short stories featuring the Queen of Crime’s legendary detective Jane Marple, penned by 12 remarkable best-selling and acclaimed authors. This collection of 12 original short stories, all featuring Jane Marple, will introduce the character to a whole new generation. Each author reimagines Agatha Christie’s Marple through their own unique perspective while staying true to the hallmarks of a traditional mystery.

On a freezing winter morning, fishermen pull a body from the sea. It is quickly discovered that the dead man was the prime suspect in a decade-old investigation, when a prominent civil servant disappeared without trace. DCI Karen Pirie was the last detective to review the file and is drawn into a sinister world of betrayal and dark secrets. But Karen is already grappling with another case, one with even more questions and fewer answers. A skeleton has been discovered in an abandoned camper van and all clues point to a killer who never faced justice - a killer who is still out there.

A quiet night on a country road. The stillness shattered by a car engulfed in flames, and a burned body discovered in the driver's seat. As the investigation unfolds, DCI Carol Jordan and psychological profiler. Tony Hill quickly realise that this is more than just a tragic accident. And so begins the hunt for a truly terrifying killer, someone who believes he is invisible, untraceable and untouchable. 

Edinburgh, haunted by the ghosts of its many writers, is also the cold case beat of DCI Karen Pirie. So she shouldn't be surprised when an author's manuscript appears to be a blueprint for an actual crime. Karen can't ignore the plot's chilling similarities to the unsolved case of an Edinburgh University student who vanished from her own doorstep. The manuscript seems to be the key to unlocking what happened to Lara Hardie, but there's a problem: the author died before he finished it.

Professor Fiona Cameron is a psychologist who uses computer technology to track serial offenders. She vowed never to work for the Met again after they went against her advice and screwed up an investigation as a result. But when her lover, thriller writer Kit Martin, tells her a fellow crime novelist has been murdered, Fiona can’t help taking an interest. With the killer striking again, Fiona is caught in a race against time.

On a freezing morning four drunken students stumble upon the body of a woman in the snow. Rosie has been raped, stabbed and left for dead in a cemetery. The only suspects are the four young men now stained with her blood. Twenty-five years later the police mount a cold-case review of Rosie’s unsolved murder, and the four are still suspects. But when two of them die in suspicious circumstances, it seems that someone is pursuing their own brand of justice....

When psychological profiler Tony Hill comes across a series of suicides among women tormented by vicious online predators, he begins to wonder if there is more to these tragedies than meets the eye. Could it be murder? But what kind of serial killer wants his crimes to stay hidden? Tony and DCI Carol Jordan begin the hunt for the most dangerous and terrifying kind of killer - someone who has nothing to fear and nothing to lose.

When a skeleton is discovered hidden at the top of a gothic Victorian building in Edinburgh, which is scheduled for renovation, Cold Case Squad detective Karen Pirie is given the task of identifying the decades-old bones. Her investigation leads her back to past conflicts, false identities and buried secrets...

The brand new thriller from the award-winning crimewriter. 'Death is a hollow drum whose beat has measured out my adult life.' So writes Jay Macallan Stewart in her latest volume of memoirs. But nobody has ever asked whether that has been by accident or design. Nobody, that is, until Jay turns her sights on newly-wed and freshly-widowed Magda Newsam. For Magda's mother Corinna is an Oxford don who knows enough of Jay's history to be very afraid indeed...

When a teenage joyrider crashes a stolen car and ends up in a coma, a routine DNA test could be the key to unlocking the mystery of a 20-year-old murder inquiry. Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie is an expert at solving the unsolvable. With each cold case closed, justice is served. So, finding the answer should be straightforward, but it's as twisted as the DNA helix itself.

As a favour, Kate agrees to track down a missing songwriter, Moria Pollock. It was supposed to be a nice simple case, but the search soon leads Kate into the dark underworld of Leeds, Manchester and Bradford – and finally to a shocking confrontation with a killer.

When a body is discovered in the remote depths of the Highlands, DCI Karen Pirie finds herself in the right place at the right time. Unearthed with someone's long-buried inheritance, the victim seems to belong to the distant past - until new evidence suggests otherwise, and Karen is called in to unravel a case where nothing is as it seems. It's not long before an overheard conversation draws Karen into the heart of a different case, however - a shocking crime she thought she'd already prevented. As she inches closer to the twisted truths at the centre of these murders, it becomes clear that she's dealing with a version of justice terrifyingly different to her own....

Award-winning 'Queen of Crime' Val McDermid has sold over 17 million books worldwide, and been translated into over 40 languages. Her Wire in the Blood series was adapted for TV, starring Robson Green and Hermione Norris, and ran for six seasons. Included here are full-cast adaptations of several of her acclaimed novels, as well as four tales specially written for BBC Radio.

1979. It is the winter of discontent, and reporter Allie Burns is chasing her first big scoop. There are few women in the newsroom, and she needs something explosive for the boys' club to take her seriously. Soon Allie and fellow journalist Danny Sullivan are exposing the criminal underbelly of respectable Scotland. They risk making powerful enemies - and Allie won't stop there.

Manchester-based private eye Kate Brannigan thought it would be safe to let her boyfriend help out with her investigation. But now he’s behind bars and she’s been left caring for his eight-year-old son. Soon Kate finds herself drawn into the world of drug traffickers, child pornographers and violent gangland enforcers – bringing her face to face with death in the most terrifying investigation of her career.

It's 1984. The miners' strike is dividing the country. In a struggling coal-mining town, the miners and their families are living at the edge of their resources. On the 14th of December, five miners break ranks to travel to Nottingham and work. For those who stay behind, this is an unforgivable betrayal. Twenty-three years later, a young woman is asking the police to trace her missing father. Miner Mick Prentice vanished, never to be seen again.

When torrential summer rains uncover a bizarrely tattooed body on a Lake District hillside, old wives' tales also come swirling to the surface. For centuries Lakelanders have whispered that Fletcher Christian staged the massacre on Pitcairn so that he could return home. And there he told his story to an old friend and schoolmate, William Wordsworth, who turned it into a long narrative poem.

It's 1989, and Allie Burns is back. Older and maybe wiser, she's running the northern news operation of the Sunday Globe, chafing at losing her role in investigative journalism and at the descent into the gutter of the UK tabloid media. But there's plenty to keep her occupied. The year begins with the memorial service to the victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, but Allie has barely filed her copy when she stumbles over a story about HIV/AIDS that will shock her into a major change of direction.

A protest group hits the headlines when unrest at a women's peace camp explodes into murder. Already on the scene, journalist Lindsay Gordon desperately tries to strike a balance between personal and professional responsibilities. As she peels back the layers of deception surrounding the protest and its opponents, she finds that no one - ratepayer or reporter, policeman or peace woman - seems wholly above suspicion. Then Lindsay uncovers a truth that even she can scarcely believe....

When torrential rain causes a landslide on a motorway in Scotland, it reveals a crime scene: someone hid a body in the tarmac eleven years before. Journalist Sam Nimmo had been the prime suspect in the murder of his fiancée when he disappeared, and now DCI Karen Pirie and her Historic Cases Unit must find out who buried him, and why.