J. R. Ellis

A murder in a locked garden. A village full of secrets. Can DCI Oldroyd find a killer who has vanished into thin air? When a woman is found strangled in the locked garden of historic Bishop Hewick Hall in Yorkshire, DCI Jim Oldroyd needs to solve a seemingly impossible murder. The only door was...

An unpopular victim. An impossible crime. A murderer on the loose. Revised edition: Previously published as The Body in Jingling Pot, this edition of The Body in the Dales includes editorial revisions. A body is discovered deep in a cave beneath the Yorkshire Dales. Leading the investigation...

He was supposed to be gone forever. Now he’s back. Ten years ago, DCI Oldroyd was the only person who could see the monster hiding behind Adam Blake’s charm. Oldroyd proved that Blake was a deadly serial killer, responsible for murdering many innocent people. Having vowed to take revenge on...

A murdered crime writer. An idyllic Yorkshire town. Can DCI Oldroyd separate fact from fiction? A famous writer is found murdered at the Victorian baths in the Yorkshire town of Harrogate. In a crime worthy of one of his novels, Damian Penrose, who was appearing at the town’s crime writing...

Winter, snow, murder—and a centuries-dead suspect. In the chilly depths of a Yorkshire winter, a well-liked rector is found bludgeoned to death in her own church. With no sign of a murder weapon, local superstition quickly pins the blame on the ghost of a medieval monk believed to haunt the...

In a Yorkshire Dales village everyone has a motive for murder - except the killer. A retired judge is shot dead outside the Dog and Gun inn in the remote Yorkshire village of Niddersgill. There's a witness who saw everything, and the gunman's on the run; the case should be open-and-shut for DCI...

An impossible murder behind a locked door. Can DCI Oldroyd find the key to the mystery? Lord Redmire’s gambling habit has placed him in serious debt. Determined to salvage his fortune by putting Redmire Hall on the map, the aristocrat performs an impossible locked-door illusion on live TV. But...

Life moves at a slower pace on the canals. But death always comes when you least expect it. The last thing DS Stephanie Johnson and DS Andy Carter expected during their much-needed canal holiday was a murder. When retired folk musician Annie Shipton is found stabbed through the neck at the helm...

A priceless violin. And a dark secret someone is prepared to kill for. DCI Oldroyd has seen his fair share of victims, but he has never witnessed a murder - until now. When world-famous violinist Hans Muller is shot and killed during a concert, the detective is faced with a case beyond logic...

In the ancient city of York, winter brings Christmas markets, cold weather…and murder. Snow dusts the cobbled streets of York as tourists flock to its famous Christmas markets. But for DCI Oldroyd, what starts as a peaceful evening on a ghost tour quickly turns deadly. The tour guide’s grim...

A murder with three witnesses. But one of them doesn’t believe what she saw... Halloween, Whitby. DCI Jim Oldroyd’s daughter Louise is in town with friends for a goth festival. But their visit to an escape room ends in bloody murder when one of the group stabs his girlfriend and flees the...

A murder on stage. A killer in the wings. Can DCI Oldroyd unmask them before the final curtain? It’s opening night for the Skipton Players, and their Victorian melodrama is going down a storm. But when the climactic hanging scene ends in a sickening silence, it’s clear something has gone...

A puzzling locked-room mystery that puts someone Oldroyd loves in terrible danger… When a film shoot on Wharfedale’s vintage railway turns into a grisly crime scene, DCI Oldroyd’s idyllic visit to the countryside with his partner Deborah is well and truly stopped in its tracks. One of the...

An award-winning beer worth killing for. Can DCI Oldroyd find the killer before last orders? Steeped in a history of award-winning Yorkshire ale, the town of Markham boasts not one but two breweries. Richard Foster runs one; his sister, Emily, along with her partner, Janice, runs the other. And...