Showing results by narrator "Judy Ford" in All Categories

The police are called when a young man is found dead in the garden of his family home. It looks like an all-too-familiar story of depression and despair, but when DCI Anna Davenport starts asking questions, a few things don’t quite add up. Short-staffed and with an important court case looming, she calls on her trusted assistant DI Andy Lepage to help to untangle the mystery.

Newly promoted Detective Inspector Andy Lepage is in charge of a murder investigation for the first time. It looks like a routine street crime, but how did it come about on the doorstep of one of Oxford’s ancient colleges? Who is the victim, and why was he out on the streets without a coat on a cold November night? Then an unexpected twist makes it a more personal affair, and Andy is forced to face difficult questions about his own identity.

Six months on from the murders of Kenny Hughes and Harry Whittle, their families are still waiting to hear when the killers will be brought to trial. The end of the COVID-19 lockdown and the re-opening of Crown Courts offers hope, but summer turns to Autumn and Christmas approaches with no end to their ordeal in sight.

It’s been more than four months since young PC Kenny Hughes was run down and killed while trying to arrest a suspect, but his parents, Gavin and Chrissie, are still reeling from the shock. To make things worse, the COVID-19 pandemic has closed down the crown courts, and it’s looking as if the trial of Kenny’s killers will be delayed for months.

Veteran Detective DCI Jonah Porter is frustrated at being sent home from work to sit out the COVID-19 lockdown at home. To occupy his mind - and give him some peace from his complaints - his friend, Bernie, suggests that he writes his memoirs. So Jonah delves deep into the past to revisit his very first murder investigation: a case from 1982, when Margaret Thatcher was still fighting the unions and the Greenham Common women were campaigning to stop cruise missiles being based on UK soil.

When Gavin’s son, Kenneth, followed him into the Police Service, neither of them thought that he would make the headlines (or the statistics) as a valiant officer killed in the course of his duty. However, only days before Christmas, a routine raid on a cannabis farm turns into tragedy when Kenny is mown down by a fast-moving motor vehicle while attempting to arrest one of the gang.

A man lies dead in the Fellows’ Garden at Lichfield College. He’s been seen working there, but he’s not on the payroll. What motivated him to weed the beds and mow the lawns? And who stabbed him in the back and left him to die? When Geology Fellow Martin Riess happens upon this grisly scene, it is only natural that he should call on his old colleague Bernie and her ex-police friends to help with disentangling this complex puzzle. And it’s not long before the official police inquiry is calling on their services too, when this case turns out to have its roots deep in the past.

When Detective Superintendent Richard Paige is killed while pursuing a suspect, his pregnant wife, Bernie, is determined to find out more about his background for the sake of their unborn child...Alongside her quest to learn more of her husband's past and how a dramatic event in his childhood influenced his whole life, Bernie goes through her own emotional journey, eventually finding contentment in a new relationship with an old friend.

Three young Muslim students are attacked in the street by an assailant on a motorbike who sprays them with acid. What is the motive for this unprovoked assault? Is it a religious hate crime or something more personal? Is the aggressor a lone wolf with a personality disorder or part of an extremist organisation? While doctors strive to save the women from death and disfigurement, the police mobilize to hunt down the perpetrator of this hideous crime. Will they succeed? And will the unknown villain strike again?

When Vanessa Wellesley is charged with murdering her violent and controlling husband, everyone feels sympathy for her desperate attempt to escape from a deeply abusive relationship. But why does she refuse to admit that she wielded the weapon that killed him? Lawyers, police, and family urge her to plead self-defense, but Vanessa is adamant that she was not there when the fatal blow was struck. A date has been set for her trial - can her friends discover the real murderer’s identity in time to save her from a life sentence?

Teenage “joy-riders” mow down a young man on his way home after a night out with his mates. As he fights for his life in hospital, the police struggle to find the culprits. Expert tracker dog PDQ follows a scent from the abandoned car, but it leads to a dead-end. Where is the driver of the stolen vehicle? Could this incident be the culmination of a sequence of escalating attacks on participants in Oxford’s Pride Parade? DCI Jonah Porter steps in to find out.

A body in the river is all in a day's work for Detective Inspector Peter Johns and his sergeant, Paul Godwin. But things start to become more personal when Paul recognizes their key witness as a close childhood friend and Peter's son is detained for suspected child abduction. Peter and Paul discover they have more in common than they realized, and it becomes difficult to keep work and family life separated.

Seven friends decide to band together to campaign to save the environment. They call themselves the Martians, because, as everyone knows, Martians are green! Over the years, they go their separate ways, and some of them seem to have forgotten their early ideals. Then, out of the blue, one of their number is murdered: struck down by an unknown assailant. Another of the group comes under suspicion, and yet a third member is implicated. Did geology tutor Martin Riess kill his journalist friend, or was the murderer one of the victims of the reporter's caustic pen?

Father Damien is worried that the renovation of the organ in St Cyprian's church may not be finished in time for the important Easter services. That's even before the organ builders discover a corpse concealed beneath it and the police halt the work while they investigate. Who is the young man whose remains have been lying hidden for more than 30 years? And who killed him and then secreted his body in the church?

This is the final part of the memoirs of Detective Inspector Peter Johns. Angie comes to Britain from Jamaica, intent on finding help for her brother, who has cerebral palsy. A murder at the nurses' home where she lives brings her into contact with Peter, who comes in to investigate. Peter is clear that the color of a person’s skin is of no significance, but others do not agree - as Peter and Angie find out to their cost.

Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Porter is a hero: his life was changed forever when he was paralyzed by a gunshot from an unknown assailant but, against the odds, he has succeeded in resuming his career in the police service. To the outside world he appears confident and capable, almost unaffected by his disability. This novel views Jonah’s life through the medium of his favorite hymns, revealing beneath his self-assured exterior his vulnerability and dependence on others.

Bernie’s Aunty Dot is worried that her favorite member of staff at the care home where she lives is being unfairly suspected of murdering another resident. She calls on their good friend DCI Jonah Porter to investigate. He discovers that care assistant Jonathan Bates is by no means the only person with a motive for killing Olive Carter - or, for that matter, the only person with means and opportunity to do so.

The police are reluctant to believe young Lucy Paige when she tells them that she saw two men chasing a woman across a field. They suspect her of inventing a mysterious stranger, who hit her, and then ran away, in order to protect her friend Martin, from accusations of child abuse and assault. But they have to reassess her story, when a woman's body is found a few days later, and Lucy recognizes it as her attacker. Who is the corpse in the graveyard? Why was she running away? And who were the men that Lucy saw chasing her?

A second marriage after the first ended in tragedy is bound to have its challenges. In the case of DI Peter Johns, his new wife, "Our Bernie", is very different from Angie, the love of his life. This short story plots the path of their friendship from first encounters to final commitment.

You would think that the easiest crimes to solve would be the ones where you have several eyewitnesses who saw what happened and are willing to tell the police about it. However, as DI Peter Johns discovers in this short story, witnesses don't always always remember what they saw - and sometimes they even remember things that they did not see!