Showing results by publisher "Hodder & Stoughton" in Police Procedurals

How do you catch a killer when no one knows he's out there? How can you be saved when no one knows you're lost? No one knew about the Puppet Maker...until DI Brady found what remained of his victims. The murderer never meant them to be found. They are his private collection: each body identical, each...altered. Brady knows that now his secret is out, the killer will destroy the evidence - including his latest captive. He must find a man who has hidden the worst of crimes for over 20 years. And whose nameless victims were never even missed....

In the 1970s, a terrifying serial killer stalked the streets of Tynemouth. The press called him the Joker. The crimes stopped - but the man was never caught. And now he's back. A body has been found in a sleazy motel room, murdered in exactly the same way as the Joker's first victims. Is it a copycat? A trick? Or is the Joker at work once more? It's only DI Jack Brady's first day back - and this will be his most twisted case yet.

During a remote meeting, an official watches from Lisbon as his colleague, Inácio Machado, a Portuguese diplomat based in London's Portuguese embassy, dies of what looks to be a heart attack. When no one comes into the room to Inácio's aid, he tries frantically to contact the embassy to get immediate help. He tries and tries again, but no one picks up the phone and he's forced to call the British emergency services. When local police arrive, they walk into a disturbing scene. Everyone inside the building is dead, all seemingly from the same cause.

Jeppe Kørner, on leave from the police force and nursing a broken heart, has taken refuge on the island of Bornholm for the winter. Also on the island is Esther de Laurenti, a writer working on a biography on a female anthropologist with a mysterious past and coming to terms with her own crushing sense of loneliness in the wake of a dear friend's death. When Jeppe lends a helping hand at the island's local sawmill, he begins to realize that the island may not be the peaceful refuge it appears to be.

Three brutal attacks. One near-fatal beating. A deadly score to settle. DI Jack Brady is riding high after the successful outcome of his previous case, but his world is about to come crashing down. There's a serial rapist plaguing the streets of Whitley Bay. Three young women have been horribly abused, and his boss and the press are screaming for answers. Everything seems to point to his old friend and foe, gangster Martin Madley, though Brady still struggles to believe he's capable of such acts.

A stunning and original debut crime thriller starring Harry Kent, a police surgeon who uncovers a shocking conspiracy after a hostage situation goes wrong. Dr Harry Kent likes to keep busy: juggling hospital duties with his work as a police surgeon for the Metropolitan Police - anything to ward off the memories of his time as an army medic. Usually the police work means minor injuries and mental health assessments.

It's a brutal winter in Des Moines, Iowa, and the city is gripped by fear. A serial attacker known as the Sin Eater is stalking women and has just struck again. It's a tough time and a tough place for Riley Fisher, a former small-town sergeant, to be reporting for duty as an FBI agent on her first assignment. Teamed with a man she's not sure she can trust and struggling to prove herself - while fighting the pull of her old life and family dramas - Riley is tasked with investigating a vicious death threat against the newly elected female state governor.

What would you do to protect your family? Tell a lie? Break the law? Or solve the problem...for good? The body in Lauren James' back garden belongs to her ex-boyfriend, Ritchie. DI Gardner thinks it's an open-and-shut case. But he reckoned without the interference of Lauren's father, local businessman and aspiring politician Walter James. And he couldn't know about the secrets that everyone involved wants to hide.

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 nearby park, and her new boyfriend is missing, he realises two things in quick succession: he is undoubtedly a suspect as he has no convincing alibi, and he has own suspicions as to what might have happened. Late November 2019. An dig near Scotch Corner unearths a skeleton that turns out to be far more recent than the Roman remains the archaeologist is looking for.

The explosive follow-up to Eye Contact finds DI Harland face-to-face with a killer.... He didn't intend to let her get so close. But now that Kim's become important to him, Robert Naysmith decides to tell his girlfriend his deadly secret. He wants her to recognise the power he holds. He hopes he won't have to kill her. Detective Inspector Harland hasn't forgotten the serial killer who got away from him. But with nothing to go on, he fears he will never bring him to justice.

It is Autumn in Linköping and the heavens have opened, but not even these biblical rains can wash away the blood of crimes, past and present. Then the brutally-stabbed body of self-made Internet billionaire Jerry Petersson is discovered floating face down in the moat surrounding his home, the imposing Skogså Castle. Malin Fors, the brilliant but flawed star of the Linköping police force, is already struggling to keep her life together following the recent murder attempt on her teenage daughter, Tove.

It starts with a body - a young woman found dead in an Iowa cornfield, on one of the few family farms still managing to compete with the giants of Big Agriculture. For Sergeant Riley Fisher, newly promoted to head of investigations at the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office, an already horrific crime takes on a personal edge when she discovers the victim is an old friend, from a dark past she thought she'd left behind.