The Gathering Dark

Her lifeless body is hidden in the dark corner of a basement room, a room which seems to have been left untouched for decades. A room which feels as cold as the grave. As a rowdy demonstration makes its slow and vocal way along Edinburgh's Royal Mile, Detective Chief Inspector Tony McLean's team are on stand-by for any trouble. The newly promoted McLean is distracted, inexplicably drawn to a dead-end mews street...and a door, slightly ajar, which leads to this poor girl's final resting place. But how long has she been there, in her sleep of death? 

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.

Undercover ops are always dangerous, but DC Constance Fairchild never expected things to go this wrong. Returning to their base of operations, an anonymous office in a shabby neighbourhood, she finds the bloodied body of her boss and friend, DI Pete Copperthwaite. He's been executed - a single shot to the head. In the aftermath, it seems someone in the Met is determined to make sure that blame for the wrecked operation falls squarely on Con's shoulders. She is cut loose and cast out, angry and alone with her grief....

When Joe Christie's fishing boat is swept onto Tentsmuir beach during a fierce storm, a man's mutilated body is found in the hold. DCI Andy Gilchrist of St Andrews CID is called in to investigate. But his murder investigation deepens when he learns that Joe Christie and his boat have been missing for three years. The police pathologist, Dr Rebecca Cooper, retrieves a five pound note from the dead man's throat. Is this the killer's calling card? 

When an old man is found dead inside the ancient hermitage at Warkworth Castle, Northumbria CID are called in to investigate. With no apparent motive, it’s their job to unravel why he was murdered - and this time they’re forced to do it without their star detective.... DCI Ryan is thousands of miles away. He’s tracked a killer across Europe and has sworn not to return until he has his man in custody. Nathan Armstrong is a dangerous psychopath, but there’s just one problem - he’s also an international celebrity: a world-famous thriller writer with money and connections.

DCI Jim Daley is sent from the city to investigate a murder after the body of a woman is washed up on an idyllic beach on the West Coast of Scotland. Far away from urban resources, he finds himself a stranger in a close-knit community. Love, betrayal, fear and death stalk the small town, as Daley investigates a case that becomes more deadly than he could possibly imagine, in this compelling Scottish crime novel infused with intrigue and dark humour.

Between the devil and the deep blue sea... Viking treasure is discovered beneath the icy waters of the North Sea, and local historian Dr Anna Taylor is called in to help catalogue the most exciting hoard in living memory. But when a shipwreck diver washes up dead, she’s soon out of her depth. Luckily, she knows just the person to call.... When DCI Ryan arrives at the picturesque fishing town of Seahouses, he's faced with an impenetrable wall of secrets and lies.

Inspector Logan McRae was looking forward to a nice simple case - something to ease him back into work after a year off on the sick. But the powers-that-be have other ideas. The high-profile anti-independence campaigner, Professor Wilson, has gone missing, leaving nothing but bloodstains behind. There's a war brewing between the factions for and against Scottish Nationalism. Infighting in the police ranks. And its all playing out in the merciless glare of the media. Logan's superiors want results, and they want them now.

DCI Nelson has been receiving threatening letters telling him to 'go to the stone circle and rescue the innocent who is buried there'. He is shaken, not only because children are very much on his mind, with Michelle's baby due to be born, but because although the letters are anonymous, they are somehow familiar. They read like the letters that first drew him into the case of The Crossing Places, and to Ruth. But the author of those letters is dead....

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.

Brussels, 1979. Jaded Edinburgh journalist Neil Bannerman arrives in the capital of European politics intent on digging up dirt. Yet it is danger he discovers when two British men are found murdered. One victim is a journalist, the other a Cabinet Minister: the double assassination witnessed by the former's autistic daughter. This girl recalls every detail about her father's killer - except for one.

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.

Detective Chief Inspector Roberta Steel got caught fitting up Jack Wallace - that's why they demoted her and quashed his sentence. Now he's back on the streets, and women are being attacked again. Wallace has to be responsible, but if Detective Sergeant Steel goes anywhere near him, his lawyers will get her thrown off the force for good. The Powers That Be won't listen to her, not after what happened last time. According to them, she's got more than enough ongoing cases to keep her busy.

It was meant to be a harmless stag-night prank. A few hours later Michael Harrison has disappeared, and his friends are dead. With only three days to the wedding, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace - a man haunted by the shadow of his own missing wife - is contacted by Michael's beautiful, distraught fiancée, Ashley Harper. Grace discovers that the one man who ought to know Michael Harrison's whereabouts is saying nothing.

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.