The House Sitter

A woman's naked body is found floating in the weeds of a lake near Bath by an elderly woman walking her Siamese cats. No one comes forward to identify her, and no murder weapon is found, but sleuthing is Superintendent Peter Diamond's speciality. A genuine gumshoe, practising door stopping and deduction: he is the last detective. Struggling with office politics and a bizarre cast of suspects, Diamond strikes out on his own, even when Forensics think they have the culprit.

Detective Chief Inspector Ryan retreats to Holy Island seeking sanctuary when he is forced to take sabbatical leave from his duties as a homicide detective. A few days before Christmas, his peace is shattered, and he is thrust back into the murky world of murder when a young woman is found dead amongst the ancient ruins of the nearby priory. When former local girl Dr. Anna Taylor arrives back on the island as a police consultant, old memories swim to the surface, making her confront her difficult past.

When she's not digging up bones or other ancient objects, Ruth Galloway lectures at the University of North Norfolk. She lives happily alone in a remote place called Saltmarsh overlooking the North Sea and, for company; she has her cats Flint and Sparky, and Radio 4. When a child's bones are found in the marshes near an ancient site that Ruth worked on ten years earlier, Ruth is asked to date them.

Brighton, 1950: When the body of a girl is found, cut into three, Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens is reminded of a magic trick: the Zig Zag Girl. The inventor of the trick, Max Mephisto, is an old friend of Edgar's. They served together in the war as part of a shadowy unit called the Magic Men. Max is still on the circuit, touring seaside towns in the company of ventriloquists, sword-swallowers, and dancing girls.

When three young women are discovered strangled and mutilated in a Glasgow park, it is up to DCI Lorimer to find their killer. Frustrated by a lack of progress in the investigation, Lorimer is forced to enlist the services of Dr Solomon Brightman, psychologist and criminal profiler. Together they form an uneasy alliance. But when a homeless man is brought in for questioning, the investigation takes a bizarre turn.

The first in a new crime series from M. B. Shaw, pen name of best-selling author Tilly Bagshawe. Murder at the Mill introduces listeners to portrait painter and amateur sleuth Iris Grey, who sees the truths of others while struggling to find her own way. Grey arrives at The Mill in Hampshire, commissioned to paint a portrait of Dominic Wetherby, a celebrated author. She quickly finds herself drawn into a world of village gossip, romantic intrigue, buried secrets and murder.

When a hotelier announces that he will be converting Springwood Hall into a smart country hotel, his plan is greeted with a chorus of local disapproval, led by the fearsome Hope Mapple, head of the Society for the Preservation of Historical Bamford. So the grand opening, to which all are invited, promises to be a lively affair, particularly since Hope is planning a disruptive protest "streak". However, Hope is to be unwittingly upstaged by the discovery of a recently murdered body on the premises.

Gus Lynch is directing the Youth Theatre through a rehearsal. The cast is in place, but the female lead, Gabriella Paston, is missing. Later that evening her body is discovered in the boot of Gus' car. Detective Inspector Stephen Ramsay and Sergeant Gordon Hunter are assigned to head the murder enquiry. Meanwhile, violence is escalating on the Starling Farm Estate as police battle to contain the latest outbreak of joyriding. Is the death of Gabriella connected to the events at Starling Farm?

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of James Oswald's gripping new Inspector McLean crime thriller Natural Causes, read by the actor Ian Hanmore. A young girl's mutilated body is discovered in a sealed room. Her remains are carefully arranged, in what seems to have been a cruel and macabre ritual, which appears to have taken place over 60 years ago.For newly appointed Edinburgh Detective Inspector Tony McLean this baffling cold case ought to be a low priority - but he is haunted by the young victim and her grisly death.

In September 1926, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher visits Sybil Sutherby, a school friend now living in Derbyshire as the confidential secretary to a novelist. Suspecting that something is seriously amiss, Sybil has asked Daisy to discretely investigate. Upon arrival, Daisy finds a household of relatives and would-be suitors living off the hospitality of Humphrey Birtwhistle, who had been supporting them through his thrice-yearly, pseudonymous Westerns. When he took ill, though, Sybil took over writing them while he recovered, only to see the sales increase. Now, she fears that someone in the household is poisoning Birtwhistle to keep him ill and Sybil writing the better-paying versions.

One fateful summer evening, businessman Robin Timariot meets a strikingly beautiful woman while out walking. They exchange only a few words, but those words prove to be unforgettable. A few days later, the newspapers are full of the rape and murder of Lady Louise Paxton - and to his horror, Timariot realises that this was the woman he met just hours before her death. A man is swiftly charged and convicted of the crime, but a series of bizarre events begin to convince Timariot that all is not what it seems.

When DI Vera Stanhope finds the body of a woman in the sauna room of her local gym, she wonders briefly if she’s uncovered a simple death from natural causes. But a closer inspection reveals ligature marks around the victim’s throat…Vera pulls her team together and sets them interviewing those connected to the victim, while she and colleague, Sergeant Joe Ashworth, work to find a motive.

As head of Edinburgh’s CID, Detective Chief Superintendent Bob Skinner has seen it all…but even he is shocked by the savagely mutilated corpse discovered in a dark alleyway. The victim is identified as a successful young lawyer, and the motive for the brutal death remains a mystery. Then further seemingly random killings in the city begin to suggest a vicious serial killer on the rampage. But when the lawyer’s fiancée is also murdered, Skinner realises that someone is in deadly earnest.

It doesn't take Meredith Mitchell long to regret giving up her lovely Cotswold cottage in favour of living in London. In addition, the fact that her job gives a whole new meaning to the word "tedious" does little to improve her mood. What she needs is a holiday. So, when Alan Markby's sister wants a house-sitter, Meredith jumps at the chance. Alan himself is overloaded with work following the discovery of two bodies, one of which, at least, is a murder victim.

What happened to Jacques Gaillard? The brilliant teacher at the École Nationale d’Administration, who trained some of France’s best and brightest as future prime ministers and presidents, vanished ten years ago, presumably from Paris. This ten-year-old mystery inspires a bet—one that Enzo Macleod, a biologist teaching in Toulouse, France, instead of pursuing a brilliant career in forensics back home in Scotland, can ill afford to lose.