Showing results by author "Kim M. Watt" in All Categories

Baton. Light. Chocolate. Duck. This is not DS Adams' usual kit. This is not DS Adams' usual case. She doesn't think it's anyone's usual case, not with the vanishing children and the looming bridge and the hungry river. Not with the snap-snap-snap. But six kids are missing, and she's not going to let there be a seventh. Not on her watch. And she knows how to handle human monsters, after all. How different can this really be?

DI Adams fled London to escape bridge-dwelling monsters and magical toasties - a one-time experience she's in no hurry to repeat. She's police, not some cryptid hunter. Leeds has other plans, though. Tasked with the seemingly mundane case of a missing necklace, Adams soon realises she's stumbled into something inexplicable. The trinket is dangerous, and she's the only one who recognises it for what it is - a weapon that could tear the North apart.

Morgan Winters wants an ordinary life: A job at a bookstore, an apartment she can barely afford, and a healthy amount of existential dread. Her brother (AKA "The Ruiner") ruins that when he shows up on her bedroom windowsill, transformed into a talking cat. He claims it's due to a date gone horribly wrong, but Morgan's not buying it. Still, when he begs her to take him to a witch who can change him back into a human, she reluctantly agrees. Family is family. When they arrive in Hollowbeck—a suspiciously small and suspiciously magical town—they find the witch. Only she's dead.

Warring staff. 'Accidental' poisonings. Topiary of dubious intent. Throw in the full complement of the Toot Hansell Women's Institute and dragons doing yoga, and DI Adams is starting to wonder if she might have made a small misjudgement signing up for this particular spa weekend. And that's before the dead body in the sauna and the storm that cuts them off from the rest of the world. Now she's dealing with a houseful of guests (and staff) who're looking more suspicious by the moment, fending off protesters, and trying to keep everyone safe as the storm closes in.

Morgan and her ex-husband broke up on bad terms. But when he sends her a cryptic message, Morgan knows that whatever trouble he's in, it's likely her fault. Over Ruiner's protests, she ventures beyond Hollowbeck's borders to find him. But instead of finding him, she finds a dead body. Then she finds the Oubliette, an exclusive gambling club in the town of Darrowdale, which is a mirror image of Hollowbeck—only with a decidedly more dangerous population.

A dragon is missing. DI Adams' missing person is human, not dragon, but the trails of both lead to the village of Eldmere, where glimpses of a mysterious Beast have drawn in the nation's monster hunters. And where the Toot Hansell Women's Institute and the Cloverly dragons are in hot pursuit of Gilbert. A valley full of weekend Yeti hunters and cryptozoologists won't stand between them and the young dragon. But something strange is happening in Eldmere, and the dragons, Beast, and ladies of the Women's Institute are at the heart of it.

In the ancient city of York, a master charm has been stolen - one powerful enough to raise an army of metal guardians across the country. Built to protect, they can just as easily destroy, and in the wrong hands, they will. Which is bad enough. But if the charm isn't recovered soon, they won’t be the only ones on the rampage. Because Heather - near-goddess of the wood and wild, and deeply unimpressed partner of the charm's creator - will tear the city apart to stop them.

A simple case - or it should be. But all clues point to the Toot Hansell Women’s Institute, and Detective Inspector Adams is about to discover there’s much more to the W.I. than just bake sales and jam-making. Alice Martin knows the ladies of the W.I. are not guilty. But she has a bigger problem. Toot Hansell has a large and dragonish secret, and she needs to keep the police well away from it. Beaufort Scales, High Lord of the Cloverly dragons, knows even better than Alice that the modern dragon only survives as long as no one knows they exist.

DI Adams is not having a good summer. Her house has been hexed. Her parents have just turned up, determined to experience all Yorkshire has to offer. And they're going to get more than they bargained for, because someone else has turned up too. He calls himself Velmyr Duskthorn, Lord of the Fae, and he's demanding a powerful book Adams doesn't have, can't get, and couldn't hand over even if she had it – unless she fancies starting an inter-species war.

Miriam has never exactly seen eye-to-eye with her sister. But when a body's dumped on the doorstep of a Women's Institute meeting and all signs point to Rainbow, Miriam knows her sister's being framed. Going to the police would be the smart move, but Rainbow's got her own reasons for avoiding them. Before long she's on the run, trusting to Miriam and the W.I. to clear her name. The killer's left nothing to chance, though, and Rainbow's in more danger than she realises - and she's dragging the others right in with her.

There's a fine line between 'eccentric' and 'a danger to oneself and others'. That's certainly what DI Adams is thinking when a body turns up in Rose's freezer. Rose might not look like an octogenarian black widow, but it's the inspector's job to follow the evidence. Alice and the Toot Hansell Women's Institute couldn't disagree more. Certain that Rose is responsible for nothing worse than a little forgetfulness, they're not going to let her be sent to jail or an old folk's home.

When a traveling carnival arrives in Hollowbeck, it promises magic and mayhem. It's also an opportunity for Morgan to find someone who can transform her brother, Ruiner, back into a human—he's a little tired of being a talking cat, and she's a little tired of cleaning his litter box. Things look promising until the curtains rise on rehearsal night to reveal Ruiner sitting on the lifeless body of the wizard who promised to help him.

Like it or not, when a sorcerer asks you to track a magician, you track a magician. It's that or spend life as a hamster. So we did. But, turns out, the scary magician is the least of our worries. Between raging squirrel mobs, My Little Ravenous sewer monsters, and bungalow-dwelling necromancers with a good line in attack dogs, it's all we can do to keep ourselves the right side of dead. And that's before we stumble onto something far more sinister. Something that makes one dead son look like small carrots. Something that's going to raise an ancient almost-god and bring the world to its knees.

When Toot Hansell’s water supply turns murky, it's easy to blame the notoriously soggy Yorkshire weather. But this winter, the rain's endless, the water's undrinkable, and the village is slowly turning into a marsh. The local water sprite, Nellie, could probably sort it all out—if she hadn't mysteriously vanished, leaving behind a battalion of furious geese, which are only adding to the problems. Now the only clean water in town is arriving in pricey bottles from Toot Hansell's new wellness guru, Lachlan Jameson. But the rising water isn't the only problem. People are disappearing.

Find a missing book. That was the job the woman in the Doc Martens gave us. Easy money, right? Only now it seems she's actually an ancient, powerful sorcerer, and the book is a Book of Power that doesn't want to be found. It wants to tear reality apart at the seams, and it'll use anyone it can to do it. So now we've got one spectacularly displeased sorcerer, a hungry, still-missing book, a dentist with bad hygiene, and a neighbourhood having some reality issues to deal with. Plus about a day before the book turns our world - and us - inside out.

"Find Malcolm. His safety is your safety." Threat or promise, I wasn't hanging around to find out. Not when the sorcerer making it had just yanked me out of my skin for a friendly chat. But with scheming magicians, lurking necromancers, and Callum's long-lost family all competing to make my next out of body experience a permanent one, having a sorcerer on our side seems like a pretty good option. There's just one problem. If we want her help, we need to find her dentist. And we've only got one lead. Weres. Mouth-breathing, ravening monsters with too many teeth and no affection for my kind.

I see dead people. And I'm not the only one. They're even on Facebook. The dead are rising, and if we don't stop them before the infection spreads any further, we're going to be knee-deep in the zombie apocalypse before you can say mmm, brains. The only problem is, we don't know why they're rising, who started it, or how to stop them. But G & C London, Private Investigators, are on the case. Just as soon as we get through dealing with disapproving reapers, irate magicians, zombie-fied chickens, and a small internal case of undeadness. Trust us.

A call from an old colleague has DI Adams off her patch and out of her depth, dealing with a mysterious new beer that has unexpected side effects. Side effects that are much more dangerous and far-reaching than a simple hangover. Missing brewers. Inexplicable superpowers. Erratic behaviour. And it's not just the punters. Half the police in Yorkshire seem to have fallen under the beer's spell, and she's barely keeping a step ahead of them.

When a man from Callum's past turns up at our door claiming to have lost both the last herd of unicorns in England and his sister, I knew it should be a hard pass. The past has teeth. But old debts plus a damsel in distress means Callum just can't say no. G&C London, Private Investigators, are plunging deep into the magical underbelly of Leeds, and we're going to have our work cut out for us. Never mind the criminal dynasties, cross-dressing trolls, trained attack lizards, and philosophical donkeys - we need to find the sister and get out before the Watch get involved.

Suspicious deaths on the Skipton city council don't sound as though they should have anything at all to do with the Toot Hansell Women's Institute, and DI Adams would rather like to keep it that way. But when the councillor for Toot Hansell becomes the latest victim, Alice Martin, chair of the W.I. and RAF Wing Commander (ret.), steps straight in to take his place.