Showing results by publisher "QUEST from W. F. Howes Ltd" in Modern Detectives

Mass murder. A damaged, hurting cop at war with his son. One last shot at redemption. Bound by Blood is the second book in the London Large crime thriller series, featuring the exploits of Detective Inspector Harry 'H' Hawkins, an old-school London copper in a new world. H is only just back at work after a mental and physical breakdown when pop superstar Bazza Wishbone is murdered in the dead of night in a top London hotel. As the whole world looks on in horror, H investigates the crime.

Plagued by the unsolvable murder that ruined his glowing career, a burnt-out detective is cruising through his final weeks until retirement. Until he is hand-picked to be part of a taskforce investigating old, unsolved murders. Hand-picked because the very killer he failed to catch is still out there. Can he finally get the closure he deserves?

Pre-teen girls are being abducted and their families murdered. When Frank Rogers, ex-DI with the Metropolitan Police, is told that his own daughter is missing, his son a victim, he sets aside his grief to help old colleagues investigate the case. In an unexpected turn of events, the killer contacts the police to say he is willing to talk. But only to Frank. When the body of the first abducted girl is discovered, Frank realises the investigation has become a race against time to save his daughter’s life. Frank must work out how the killer is choosing his victims.

A murder with no weapon or motive. A detective on edge. A community that wants answers. Impurity is the first in a series of six books featuring Leeds based Detective Inspector Stewart Gardener. One fateful night, DI Stewart Gardener intervenes in a street brawl, and his wife is shot dead. Finding his wife’s murderer is never far from his mind, but with no leads and a hazy recollection of events, it seems hopeless. Soon he is presented with a shocking case. A man is found dead in a grubby apartment, and It is not long before another man meets the same fate.

DI Bliss and his team absorb two new cases that don't initially present as major crimes. But who is the man who stepped in front of an express train? Did he willingly commit suicide or was he coerced? And what, if any, connection is there to an abandoned vehicle whose owner cannot be traced? As Bliss and his team dig deeper, they soon realise there are three people now missing—a journalist, a mother, and her young daughter. But as the investigations continue, the team struggle with too many unanswered questions.

Tom Keeler finds himself in the town of Promise, Indiana. He just needs to drop off a package, then he can get back to the Florida sunshine. But nothing’s ever that simple. The package gets stolen; things get complicated. Linda Cartwright’s a happily married woman, and then someone tried to kill her on her own front lawn. Why would they do that? Good question. Keeler’s interested, but Cartwright won’t talk about it. When Cartwright’s attacked a second time, Keeler begins to suspect that she’s in over her head. She’s a tough lady, but even tough nuts crack.

'The decisions Harry made within the next few seconds would stay with him for the rest of his life - or result in his immediate death. And he knew it.' When a gang war threatens to rip the metropolis apart, 'London's top copper' finds himself under siege. Held accountable for the unstoppable wave of chaos that is turning the streets of his city red with blood, hounded by a media he cannot understand and continually thwarted by an establishment cover-up, H is in trouble.

When slices of flesh and body parts are discovered in different areas of the country, DI Bliss and his team are tasked with running the operation. After Bliss realises the victims have been subjected to a specific form of torture, it leads him to a cold case involving the brutal and bloody murder of a woman in London 26 years earlier. As the team discover links between their victims, the murdered woman and gangland crime, they begin a dangerous investigation into both the past and the present.

Sylvia van Lidth sits atop a criminal empire providing a service to a very specific clientele…a very wealthy clientele with a particular taste. She fought to achieve her lofty status and is not about to let anything stop her. Lee Yoo the local boss of Korea’s most ruthless crime family, has an order of high-end cars to steal. He doesn’t want to consider the consequences of failure. Arriving in the heart of Amsterdam, Albert’s only aim is to sample the local cuisine, but when his detective’s nose results in being mistaken for a thief, his faithful companion and sidekick, Rex, is taken from him.

Dirk De Graaf has kept his deadly secret for twenty-three years. Not one person on the planet knows. Until today. A chance encounter in the street threatens to expose everything and topple an empire he built with little more than ruthless cunning. But it's just one man. One old man. And one old man can be dealt with easily enough. Or so Dirk De Graaf thinks.

DI Sara Ramsey has to dig deep to find an evil suspect who gets a thrill out of chasing victims to their deaths. The murderer is smart, inventing new methods of tracking down his victims. Just as the inspector senses she's closing in on the culprit, they change their MO, undoing all her hard work. The media is striking fear into the residents. Can Sara set aside her personal problems and prevent the killing spree causing havoc on her patch?

On Boxing Day a mystery woman’s body is found washed up under Teignmouth Pier. She has no ID but is wearing a wetsuit. When the post-mortem shows heavy metal poisoning, DI Jan Talantire is called in. Talantire herself is caught in an ongoing game of cat-and-mouse against her nemesis Commander Brent West. Her complaint against him for abusive behaviour foundered when she was accused by the investigating panel of collusion with another complainant, PC Nadine Lister, to bring West down.

For thirty years the truth has remained hidden, but the murder inquiry he deliberately sabotaged has been reopened and DS Heaton knows his partner is bright enough to figure things out. It's all or nothing now. To evade justice he must find a way to protect his secrets, but he already knows that might mean taking a life. When his web of lies begins to fall apart, does he have what it takes to stay one step ahead, or will the world learn why Bruce Denton had to die?

When DS Royston Chase is called to the scene of a fatal road collision, his task is to identify the girl who died alongside the ex-Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police. Paired with the bold and strident DC Claire Laney, Chase is given the task of closing the case quickly and quietly. But when the girl’s DNA provides a familial link to a child who vanished from her home twenty years earlier, Chase and Laney refuse to accept the coincidence. The pair start looking harder at the ex-cop’s life, at which point they encounter serious opposition. Perhaps deadly serious.

After a young woman is found strangled to death, Bliss is called to the scene. When he learns that one of his business cards was found among the victim's clothing and he is told what was written on the back of it, Bliss is immediately troubled. The card was one of five he handed out to trafficked young women he and his team had previously rescued from a shipping container.

When DI Bliss prevents 15-year-old Molly from jumping from a hotel roof, he has no idea their paths will cross again. A county-lines mule, Molly is questioned by the drugs squad, but Bliss becomes convinced she is in danger and attempts to have her relocated. A local drug dealer and a London-based enforcer have other ideas. Meanwhile, the remains of a freelance Journalist are discovered alongside an archaeological find, which brings an old flame back into Bliss’ life.

Detective Sergeant Tony Heaton has been living a lie for thirty years. Plagued by his failure to solve a brutal slaying in a peaceful seaside town, Tony is weeks from retirement when a new piece of evidence comes to light. He knows the case better than anyone on the planet, and is perfectly positioned to dive straight back in. But DS Heaton doesn’t need to solve the case. He already knows who the killer is, so as those around him sift the truth from the lies, he must work to stay one step ahead. The truth must stay hidden, even if that means lying to himself.

An innocent walk through the woods turns sinister when Albert and Rex hear a cry for help. A desperate woman is trapped the wrong side of a high fence...and she is being pursued.

When 19-year-old Charlene Major is brutally slain in broad daylight, Detective Sergeant Ewan Striker fears a connection to a spate of animal thefts to the north of the city. He knows that some unscrupulous thieves steal pets for bait. But not this time. Striker believes this thief steals to torture and kill. And that can only mean one thing. If this shocking murder is indeed an escalation from animal to human, this man kills for one reason only. Pleasure.

Jimmy Bliss’s first unsolved case is proving to be a puzzle. Despite an original investigation and subsequent case reviews, the police still do not have a suspect in the 1999 murder of a local authority worker. The only lead Bliss and his three new colleagues have is the recent unearthing of the murder weapon. But when that takes them no further, they realise their only chance of success is to find fresh evidence missed in the original case.