Crime Suspense

When acclaimed mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers first began compiling anthologies of the best crime stories in the 1920s and ’30s, the genre was in the flush of its first golden age. While it is hard to imagine today - after every possible mystery plot has been told, retold, subverted, and played straight again by hundreds of writers over nearly a century - in Sayers’s day there were still twists that had never been seen, and machinations of crime that would shock even jaded Jazz Age fans.

The essential collection of crime, mystery, and film noir classics. Uniting seven defining works of mid-century mystery and noir, this collection blends the sharp intelligence of iconic detective novels with the moody tension of Golden Age cinema.

Was the biggest case of his career the worst mistake he ever made? Ten years ago, DCI Jack Logan stopped the serial child-killer dubbed "Mister Whisper", earning himself a commendation, a drinking problem, and a broken marriage in the process...When another child disappears a hundred miles north in the Highlands, Jack is sent to lead the investigation and bring the boy home. But as similarities between the two cases grow, could it be that Jack caught the wrong man all those years ago?

I know all about being afraid of the dark. Like my uncle, in my thirties I found my way into my own dark forest, face-to-face with the big bad wolf. He was so close to me the whole time, I could taste the blood on his breath. Meeting him felt like a fairytale. I fact, I met him at a bar called the Wolf's Lair. A sensational trial for an historic serial murder. A missing woman with a trail of secrets. A top lawyer famous for defending notorious criminals. A retired homicide cop hunting for the truth.

Listen to the first nine books in the bestselling and award-wining Dorset Crime series – over a hundred hours of listening. DCI Lesley Clarke has been transferred to a rural team in Dorset for some peace and quiet after suffering trauma in her previous job in Birmingham. But things don't stay quiet for long. Before she's even started the job she's plunged into her first case in the shadow of Corfe Castle. Next, a lawyer is pushed off a cliff near Old Harry Rocks, and then the cases start coming thick and fast, each one becoming more personal for Lesley.

DI Zoe Finch has a new job. New house, new boss, and new team too. She's been persuaded to move from Birmingham to Cumbria, to head up a team investigating some of the county's most complex crimes. But it isn't easy. Adjusting to rural life, not to mention navigating the politics of Cumbria Police, will be a challenge. And she's not sure who she can trust. And then, her work becomes linked to that of her partner Carl, whose job it is to chase down bent coppers. Zoe's been here before.

Lana Fleming’s sister has vanished from the set of TV’s hottest show, and no one seems to care. Desperate for answers, Lana sneaks in as an extra, only to get stranded with Griffin Hart, an A-list action star with a reputation for good abs and bad decisions. Though Griffin didn’t expect to be cast as a librarian’s sidekick in a real-life thriller, he’s weirdly into it—and into her. Even more unsettling—she sees right through his playboy persona. But their meet-cute soon turns deadly when they uncover a Hollywood scandal for the ages.

Twenty years ago, a young girl was brutally murdered, her body left in an abandoned shed in the Scottish Highlands. Her killer was never caught. Now, another girl has vanished from the same remote village of Kinloch Rannoch, and DCI Ross Fraser and his team are sent to find her. A dogged, methodical investigator with no taste for theatrics, Fraser builds his cases piece by piece. But with no sightings, no suspects, and the clock relentlessly ticking, he begins to fear the same killer has struck again—and that it’s only a matter of time before another body is found.

When a bombing rocks New York City, former Marine Hunter Stevens and his team at Southerly—a new NSA surveillance program listening to Americans through their smart devices—race to track down those responsible. But when Hunter's daughter vanishes without a trace during the investigation, he makes a desperate choice to exploit the system’s vast surveillance network to find her. The decision sets off a chain reaction—exposing corruption, betrayal, and a deeper conspiracy within Southerly itself.

Originally with the Met, he transferred to rural Yorkshire where he never quite managed to fit in. His latest case takes him from the windswept moors to the deceptively calm waters of the Norfolk Broads. This is finally somewhere he wants to call home. A human skeleton is unearthed in a forgotten World War 2 bunker on a remote Yorkshire farm. Detective Geldard welcomes the distraction. His wife is away on a solo trip to America, and he’s starting to tire of ready meals and wondering what she’s getting up to.

A decades-old photo. An unknown child. A secret someone would kill to keep buried. When private investigator Martina Monroe is hired to identify the infant in a decades-old photograph, the case seems simple enough. But the search leads her back to the hometown she swore she’d never return to—a place haunted by old wounds, buried lies, and people desperate to keep the past hidden. As Martina digs deeper, the questions begin to multiply. Who is the child in the photo? Why does no one want her asking questions? And what happened all those years ago that still has the town living in fear?

When 23-year-old Cassandra Vale accepts her first job as an au pair, she finds herself placed with a wealthy family in a rural estate outside of Paris, and all seems too good to be true. But she soon discovers that behind the gilded gates lies a dysfunctional family, a twisted marriage, troubled children, and secrets too dark to air.

A dead man on the beach. A detective with everything to prove. And a secret that won't stay buried. When a man’s body washes up on the North Yorkshire coast with a gunshot wound to the chest, DCI Tom Raven is handed the case. The only clue to the victim’s identity? A ring engraved with two names. Raven hasn’t set foot in Scarborough for over thirty years. Now he’s back – leading a murder investigation and facing ghosts from his past.

Byford is the perfect English village. There’s only one problem for Bridget Gorrigan – she hates the countryside. With a passion. So why does a full on Goth from Liverpool find herself judging a baking competition in the middle of nowhere? Lucy. That’s why.

A comatose man is given a fatal dose of insulin in the emergency room, even though he isn't diabetic. An ulcer patient dies of shock after receiving a transfusion of the wrong blood type. A recovering heart patient receives a double dose of medication and suffers a fatal heart attack. Brain surgeon Dr. Tyler Matthews suspects that something is seriously wrong with the hospital's new "Med-InDx" computerized medical record system. But he doesn't suspect that there's something murderously wrong with it.

When Bay Bishop’s husband was found in the alley behind their Northern Michigan restaurant, she lost not only the partner in her dreams of establishing the best fine-dining establishment in the area, but the man she thought was the love of her life. Then, she finds out how he had betrayed her. Now, she’s a suspect.

Sometimes work can be murder. Detective Sergeant Kiara Lui has just broken up a loud brawl between two blokes in front of the Warrigal Public Library. But just as she's about to leave the scene, a man plummets from the sky and slams into the bike rack right in front of her, dead. Head of Library Services, Neville Adams, was hated by staff, borrowers, and in fact anybody who had ever met him. What might have tipped that hatred into outright murder? The building is quickly sealed, trapping all the suspects inside.

Aaron Fortin is new in town. He drives a brand-new Acura—a gift from his parents for uprooting him in the middle of senior year. Showing up on his first day at the local public school in that nice of a car? He knows he’ll never blend in, and he doesn’t care to try. The car, the new-kid mystique, he can use all that.... Crystal Giordano carpools to the same school in her friend Trevor’s beat-up van. In the van along with Crystal and Trevor are Paul, Harmony, and Gayle. Crystal’s technically part of their misfit group, but most of the time, she feels like she’s the only one who doesn’t fit.

Featured in The Times Top 10 Crime Books of the Decade _________________________________________ 'Karin Slaughter is simply one of the best thriller writers working today, and Cop Town shows the author at the top of her game – relentless pacing, complex characters, and gritty realism, all set...

When Ray Gordon was kicked off the force for taking the law into his own hands one too many times, he lost everything: the power and authority he craved... and worse, his family. Since then, Ray has spent his days drowning in whiskey, consumed by regret and self-pity. He’s a man who has given up... until a chilling message shatters his downward spiral: MEGAN IS MISSING. Everything changes in an instant. As Ray begins the desperate search for his daughter, he’s forced to confront the shadows of his past...