Showing titles in Traditional Detectives

It all began with sheep-stealing. A hateful act among the shepherds of the fells, and yet not a matter of life and death. Then came arson and with the leaping of the flames, death and disorder reached the peaceful moors. Holidaying with his friends the Hoggetts in High Gimmerdale while on a trip to find some farmland for his retirement, Robert Macdonald agrees to help in investigating the identity of the sheep-stealers, before being dragged into a case requiring his full experience as Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard.

Artifacts of crime's darkest moments and souvenirs of sinister significance can be found on display in The Black Museum. Presented here are 16 stranger-than-fiction tales of depravity and detection from 1952, hosted and narrated by the incomparable Orson Welles.

January 1910. A journalist has been killed in a suspicious blaze. Everything points to a group of suffragettes, but the apparent culprit insists she is innocent. When Lady Hardcastle receives a letter from a suffragette requesting her urgent help, the retired spy turned sleuth knows only she stands between an accused young woman and the gallows. Evidence at the scene makes Lizzie Worrel’s innocence difficult to believe, and with the police treating it as an open-and-shut case of arson, Lady Hardcastle faces a barrage of resistance as she tries to dig out the truth.

The twenty-eighth book in the number one bestselling Alan Banks crime series - by the master of the police procedural. Late November, 1980. Student Nick Hartley returns from a lecture to find his house full of police officers. As he discovers that his ex-girlfriend has been found murdered in a...

The grisly serial killings of prostitutes and vulnerable women in Victorian Whitechapel, dubbed by the popular press as the work of 'Jack the Ripper', are the talk of London, and from deep within the smog-ridden slums, yet another piercing shriek is heard. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson are drawn into one of the darkest plots ever to shake the foundations of England. There are freemasons, conspiracies and plots at the highest level of the establishment.

When Constable Evan Evans discovers a beautiful shepard's cottage in the mountains of Llanfair, Wales, he and his fiancée are thrilled. It's only months before their wedding, and they are eager to begin their new life together. The cottage is in need of renovation, so Evan wastes no time before he begins making much-needed repairs.

Detective Inspector Jack Dawes and his bride, Corrie, join eight other holidaymakers bound for a tiny Greek island, ready for a bit of sun, sea and sand. Mayhem ensues when a storm destroys the island’s primitive communications, cutting it off from civilisation. It’s a perfect opportunity for murder. First one victim is poisoned, followed swiftly by another. Then a woman is found badly beaten in a quiet cove and a body is found in a grotto to St. Sophia, the island’s patron saint. The island’s visitors are being picked off one by one.

The call from ex-Klansman Aaron Crown couldn't have been more unexpected. Sentenced to forty years for the decades-old shooting of a civil rights activist, Crown should have been out of Iberia Parish, Louisiana, for good. Election candidate Buford LaRose wants Detective Dave Robicheaux to ignore Aaron's calls, promising Robicheaux a lucrative job when he makes governor. Worse still, Buford's wife, Karyn, seems unhealthily interested in getting very close to Robicheaux—just like old times. The LaRoses, each for their own reasons, want Crown's case buried.

If life in the Intelligence Service has taught John Bachelor anything, it's to keep his head down. Especially now, when he's living rent-free in a dead spook's flat. So he's not delighted to be woken at dawn by a pair of Regent's Park's heavies, looking for a client he's not seen in years. John...

Two weeks of rest and recuperation - that's what the doctor ordered. Detective Sergeant DC Smith could listen to some music, make some of his own, and maybe even catch up on his reading; he is almost looking forward to it. And then there is a knock on the door. It's only his next-door neighbor, but it is the beginning of a sequence of events that will bring him face to face with some of the darkest episodes and the most dangerous people from his own past.

In the winter of 1924, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher travels to a school friend's house to witness the estate's famous Guy Fawkes celebration. But she gets more than the quiet weekend at the quaint family manse that she was originally hoping for. The home is the site of some severe family tension. The Viscount and head of the family is a strict and unyielding sort, insisting that everyone - especially his children - meet his own unreasonable expectations. On the evening of the Guy Fawkes celebration, the Viscount is found dead on the floor of his study, killed by his own hand.

An unabridged Agatha Christie mystery, featuring the young adventurers Lady ‘Frankie’ Derwent and Bobby Jones. While playing an erratic round of golf, Bobby Jones slices his ball over the edge of a cliff. His ball is lost, but on the rocks below he finds the crumpled body of a dying man...

On the southeast coast of England, three wines growers have just gone missing and a fourth was found dead at the scene. Could this be the work of the master criminal Albert Smith has been chasing all over the country? You'd better believe it. Rushing back to his home county, Albert hopes to pick up the trail once more. With trusted former police dog, Rex Harrison, at his side, the duo begins to snoop …… but they have no idea the perpetrators are still there. Worse yet, the criminals know who Albert is and they’re not about to let him spoil their plans again.

*From the creator of SLOW HORSES and soon to be a major TV series starring Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson* 'If you haven't read Zoë Boehm yet, welcome to your next fiction addiction' Val McDermid, author of Past Lying 'This is one of these novels where you read it, not just to see what happens...

Alnwick, Northumberland, 1813: Lady Percy's worries about spending her first holiday season as a new countess grow worse upon their arrival at Alnwick Castle. When the old duke calls her by the wrong name, she is left with unsettling questions: Who was this mysterious woman in the duke's past, and why does his fading mind cling to her memory so fiercely? Meanwhile, Lord Percy confronts a crisis outside the castle walls. Children are disappearing from neighboring villages, vanishing without a trace into the Northumberland wilds.

Judge Crowdy Lobbett has found evidence pointing to the identity of the criminal mastermind behind the deadly Simister gang. After four attempts on his life, he ends up seeking the help of the enigmatic and unorthodox amateur sleuth, Albert Campion. After Campion bundles Lobbett off to a country house in Mystery Mile deep in the Suffolk countryside, all manner of adventures ensue. It's a race against time for Campion to get the judge to safety and decipher the clue to their mysterious enemy's name.

Miss Marple, Agatha Christie’s deceptively mild spinster sleuth, is being treated to a few days’ holiday by her niece, staying at Bertram’s Hotel, a dignified, unostentatious establishment tucked away in a back street of busy Mayfair. Here is a place where sedate upper class ladies, retired military gentlemen and the higher echelons of the clergy can indulge in the comforts of a bygone age. But Miss Marple begins to feel uneasy. Something sinister lurks beneath the polished veneer.

A body in the harbour. A yacht full of secrets. And a race against the tide to find the truth. With her ice cream shop thriving, Lily feels at home in the close-knit Isles of Scilly. And now that she’s uncovered the shop’s true owner, she hopes the long-held mystery of her unconventional childhood will soon be solved. But when her friendship with the charming PC Grainger hits troubled waters, she has little time to dwell—especially after a customer is found floating lifeless in the harbour.

In 1890, the first Japanese diplomatic delegation arrives in London to open an embassy. Cyrus Barker, private enquiry agent and occasional agent for the Foreign Service Office, is enlisted to display his personal Japanese garden to the visiting dignitaries. Later that night, Ambassador Toda is shot and killed in his office and Cyrus Barker is discovered across the street, watching the very same office, in possession of a revolver with one spent cartridge.

A dead witness. A forgotten crime. Hamish Macbeth never had it so hard as in this newest Highlands mystery! Morag Merrilea is working at the Shopmark Fashions factory during her summer holidays to earn some extra cash. But when the art student complains to Hamish about the theft of her...