DCI Monika Paniatowski faces an old enemy - and makes a fatal mistake with the potential to poison her whole career. Jordan Gough is an important man. He's the town's biggest benefactor. He is the proprietor of the Whitebridge Evening Telegraph. He owns the local football team. He is also, DCI Monika Paniatowski thinks, as bent as a corkscrew - and if she had any evidence, she'd put him away like a shot. A single encounter with him as a young detective sergeant left an impression she's never forgotten. And neither, she is certain, has he. So when Jordan calls and demands to speak to Monika - and only Monika - she is on immediate high alert. He claims someone's trying to kill him, but why has he destroyed the evidence? Why turn for help to an officer he hates? Certain she's the target of a twisted practical joke, Monika makes a terrible mistake - one that could destroy everything she holds dear. The fourteenth DCI Monika Paniatowski mystery is a powerful and dark tale of revenge, secrets and lies, which grips you tight as it reveals twist after stunning twist.

DCI Paniatowski's team suspect a murder is the result of ritual killing, carried out by a secret society. But DCI Dixon treats it as a mere domestic murder. So Meadows, Crane and Beresford risk their careers to uncover the truth. Meanwhile, Monika knows killer and that he is stalking her daughter. Yet she is in a coma, so what can she do about it?

In the latest Chief Inspector Woodend historical mystery, the policeman is landed with a difficult case . . . and a difficult new female colleague. The investigation into the brutal murder of a Blackpool policeman in the middle of the holiday season was never going to easy, but the case itself is not Woodend's only problem. There is trouble at home: his new boss, DS Ainsworth, is just waiting for an opportunity to stick a knife in his back; his invaluable assistant, Bob Rutter, had been replaced by a new sergeant more intent on advancing her own career than helping him -- and the Blackpool police themselves seem to think it might be better if the killer were never found . . .

Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend will have to rely on his observational gifts to have a ghost of chance in solving his latest murder case. The night after the mysterious appearance of the legendary Dark Lady on the road outside Westbury Park, a German efficiency expert, Gerhard Schultz, is found battered to death in the woods and Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend is faced with his most puzzling case yet. Why did Schultz seem so frightened when on his colleagues mentioned the legend of the Dark Lady? Did the workers at the BCI chemical factory-many of whom are known to hate the Germans-have anything to do with his death? How could Fred Foley, the tramp whose bloodstained overcoat was found close to the scene of the crime, have completely disappeared? And is this murder connected with one which occurred in Liverpool nearly twenty years earlier?

Introducing Oxford-based private investigator Jennie Redhead in the first of a brand-new mystery series. Oxford, 1974. Seventeen-year-old Linda Corbet is missing. She disappeared a few nights before when she was supposed to be visiting a schoolfriend. Linda's mother Mary doesn't think her daughter has run away as the police and her husband believe. She is convinced Linda was murdered - and she has hired private investigator Jennie Redhead to find out what really happened to her. The only clue Jennie has to go on is a fragment of an obscure 17th century poem she finds in Linda's bedroom: Or will you, like a cold and errant coward/Abandon all and make a shivering turn. But from that one clue Jennie's investigations will lead her to a secret Oxford society - and a hidden world of violence, excess and desire which lies behind the city's dreaming spires.

When human bones are discovered in the cellars beneath St Luke's College - two bodies, buried thirty years apart - the bursar, Charlie Swift, hires Jennie Redhead to investigate. As she uncovers a series of scandals stretching back sixty years, Jennie wonders how well she really knows her old friend Charlie and whether she can trust him.

Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend enters the smoky dens of Liverpool to stop a killer stuck in a deadly groove. When Eddie Barnes, of popular group The Seagulls, is electrocuted on the stage of the Cellar Club, in front of three hundred adoring fans, the Liverpool Police immediately call in Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend. But Woodend doesn't understand why Eddie's mother says that Eddie had a girlfriend, while his best mate insists that he didn't. And who has been playing nasty tricks on The Seagulls, culminating in Eddie finding a dead rat - with a noose round its neck - in his guitar case? As Woodend battles with the complexities of the case, he is more than aware that if he does not find the murderer soon, there could well be another death.

DCI Paniatowski's team suspect a murder is the result of ritual killing, carried out by a secret society. But DCI Dixon treats it as a mere domestic murder. So Meadows, Crane and Beresford risk their careers to uncover the truth. Meanwhile, Monika knows killer and that he is stalking her daughter. Yet she is in a coma, so what can she do about it?

When the body of an American woman is found in the Prince Alfred suite at the Royal Victoria Hotel, DCI Monika Paniatowski is faced with one of the most baffling cases of her career. The woman who called herself Mary Edwards had been a guest at the hotel for the past two weeks, having paid cash in advance. But who was she really - and what was she doing in a small town like Whitebridge? If Monika could discover why the dead woman had come to Lancashire, she would be one step closer to catching her killer. The investigation takes an intriguing twist when Monika learns of a possible link to a fifty-year-old murder - but the only person who could tell her why it's relevant is lying in a coma.

DCI Monika Paniatowski investigates a case that could be the making - or, more likely, breaking - of her career DCI Monika Paniatowski has only been back from maternity leave for three days when she is called in to investigate a nightmare of a case. Not only is the murder victim a mother of three small children, but her husband is a wealthy politician. Monika knows that if she can't make a quick arrest her career is on the line. It's lucky, then, that within minutes of meeting Councillor Danbury, she has a bruised face - and a prime suspect. But then the case takes a nasty twist, and suddenly the investigation is national news. Monika's sure she has the right man - but how to prove it? Particularly when she's under pressure from her superiors to arrest anyone other than Councillor Danbury, president of the golf club and friend of her chief constable . . .

Introducing Oxford-based private investigator Jennie Redhead in the first of a brand-new mystery series. Oxford, 1974. Seventeen-year-old Linda Corbet is missing. She disappeared a few nights before when she was supposed to be visiting a schoolfriend. Linda's mother Mary doesn't think her daughter has run away as the police and her husband believe. She is convinced Linda was murdered - and she has hired private investigator Jennie Redhead to find out what really happened to her. The only clue Jennie has to go on is a fragment of an obscure 17th century poem she finds in Linda's bedroom: Or will you, like a cold and errant coward/Abandon all and make a shivering turn. But from that one clue Jennie's investigations will lead her to a secret Oxford society - and a hidden world of violence, excess and desire which lies behind the city's dreaming spires.

Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend finds himself in a backwater village investigating a murder in this taut police procedural. 1950s Cheshire, England. When the strangled body of teenager Diane Thorburn is found buried in the salt store, Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend is pulled in from London to investigate. An outspoken Northerner, he does his policing the old-fashioned way, and he is convinced that Margie Poole, Diane's best friend, knows more about Diane's last movements than she is prepared to tell. Then Woodend's inquiry turns up the death of another young girl a generation before. The similarities in the two cases begin to look more sinister than mere coincidence. Could there be a serial killer on the loose. . . ?

A Monika Paniatowski British police procedural On the night the Whitebridge Players staged their last ever performance, the idealistic young actors in the company resolved that twenty years on they would return to the same theatre and stage the same play. But two decades later, old resentments have grown and new jealousies have germinated, and it is a very different company that returns to re-enact the Spanish Tragedy. The cast members all have their axes to grind - and some have clear targets for those axes . . . It is in this world - where normal rules and standards have no meaning - that DCI Monika Paniatowski finds herself, once a tragedy within the Tragedy has occurred. But how can she uncover the killer's motive when everyone seemed to want the victim dead? And how can she decide who is telling the truth - when all these people lie for a living?

On the night the Whitebridge Players staged their last ever performance, the idealistic young actors in the company resolved that twenty years on they would return to the same theatre and stage the same play. But two decades later, old resentments have grown and new jealousies have germinated, and it is a very different company that returns to re-enact the Spanish Tragedy. The cast members all have their axes to grind - and some have clear targets for those axes . . . It is in this world - where normal rules and standards have no meaning - that DCI Monika Paniatowski finds herself, once a tragedy within the Tragedy has occurred. But how can she uncover the killer's motive when everyone seemed to want the victim dead? And how can she decide who is telling the truth - when all these people lie for a living?

Monika Paniatowski's boss is trying to destroy her career, but the dead end case he assigns her turns out to be something else entirely . . . DCI Monika Paniatowski recognises her latest assignment as advisor to the Earl of Ridley's rock festival for what it really is - an attempt by the chief constable to destroy her career. Yet it soon becomes apparent that matters are not as simple as they appear. Why, for instance, did the earl choose to employ the notorious Devil's Disciples motorcycle gang to provide the security for the festival? And to what lengths will his mother, the dowager countess, go to destroy it? But it is when the half-naked body of a tabloid journalist is discovered in the middle of Whitebridge that things really start to hot up.

"A nameless victim. An unknown killer. An impossible case for Monika Paniatowski."
Before she can even begin to track down the killer of the old woman dumped by the lonely canal, Monika Paniatowski needs to find out who she is - and no one seems to know. Even when her daughter Louisa provides the vital clue, it only makes life more difficult, because the Chief Constable - intent on making Paniatowski's life difficult - refused to let her follow the obvious trail. And it is not until there is a second, even more brutal, murder, that Paniatowski realises she will have to call on the help of her old mentor, ex-DCI Charlie Woodend.

DCI Monika Paniatowski has a bitter personal history with Chief Superintendent Kershaw, but that is not the only reason she doesn't not want the investigation into the sudden - and probably violent - disappearance of his wife, Elaine, landing on her desk. Why should all the resources of the Whitebridge police be channelled into this one case? she asks herself. Why doesn't somebody - anybody - take an interest in the disappearance of a young prostitute called Grace Meade? Though she has been told that solving the Kershaw case could make or break her career, she determines to devote part of her time to finding out what happened to Grace. But when a heavily mutilated body is discovered on the moors, it begins to look as if she has made the wrong decision.

The third book in the new series featuring DCI Monika Paniatowski When a recently released prisoner claims in a deathbed confession that he is innocent of the rape and murder of a young girl for which he was convicted twenty-two years earlier, DCI Monika Paniatowski is tasked to lead an unofficial investigation into his claims. At first she is reluctant, but when she learns that her old mentor Charlie Woodend was the lead detective in the case, she knows she must do everything she can to protect his reputation . . .

DCI Monika Paniatowski has seen dozens of murder victims in her time, but nothing could have prepared her for the corpse discovered in the woods that early morning. It is not so much that the man's throat has been viciously slashed that shocks her, nor even the fact that he is naked - it is the way has been carefully posed on his hands and knees. Is the killer sending a message? And if so, for whom is it intended? The investigation is on shaky ground from the start. Paniatowski has been assigned a new sergeant, who she does not entirely trust. Worse yet, an old enemy from the secret service appears on the scene and announces he will be monitoring her every move. But why is a spy interested in a local murder? Then a second victim is found, and it becomes clear to Monika that whatever the murderer's message is, he will not stop killing until she understands.

It will be no easy task to fill the shoes of a local legend like DCI Charlie Woodend, the newly-promoted Monika Paniatowski tells herself, but given a little time, she thinks she can grow into them. Yet time is the one thing she does not have. On her first day in the new job, a severed female hand is discovered on the riverbank. The obvious suspect is Stan Szymborska, the victim's war-hero husband, though Paniatowski refuses to arrest him. But is it the lack of evidence which is holding her back . . . or is it the fact that he is not only the most attractive man she has met in a long time, but also a fellow Pole? Woodend is preparing to leave for a new life in Spain, and Paniatowski is determined not to ask for his help. But when her colleagues prove untrustworthy, the urge to call him becomes almost irresistible . . .

The discovery of a body on a local allotment site re-opens an unresolved cold case for Monika Paniatowski and her team. 'He was going to have to terminate Monika, he decided. It was a pity, but there it was.' The body has lain buried for years, and has no face and no fingertips. Monika Paniatowski's team have no real leads, but when they discuss the case at her hospital bedside - where she lies paralysed - Monika begins to see possible links with a case she closed four years earlier. Are the two cases connected? Did the first murder make the second almost inevitable? She doesn't know, but she does know that she is being watched by an old enemy who will kill her if he decides there is ever any chance of her sharing her thoughts and information with her team.

Private investigator Jennie Redhead finds her loyalties divided when she investigates the decades-old murder of a college student. Oxford, 1974. In the cellars beneath St Luke's College, a sealed medieval ventilation shaft is opened up to reveal human bones. Two bodies, buried thirty years apart, but is there a connection ... Desperate to protect the College's reputation - and finances - the bursar, Charlie Swift, hires his old friend, private investigator Jennie Redhead, to find out the identities of the two victims. But as Jennie pieces the clues together, it becomes increasingly clear that Charlie knows rather more about the murders than he's admitted. As she uncovers a series of scandals stretching back more than sixty years, Jennie is forced to question how well she really knows her old friend Charlie Swift - and whether she can trust him...

DCI Monika Paniatowski is forced to think the unthinkable: could a good friend and long-standing colleague be guilty of murder? On the day of her official retirement from the Force, DCI Monika Paniatowski looks at the two men and one woman who are no longer her team and thinks: Whatever the future holds, I will always be proud of you. She raises a toast. And just like that, her career as a homicide detective is over. Then, fifteen years later, Monika's former sergeant, Kate Meadows, makes a terrible mistake. Monika doesn't hesitate when Kate turns to her for help. She owes her, and she can hardly let her old friend go down for a crime she didn't commit. But as Monika gets deeper into the investigation, she's forced to ask herself the unthinkable: is Kate really innocent, or is she helping her old friend get away with murder? Packed with twists that will make you gasp out loud, the fifteenth - and final - DCI Monika Paniatowski mystery is a stunning conclusion to the long-running series. If you haven't met Monika yet, you're in for a treat.

Private investigator Jennie Redhead is hired to investigate a murder that's left the police baffled, in this gripping historical mystery set partly in 1970s Oxford and partly in war-torn 1940s London. Oxford, 1975. Three years ago, world-renowned anthropologist Grace Stockton was slain in a brutal, unprovoked attack. Despite a large-scale police investigation, the identity of the prime suspect was never uncovered . . . and neither was the location of Grace's head. But Grace's daughter, the wealthy academic Julia Pemberton, refuses to accept that the trail has run cold. Determined to find out who killed her mother, she knows just the woman for the job: private investigator Jennie Redhead. Who was the woman caught on CCTV visiting Grace's isolated home on the day of the murder? And why did she cut off her victim's head? Jennie's search for answers takes her on a dark, disturbing journey into the past, from the ancient tribal customs of Papua New Guinea, to war-torn 1940s London - and to a dark tangle of secrets and scandal that someone is desperate should never be revealed . . .