Old Crime

Beloved author Jill McCorkle offers an intimate look at the moments when a person’s life changes forever. A woman uses her hearing impairment as a way to guard herself from her husband’s commentary. A telephone lineman strains to communicate with his family even as he feels pushed aside in a digital world. And a young couple buys a confessional booth for fun, only to discover the cost of honesty.

White Monk Abbey is a local landmark and its resident patriarch, Caradoc Mansell, a foreboding presence. He runs his household and family as if he is still in the army. So, when he is found murdered, the challenge Chief Inspector Matt Lambert faces is that many people had a good reason to want him dead. And when it is discovered that Caradoc had children from dalliances in his youth, his family also fall under suspicion - their substantial inheritance having been put in doubt.

The principal criminal court of England, historically reserved for the more serious and high-profile trials, Court Number One opened its doors in 1907 after the building of the 'new' Old Bailey. In the decades that followed it witnessed the trials of the most famous and infamous defendants of the twentieth century. It was here that the likes of Madame Fahmy, Lord Haw Haw, John Christie, Ruth Ellis, George Blake (and his unlikely jailbreakers, Michael Randle and Pat Pottle), Jeremy Thorpe and Ian Huntley were defined in history....

It’s a cold winter evening, and rain is sweeping in from the Atlantic when a young woman, having braved the weather to visit her sick mother in a remote part of Ireland, comes across an obstacle in the road. She clears the highway of stones from a damaged bridge only to see the body of a woman in a ditch. With no phone reception, she travels to the nearest police station to report what she has found. The local Garda waste no time in attending the scene of the crime.

John "Sonny" Franzese reportedly committed his first murder at the age of fourteen. As a "made man" for the Colombo crime family, he operated out of his Long Island home specializing in racketeering, fraud, and other illicit deeds he would deny to his dying day. His career in organized crime spanned over eight decades - and he was sentenced to fifty years in prison for robbery. This is the true story of an old-school Mafioso as it's never been told. Newsday reporter S. J. Peddie interviewed Franzese in prison and uncovered a lifetime of shocking secrets from the legend himself.

With the scars of her last case still fresh on her skin, DI Jamie Johansson is piecing together a puzzle that’s been buried for 20 years. It killed her father, and now she’s determined to finish what he started and expose the corruption threaded through every street of Stockholm. When a series of violent incidents rock Jamie’s fragile existence in Sweden, she’s faced with a choice - drop the case, or have her loan to Stockholm Police terminated.

When old bones are discovered buried beside an A road, it becomes clear that Leon Martin—dubbed "The Ken Doll Killer" by the tabloid press—may not have taken his life 21 years ago. As Boyd investigates the old case file, it becomes clear that there may be new bodies buried at lay-bys around the country—more than that, something incredible was overlooked by the original investigating team.

Private Investigator Charlie Cameron is searching for a man who disappeared after his son’s suicide. When an unidentified body turns up at the morgue, Cameron is sure it’s another case closed. But the body laid out on the slab isn’t the man he’s looking for. And it isn’t a stranger. Suddenly, a routine investigation becomes a desperate fight for survival.

Adrian Dodds is a man without hobbies, friends, or family, who works a very peculiar job. Though he looks like a pencil pusher, he is a British counter-intelligence agent. In his own quiet, bureaucratic way, Dodds is vital to the security of the United Kingdom. His latest assignment is debriefing Viktor Pavel, a Soviet aeronautics genius who escapes his handlers to become the Cold War’s most high-profile defector. Can he be trusted, or was he sent over as part of an elaborate Russian ruse?

To all appearances, Dan Chase is a harmless retiree in Vermont with two big mutts and a grown daughter he keeps in touch with by phone. But most sixty-year-old widowers don't have multiple licenses, savings stockpiled in banks across the country, and a bugout kit with two Beretta Nanos. Years ago, as a young hotshot in army intelligence, Chase was sent to Libya to covertly assist a rebel army. When the plan turned sour, Chase reacted according to his own ideas of right and wrong, triggering consequences he could never have anticipated. And someone still wants him dead because of them.

Everyone in Saxford St Peter is desperate to know more about Harry Tennant, the newcomer who owns the Old Mill. He usually keeps himself to himself, but he’s finally invited the villagers round for drinks, and Eve Mallow isn’t the only one looking forward to having some questions answered. But two days before the party, a terrible fire sweeps through the mill, and Harry is found dead. When Eve passes the burned remains of his beautiful house, she can’t resist the call to investigate.

In the romantic narrative of the Old West, two larger-than-life characters emerged as the perfect foils for each other - the rampant outlaw and the heroic peace officer. Without the villain, sheriffs would not have needed to uphold the law; and without the sheriff, villains would have had no law to break. Together, both personalities fought, lost, and triumphed amid shootouts, train robberies, and bank holdups against the backdrop of the lawless American frontier.

As one of just a few judges licensed to try murder cases at the Old Bailey, the author has presided over many of the high-profile cases that all too often grab our attention in dramatic media headlines—for every unlawful death tells a story. But, unlike most of us, a judge doesn't get to turn the page and move on. Nor does the defendant, or the family of the victim, nor the many other people who populate the court room. Peeling apart six dramatic murder and manslaughter cases, Unlawful Killings removes this distinction between 'them' and 'us'.

In 1892, Bombay is the center of British India. Nearby, Captain Jim Agnihotri lays in Poona military hospital recovering from a skirmish on the wild Northern frontier, with little to read but newspapers. The case that catches Jim's attention is being called the crime of the century: Two women fell from the busy university’s clock tower in broad daylight. Moved by the widower of one of the victims - his certainty that his wife and sister did not commit suicide - Jim approaches the Framjis and is hired by the Parsee family to investigate what happened that terrible afternoon.

Melissa has just finished writing her latest mystery novel and is enjoying the arrival of spring. She’s decided to let her fictional detective retire at last and perhaps put her own days of investigating behind her, too. But the ink has barely dried on the page when Melissa receives shocking news: Her estranged father has been found dead in the family home and her mother, Sylvia, is under suspicion of murder.

n this engrossing collection, David Grann sets out to unravel the truth of twelve great, real-life mysteries. Each of these mesmerising stories is true; the protagonists are mortal and pieces of the puzzle often elude them. Some of the characters are driven by deception and murder. Others go mad.

Where Old Bones Lie is set on an isolated archaeological dig in the Cotswolds. When a body is found near the site, the suspects, witnesses, and clues all conflict, and the disappearance of a group of New Age travellers just seems to add to the mystery. Superintendent Markby and Meredith Mitchell must untangle the mess, and in doing so find themselves in a dangerous and uncompromising situation.

Hornclaw is a 65-year-old female contract killer who is considering retirement. A fighter who has experienced loss and grief early on in life, she lives in a state of self-imposed isolation, with just her dog, Deadweight, for company. While on an assassination job for the 'disease control' company she works for, Hornclaw makes an uncharacteristic error, causing a sequence of events that brings her past well and truly into the present.

A trio of vicious World War One veterans descend on the farm in the Adirondack mountains where one of them grew up and his father now lives alone. They embark on, happily wreaking drunken havoc at the old man's place and in the nearby town. But when a naïve, mail-order bride arrives, she ignites a tinderbox of resentment, lust, and betrayal among the men that explodes in brutal depravity, bloody violence, and shocking death. This hard-boiled, literary masterpiece includes a new introduction by Jack Mearns, author of John Sanford: An Annotated Bibliography.

In April 1956, at the height of the cold war, Khrushchev and Bulganin leaders of the Soviet Union are in Britain on an official visit. Chief Inspector Troy of Scotland Yard is assigned to be the official bodyguard and to spy on the Soviets. Soon after, a Royal Navy diver is found dead in a mutilated state in Portsmouth Harbour. Troy embarks on an investigation that takes him to the rotten heart of MI6, to the distant days of his childhood and into the dangerous arms of an old flame.