British Women Detectives

London, 1850: A young Charles Lenox struggles to make a name for himself as a detective...without a single case. Scotland Yard refuses to take him seriously and his friends deride him for attempting a profession at all. But when an anonymous writer sends a letter to the paper claiming to have committed the perfect crime - and promising to kill again - Lenox is convinced that this is his chance to prove himself. The writer's first victim is a young woman whose body is found in a naval trunk, caught up in the rushes of a small islets in the middle of the Thames.

Detective Sara Hirst has moved from London to Norfolk Police's Serious Crimes Unit. She wants to know the truth about her father, who has connections to the area. Her mother won't tell her the real story. A new job. A new place. Same old problems. Sara's first call-out is to a decomposing body discovered in a ditch on a local farm. How does the murder relate to a recent spate of thefts? Who wanted the victim dead? Then the case grows very personal.

In the dead of night, four teenagers taking a shortcut through an archaeological dig site find a woman’s lifeless body in a muddy trench, her hands and neck locked in a medieval device known as a Shrew’s Fiddle. It doesn’t take long to see that these are no ancient remains: the woman was killed just hours earlier.

DI Sheridan Holler is used to solving crimes on Liverpool’s streets, but after a decayed corpse turns up in a cemetery, she finds herself reopening not one but two cold cases. Seven years earlier, two women were gunned down and the only suspect, small-time drug dealer John Lively, was never seen again. Case closed. Until the body in the cemetery is identified as his.

It was supposed to be the perfect reunion: six university friends together again after twenty years. Host Ali finally has the life she always wanted, a career she can be proud of and a wonderful family with her college boyfriend, now husband. But that night her best friend makes an accusation so shocking that nothing will ever be the same again.

Harry Richards, a local solicitor, is found in his car, throat slit. DI Clare Mackay is on the case. She soon learns that Harry was not the upstanding man he seemed to be. Finding the killer should be easy. Then the wife of one of Harry's colleagues is discovered dead in her car, and Clare realises there is something more sinister at play… Can she find out who's behind the murders before they turn their attention to her?

August 1911. Emily Hardcastle and her inimitable lady’s maid Florence Armstrong are enjoying a fine summer until Harry, Lady H’s brother, turns up out of the blue with a mystery for them to solve. A routine parachute test at a local aeroplane factory has gone horribly wrong - with pilot Dickie Dupree plummeting to his death. Harry is certain there is more to this ‘tragic accident’ than meets the eye, having discovered that someone at the airfield is leaking top secret intelligence to foreign rivals.

DC Sophie Jones was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Viciously bludgeoned one night in a dark alley, she is left fighting for her life in hospital, leaving no clues as to why she was there or what might have motivated the attack. For Detective Karen Hart, fiercely protective of her young protégée, this is already deeply personal: an attack on Sophie is an attack on the whole team. When a car workshop near the crime scene is linked to local mobster Quentin Chapman, the man Hart has spent years trying to bring down, it’s hard not to jump to the most obvious conclusion.

Fifteen years ago, a serial killer was on a rampage murdering young women in Middlehampton. Then, suddenly, the killings stopped, and the murderer was never found… So when the body of another young woman is found bearing the twisted killer’s unique hallmark—the overpowering stench of lavender and an origami heart—DS Kat Ballantyne knows this can only mean one thing: the killer is back.

When a woman is abducted from a quiet suburban street and bundled into the back of a white van, the only witness to the crime is a child with a reputation for telling tall tales. The police doubt the girl’s story, except for Detective Karen Hart, who is determined to follow her instincts—perhaps because the shy little girl reminds her of the daughter she’s still grieving. When a playing card is found at the scene, Karen finds her first clue. And when a second card is found at the home of a missing woman, Tamara, Karen finds her victim.

3,000 years ago Iron Age people carved a white horse on the Downs near Uffington Castle, and now someone has dumped a body there. Laid out like a ceremonial killing, Detective Inspector Leo George isn't convinced that the murder is what it appears. He suspects the young female victim may have been a member of the Children of the White Horse, a secretive valley commune, but none of the cult members are talking. That is until he discovers his friend Jess Bridges is undercover in the commune, attempting to persuade a wayward young woman to leave the cult.

They were meant to be safe on Fleet Ward: psychiatric patients monitored, treated, cared for. But now one of their number is found murdered, and the accusations begin to fly. Was it one of his fellow patients? A member of staff? Or did someone come in from the outside? DC Alice Armitage is methodical, tireless, and she's quickly on the trail of the killer. The only problem is, Alice is a patient too.

The peace of Kielder Water is shattered when tourists open a barrel they found floating in the reservoir at dawn. Detectives Stone and Oliver are called to examine the skeletal remains inside. The tourists are eliminated from the investigation, but that same day a second body is discovered - this one with skin. Have the police let the killer leave the scene? While Stone investigates the remains, Oliver travels to Iceland to gather evidence and track down the tourists who have fled. Someone will do anything to protect the secrets of the past.

It's 1996. Detective Sergeant Tom Thorne is a haunted man. Haunted by the moment he ignored his instinct about a suspect, by the horrific crime that followed and by the memories that come day and night, in sunshine and shadow. So when seven-year-old Kieron Coyne goes missing while playing in the woods with his best friend, Thorne vows he will not make the same mistake again. Cannot. The solitary witness. The strange neighbour. The friendly teacher. All are in Thorne's sights. This case will be the making of him...or the breaking.

When DCI Anna Tate is called to the gruesome discovery of a dead woman found on Barnes Common, she is plunged into a high‐profile investigation involving a prominent MP. London is baying for blood - but is there more to Holly’s death than at first meets the eye? Meanwhile, the hunt is on for Anna’s missing daughter Chloe, who vanished 10 years ago when her ex‐husband kidnapped her. The case has been cold for what feels like forever - but a phone call brings a brand-new lead....

A series of disappearances are linked by one vital clue, and when a grave is uncovered in the woods, the sins of the past return with deadly consequences. A local community is devastated when dark secrets are revealed, and no one knows who to trust. Harriet Quinn will need all of her expertise to find a killer who hides in plain sight.

When an American tourist is murdered with a scone in Gemma Rose's quaint English tearoom, she suddenly finds herself apron-deep in a mystery involving long-buried secrets from Oxford's past. Armed with her insider knowledge of the university and with the help of four nosy old ladies from her local Cotswolds village (not to mention a cheeky little tabby cat named Muesli), Gemma sets out to solve the mystery - all while dealing with her matchmaking mother and the return of her old college love, Devlin O'Connor, now a dashing CID detective.

Jem Jago is back at work with her antique books, and spending her weekends exploring her new home - the windswept Isles of Scilly - in her little sailboat, 'Bellatrix'. She’s really starting to settle into island life. Unfortunately, murder in the Scillies is not as rare as some of her manuscripts. In Tatteredly’s second-hand bookstore, she discovers the body of beautiful Gina Marrak. Poking around the scene of the crime, Jem finds an unusual book, which leads her down an unlikely path.

How do you find the missing when there’s no trail to follow? DC Lucy Clayburn is having a tough time of it. Not only is her estranged father one of the North West’s toughest gangsters, but she is in the midst of one of the biggest police operations of her life.

Joe McKee – pillar of the Derry community - is dead. As arrangements are made for the traditional Irish wake, friends and family are left reeling at how cancer could have taken this much-loved man so soon. But grief is the last thing that Joe’s daughter, Ciara, and step-daughter, Heidi, feel. For they knew the real Joe - the man who was supposed to protect them and did anything but. As the mourners gather, the police do too, with doubt being cast over whether Joe’s death was due to natural causes.