Thriller Detective Serial

Three best-selling novels in the Detective Damien Drake series available in a bundle for the very first time: Skeleton King, Human Traffic, and Drug Lord: Part I.

When the call comes in about Lucy, a 17-year-old girl murdered after the secret party she held in her parents’ home, Detective Lottie Parker is first on the scene. As Lottie breaks the news to Lucy’s heartbroken parents and the devastated partygoers, she discovers that hours before her death Lucy had revealed a terrible secret about her friend Hannah. And when Lottie finds Lucy’s bloodstained clothing hidden in Hannah’s bedroom, she has no option but to bring the shy, frightened girl into custody. But Hannah claims to have no memory of the night Lucy died.

Who is NYPD Detective Damien Drake? For starters, he’s an alcoholic with PTSD; a man who doesn’t play well with others and could care less about political correctness. But he’s also the one they call in when the most heinous crimes are committed by the city’s most sadistic murderers. He’s the one they bring in when there are no clues, no evidence, and the killer shows no remorse. He's the one enlisted to keep the streets of New York City safe. Just don’t get on his bad side because he’s also the one detective in New York that you don’t want as an enemy....

A young couple in their prime is found dead in the marital bed. As they lie naked, staring at each other with eyes wide open - filled with fear, his colleagues assume a double suicide, but Detective Andrew Deans senses that darker forces are at work. Deans is facing an awakening - a spiritual birth, but he is stuck in a living nightmare. Those around him are watching...judging...expecting him to break.

DS Kat Ballantyne came to the crime-writing festival for an escape. Instead she’s walked straight into a murder scene. Moments before he’s due on stage, a famous novelist is found dead in a locked room. It looks like natural causes, but Kat sees tiny clues that suggest murder. As she investigates, she uncovers literary rivalries, personal vendettas and hidden agendas. Is there anyone who didn’t have a motive to murder Mark Swift?

On the fourth floor of Chaucer House, two teenagers are found chained to a radiator. The boy is dead but the girl is alive. For Detective Kim Stone every detail of the scene mirrors her own terrifying experience with her brother Mikey, when they lived in the same tower block 30 years ago. When the bodies of a middle-aged couple are discovered in a burnt-out car, Kim can’t ignore the chilling similarity to the deaths of Erica and Keith - the only loving parents Kim had ever known.

When Amy Whyte and Penny Brogan leave a nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning and don’t arrive home, their families are beside themselves with worry. Conor Dowling has just been released from prison, a man full of hatred for Amy, the girl who put him behind bars in the first place. The case is given to Detective Lottie Parker when the girls’ blood-soaked bodies are found, days later, in a derelict squat. Chillingly, both girls are clutching silver coins in their hands - what message is this killer leaving behind? All the signs point to Conor, but his alibi is watertight.

DS Karen Hart’s happy world is shattered the moment she finds her fiancé Mike’s mother murdered on what should have been a night of celebration. And even worse, someone has sewn the soft skin around Lorraine’s eyes shut… Karen’s entire soul aches to uncover Lorraine’s killer. But her team cannot let her be a part of the investigation, and she is forced to watch from the sidelines.

When a local school is the target of a bomb threat, DI Louise Blackwell finds herself embroiled in her most personal case to date. Not only is her niece among the terrified pupils—there’s also a chilling note hidden under the device: Next time you won’t be so lucky, DI Blackwell… The explosion of a nearby caravan offers a connection…and a suspect. But when he hangs himself after interrogation, leaving another note promising more carnage, Blackwell fears there’s an accomplice.

As bogus corruption charges loom over her, DS Kat Ballantyne finds herself deskbound and stuck with cold cases. Her hated boss, DI Carver, has given her just one week to explain how £50,000 found its way into her bank account. If she can’t, she’ll be lucky to have a desk at all. Then a close friend calls her from a murder scene, claiming to have strangled a local gangster’s wife. Kat has no choice but to disobey orders and investigate. Despite overwhelming forensic evidence supporting her friend’s confession, something still doesn’t add up…

A young woman falls from a vehicle speeding down a quiet road. Battered and bruised, she turns her head to the person who comes to her aid. ‘Help her’, she whispers before her eyes close. Days later, the body of another young girl is found in a shallow grave just a few miles away. The similarities between the two girls are startling, same age, same frail body, same shocking red hair.

When a desperate mother calls Denton Police Department to report her children missing, Detective Josie Quinn races to investigate. Sixteen-year-old Kayleigh and her little sister Savannah went for a walk in the woods but never came home. They are good girls and know not to go far, say their frantic parents. Kayleigh always looks after Savannah and brings her home safely. Until now....

A boy’s frozen body is found trapped in the ice of a Minneapolis lake. The horrifying discovery leads Detective Jude Fontaine and her partner, Uriah Ashby, to more bodies in the ice, all of twelve-year-old boys missing for twenty years. Then, in one of the worst blizzards the city has ever seen, a four-year-old is abandoned on Jude’s doorstep. The child can’t tell them where he’s from, who his parents are, or how he got there. He doesn’t even know his name. But in his unspoken language, Jude reads something horrifying - a connection to the dead boys.

Deep beneath London, urban explorer Connie Darke stumbles across a mutilated body in the city’s decaying sewer system. Moments later, a strange whistling sound follows her through the tunnels—low, eerie, impossible to trace. DI Lew Kirby is assigned the case. The victim is a wealthy financier with no clear reason to be underground—and no shortage of enemies above it. As Kirby investigates, Connie uncovers chilling new clues about the unexplained death of her sister. Both are drawn deeper into a world of hidden networks, buried secrets, and obsession.

Detective Lucy Harwin is called out to attend the discovery of a woman’s body in an abandoned, crumbling church and is quickly plunged into a case that will test her leadership skills to the limit. With no leads except the crudely-fashioned crucifix the victim was displayed on, Lucy is at a complete loss. That is, until another body turns up: an elderly woman who devoted her life to the church. Faced with a killer stalking the streets of her small coastal town, while also throwing herself into work to forget the love of her life, Lucy’s first case is turning into a nightmare.

DI Kate Young has known for years that her boss, Superintendent John Dickson, is a violent and evil man. But when she finally confronts him and accidentally shoots and kills him, she’s forced to cover her tracks before anyone can pin his death on her. With revelations about his corruption soon to become public knowledge, Kate sets up a trail of evidence to make it seem that Dickson has conveniently vanished… But Kate knows the corruption doesn’t end with Dickson.

Seventeen-year-old Chloe Smedley walks out of the school gates and waves to the person waiting for her across the road. She smiles and hurries towards them… and is never seen alive again. Detective Jackie Cooke is first on the scene when Chloe’s body is found, posed upright at a garden table. In her gut, Jackie knows she’s searching for a monster and it’s only a matter of time before they strike again, but no one will listen.

Scott Jericho thought he'd worked his last case. Fresh out of jail, the disgraced former detective is forced to seek refuge with the fairground family he once rejected. Then a series of bizarre murders comes to light - deaths that echo a century-old fairground legend. The police can't connect the victims. But Jericho knows how the legend goes; that more murders are certain to follow. As Jericho unpicks the deadly mystery, a terrifying question haunts him. As a direct descendant of one of the victims in the legend, is Jericho next on the killer's list?

When the body of a man is found in the dense forest surrounding Black Rock Falls, Sheriff Jenna Alton immediately sees disturbing similarities with a past case - the same murder weapon, the remote beauty spot, and the way the victim is perched against a tree with no sign of a struggle. But the killer in that case was jailed for life.

Saturday morning, a rare day off for Detective Maddie Ives. She's about to have a relaxing shower with her boyfriend Vince when she gets the call: There's been another one... Ron and Sandy Blackman's brutalised bodies are found in the hallway of their isolated rural home. They've been stabbed multiple times; Ron's hands are tied tightly behind his back; Sandy has several fingernails ripped out. The safe has been forced open. This is the second house of horrors that Maddie and her team have been called out to in a matter of days.