After seven years, a psychopath starts killing again. He is mutilating women, and hanging them upside down in abandoned buildings with a meat hook through their ankles. Pinned to their breasts are messages in ancient languages. Parish and Richards begin their investigation, but Chief Inspector Trevor Naylor wants revenge on Parish, and the killer wants Mary Richards. Richards must also cope with the pressure of her impending National Investigator's Examination, Parish finding out that she snores, and the lack of men in her life. The investigation leads to a gripping conclusion, which involves DI Ray Kowalski and his partner, Chief Superintendent Walter Day, and Angela Richards. The Head of Forensics, Paul Toadstone, also becomes a hero. |
A grave containing the skeleton of ten year-old Amy Linton – missing for eight years – is found in Galleyhill Wood in Essex, and then Head of Forensics, Paul Toadstone, finds more skeletons in the same grave, and more graves in the woods. A reporter, who might have known something about the dead children, is gruesomely murdered, and the newspaper where he worked is destroyed by fire. Parish and Richards slowly begin to collect the evidence and put the pieces of the puzzle together, but there are other players in this game. John Linton wants revenge on the person who killed his daughter and destroyed his life; Alex Knight wants to escape from an unwanted life with MI6, but to do that she must kill Parish; and a shadowy organisation will do anything to remain a secret. As the body count rises, the Chief brings in two additional detectives to help them; Richards’ love life goes from bad to worse; Parish begins the search for his parents; and the detectives must mourn the death of two friends. |
DCI Marshall has taken the place of Chief Walter Day, transferred Kowalski to Traffic Analysis, and is taking an active role in running the investigations. She also has a hidden agenda! Toadstone finds a body in a trunk at the landfill site, which isn't connected to the Bin Bags Case, and between him and Parish they decide to investigate the body in the trunk themselves. Parish is then suspended from active duty - now, (you know and I know) that he should really hand over the case, but the trouble is Toadstone's done an illegal post-mortem, so they decide to carry on investigating the murder using the backroom of Parish's house as a base. Richards is not happy because Marshall is using her as a driver and not involving her in the Bin Bag Case, but she realises that the trunk murder is a copycat of a murder from the 1950s, and there are more to come... Also, the Chief Constable goes to Klosters skiing with his family, and Sir Charles Lathbury from MI6 decides that it would be better all round if the Chief had an accident and didn't come back until Parish's career was ruined, but there's an ex-Stasi killer tracking the assassins and Sir Charles, who thinks he's incognito, but isn't. The reporter, Catherine Cox from the Chigwell Herald, becomes involved when the killer contacts her wanting publicity, but because Parish is running an illegal investigation, she has to hide the vague report on page 5 of the paper. The killer contacts her and tells her she's on his list, which means that Parish has to look after her. Not only does she move into Parish's spare room, much to the chagrin of both Angie and Richards, but she also tries to tempt him away from Angie. What am I doing? I've nearly told you the whole story, but not quite... There's more twists and turns in this book than a game of Twister! And I haven't even mentioned the wedding, a clue coming from a friend about Parish's parents, or St. John - the killer! |
PC Lola Laveque in Missing Persons identifies a pattern. Murders are thin on the ground, so Parish and Richards decide to investigate. Their investigations lead them all over Essex, and eventually to Maldon where they discover one man's obsession for his family. Also, Sergeant Ed Gorman has a different problem with his family. After the death of an investigative journalist, Parish decides to stop looking for his parents. |
Parish and Richards investigate a case involving recently pregnant headless bodies disposed of in the sewers. Not only do they struggle to discover the identity of the victims, but they can't find the babies either. Kowalski and Nash investigate the death of the landlady of The Smutty Pig who has been bludgeoned to death and a withered flower left on the body. Also, Parish finds out who his father is, somebody wants Angie's baby, and Richards has another relationship disaster. Oh, and a favourite comes back... for a while! |
Parish & Richards have two cases to solve. One turns out to be unfinished business, the other is very close to home. Angie struggles to come to terms with her new baby. Kowalski is promoted, but someone is out to ruin him. Two detectives join the team, and are allocated the case of five bodies discovered in the grounds of a house. |
This next book in the series is packed with story and very few 'F' words: Parish and Richards travel to Quantica, Virginia to give a presentation at an FBI conference on serial killers in different cultures, but they stumble over an American serial Killer called "The Painter". Chief Kowalski and his wife Jerry are accused of Satanic Ritual Abuse of their children, who are taken away by Social Services - Kowalski has another heart attack and ends up in hospital, which leaves Jerry in a fight to get her children back. Much to Xena's disgust, she and Stick are given two cases to investigate due to Parish & Richards' absence. One, in which a group called Mothers Against Paedophiles (MAPs) are abducting paedophiles from their own homes, torturing confessions out of them, killing them, and then publishing the video-confessions on a website. The second case concerns a man called John Smith who is discovered in a house that resembles a necropolis because it has so many female bodies inside. The trouble is, he's not John Smith, he's not talking, and they don't know who he is. And I haven't told you about the hacker called Cookie, Charlie Baxter the solicitor, Alicia Mae's past, the undercover operative from the DGIFC following Parish... Oh yes, and there's an addition to Parish's family! |
Parish & Richards must find a serial killer who is carving broken hearts on women. Stick & Xena are given the case of a severed hand, which was found by a bag lady in a waste bin outside the local fish & chip shop, but Xena has her own problems. Jerry Kowalski gets involved with a woman who thinks someone is trying to kill her, so she asks for Cookie's help, but the trouble with Cookie is that she doesn't know when to stop. Oscar Gamboa, a lieutenant in the Colombian Los Cambios drug cartel, has been tasked by drug lord Esteben Garcia to get his money back, and kill whoever has it. Oscar decides to take Rosibel Cabelleros with him against her will. Parish & Richards finally get the chance to visit the Excess Bagage depot in Wembley and find out what is in the briefcase. |
Parish & Richards are sent to Cyprus to discover if a British Army officer being held by the Cypriot police is responsible for murdering a local woman and the disappearance of three other women, or whether he is being made a scapegoat by the anti-British elements of the Cypriot government. Jerry gets involved in a simple restraining order and then disappears. Kowalski oversteps the mark trying to find her, but all is not what it seems. Stick and Koll have two cases to solve: Viktor likes performing surgical procedures on people using his collection of antique medical instruments; and a sniper is shooting drivers on the A406 in Essex. The dirty cops at Shrub End send a killer after Koll, and Stick must race to save her. Xena wakes up and asks her old flame – DI Tom Dougall – to help her protect Stick. Cookie gives the files (including details of the Epsilon experiments) that she stole from Basement 7 to Group 323, who pass them onto WikiUK in Iceland. The security services send a black ops team to Iceland to prevent publication of the top secret files, which they fear could bring down the British Government. |
Parish, a hobbling Richards and a lush DI from Norwich investigate the death of a child found in Hangman’s Wood, which is linked to a spate of child abductions across the southeast by someone calling himself The Removal Man. Parish also receives a severed tongue and a location in the post. In his search for Jerry, Kowalski must travel to Wales to find out the truth behind his wife’s disappearance. During his travels he must help a desperate Cookie who is on the run. Stick – with the help of Xena – solves the riddle of the blonde-haired children, but loses a partner in the process. And Parish finds out the terrible truth about his parents. |
Parish and Richards are on a body hunt. Xena – with the help of Charlie Baxter, Cookie and Jenifer – conducts an investigation from her hospital bed to prove Stick is innocent, even though he won’t help himself. Kowalski can’t concentrate on his job with Jerry in a drug-induced coma in the hospital, so he tackles an unsolved cold case from the 1980s called the Red Spider murders. |
Parish & Richards are given the case of a gifted boy murdered on the fourteenth green at the local golf course; Richards is also trying to find out if a 1966 diary that she bought at a car boot sale, and written by a captive 15 year-old girl called Loveday, is genuine.Stick and Xena are working to solve the case of a young woman’s thawing body found in a wood.Jerry Kowalski is back, and she becomes involved in the trial of an architect who is accused of murdering his wife. His barrister is going to get him acquitted, but Jerry has a feeling the architect is guilty, and asks Bronwyn for her help. |
Parish & Richards investigate what appears to be the simple case of a woman who was sexually assaulted and murdered in her own apartment, but Richards is convinced it's the work of a serial killer. Stick & Xena attend the A&E at King George Hospital to investigate a woman who says that she murdered her boyfriend, but things are a lot more complicated than they first appear. And then Xena gets some bad news. Jerry Kowalski is back at the office. She's dealing with a client who lives in a high-rise called Butterfield Spire, which is owned by recluse Israel Voss. There's a smell, but the building supervisor won't let her bring in the experts to investigate. |
Richards is seconded to the Serious Crime Analysis Section (SCAS) at Bramshill in Hampshire, but sometimes evil sneaks in before the door is bolted. When Epping detectives put Carrie's murder on the pending pile, Parish knows that he must find her killer. Jerry goes back to work, and decides to take things easy by going to see Mrs Birmingham about a request to write her Last Will & Testament - what could possibly go wrong? A man comes into the station and confesses to murdering a woman four months previously. Stick and Xena must find out whether he's telling the truth, and where her head is. Also, Zara Roche - Israel Voss' apprentice - is in Italy when she receives a sealed letter from his solicitors that changes everything. |
Parish and Richards are given the baffling case of a man drained of blood and left suspended in a Community Centre in the position of The Hanging Man from a pack of Tarot cards with a number on a piece of paper inserted into his heart, but this murder is only the beginning. Stick and Xena are given a series of double murders to solve, but nothing is ever as simple as it first appears. The men have had body parts removed, their wives have had their throats cut and there’s a bloody handprint on the children’s bedroom doors. Jerry is given two other students – Shakin’ and Joe – by the Professor in her law class, and is tasked to produce a project on the Baker Street Bank Robbery and the use of a D-Notice, but things begin to spiral out of control when Jerry is threatened by an MI5 agent, and then Bronwyn gets involved. |
Due to a shortage of murders, Parish and Richards are asked to help out in the search for a missing eight year-old girl, but as usual things are never what they seem. Xena and Stick are seconded to the Kent & Essex Serious Crime Directorate and are put on stake-out outside an industrial unit waiting for a drug delivery. However, Xena gets bored on stake-outs and things quickly become something a lot more sinister when she decides that they should go and investigate. Bronwyn books into the Beautiful You Cosmetic Surgery Clinic in London, but when she hacks into the system she is drugged and locked in the basement. Jerry, Shakin and Joe decide to find out what’s happened to her, but things quickly go from bad to worse – a lot worse. |
The new Chief arrives – DCI Nigel Nibley – who hands out the new murder investigations. Parish and Richards are given the case of a murdered ten year-old boy, but a three-link chain tattoo under his top lip hints at something more than an abduction, sexual assault and murder. It becomes a lot more sinister when Doc Riley finds a DNA match on the database that has been sealed from prying eyes. Stick and Xena get the Painted Lady Killer case. Someone has body-painted a young woman as two halves of a clown – good and evil, which includes the insertion of a prosthetic eye, and left her in a house. During the post-mortem, a hidden message is discovered on the body, and they must delve into the world of body-painting to get to the strange truth. Kowalski and Bronwyn have opened up Abacus Investigations. Their first case involves a man – Linus Frost – who has been missing for six months. His daughter asks them to find out what has happened to him, and gives them key in a box that came in the post, but all is not what it seems. |
Parish and Richards are given the case of a beautiful naked mutilated woman who seems to have walked away from her life. Xena and Stick must find out whether the killer of an eight year old girl has returned 24 years later to finish what he started. After the death of a DI from Romford, the Chief Constable asks Kowalski to come back initially for a month to solve the case. Bronwyn isn’t happy though, she want him to investigate the murder of prostitutes in different foreign ports. Jerry, Shakin’ and Joe are allocated a pro-bono case involving domestic violence and murder, but all is not what it seems. |
For Parish and Richards, what begins with the discovery of a small heart carved into the forehead of a murdered young woman, turns into the search for a prolific serial killer called The Lover, and involves the Met’s Serious Crimes Investigative Team (SCIT) descending on them to lead the investigation. Xena and Stick investigate when a mother and three children are murdered at a farm, which also has a Donkey Sanctuary where they get up close and personal with Huckleberry and Pickle. Their main suspect – the father – is missing, but are things that simple? Jerry, Shakin’ and Joe have to write a report on the unsolved murder of Emily Hobson, but when they begin to check out the facts they uncover something a lot more sinister. A ten-year-old boy comes into Abacus Investigations and asks Kowalski to find his missing mum, because he thinks that his dad might have murdered her and disposed of the body, but things are a lot more complicated than that. |
Parish and Richards are given the case of a thigh bone found on waste ground, but one thigh bone leads to a number of other dis-articulated bones. Xena and Stick have the case of a young female shop assistant who has been bludgeoned to death in a sex shop, but finding the murderer is not straight-forward. Jerry, Joe and Shakin’ are given the task of writing a report on a recent conviction based on the recovered memory of a woman from twenty-six-years ago, but all is not what it seems. Kowalski and Bronwyn take the case of a female research assistant from Leicester University who supposedly committed suicide on Hemsby beach in Norfolk. Also, DCI Nibley receives a birthday card from his father, who disappeared forty years ago after murdering his wife and two of his three children. |
Parish and Richards must solve the case of a family murdered at a farm, which appears to be a revenge killing, but revenge for what? And by whom? And how are MI6 involved? There’s also Richards’ impending departure to London to work at SCIT, the man she meets who is due to take up a post at MI5, and DC Evie Maddison who will be replacing her in the Murder Team. Xena and Stick have the case of a torso found by building contractors in a cellar room that isn’t meant to exist at the old Hailey Green School. There’s also the issue of the holes in the cellar walls and floor, the runaway children, and Stick’s defective sperm. DCI Nibley begins recreating his father’s research on the Brethren of Hades in the old Armoury in the basement, but have they planted a man inside the station to watch him? And can he save his wife from an assassin? |
Parish is without Richards. Instead, his new partner – DC Evie Maddison, is testing his patience. They have the case of a solicitor buried in a shallow grave, and it takes a twisting path to get to the truth. Xena and Stick have the case of a mummified female corpse found in the cavity wall space of a house being extended, but things get complicated when more bodies are found buried at the property, and Doc Paine – their usual pathologist – is suspended and replaced by a locum called Vlad. Doc Paine pleads with Xena to help her, so she asks Bronwyn for help in getting to the truth of a botched post-mortem. Meanwhile, Richards is in London working with DCI Mike Todd and the team at the Special Project Investigative Unit (SPIU), and she’s been tasked with looking into the disproportionately high statistics surrounding murdered and missing sex workers across the UK, but she’s not happy. DCI Nibley, and his wife Pauline, finally find a ray of hope in their battle with The Brethren of Hades by contacting a conspiracy group calling themselves the Truth Seekers, but things go from bad to worse. |
Parish and Richards are sent to the British Virgin Islands to catch a child serial killer, but getting there is a matter of life and death. Xena and Stick have the case of a woman murdered in the library at Essex University’s Loughton Campus, but what appears to be a simple murder is anything but. Jerry, Joe and Bee are giving free advice at a Legal Clinic and are asked to investigate the resolution of a partnership dispute due to one partner’s fraudulent accounting, but things are not what they seem. Kowalski and Bronwyn are asked by a big London insurance company to take the case of a stately home burglary, which could lead to a significant finder’s fee if they get it right, but they fall foul of one of Kowalski’s old flames. |
Parish and Richards are given the case of a strangled woman left in a standing position wedged between a fence and a cycling sign on the bank of the River Lee in Rye Park. She also has a gravestone from the local church tied around her ankles. As they try to piece together her last hours, they discover she has a mysterious past, which leads them to Berlin. Xena and Stick have the case of a male skeleton found in Broxbourne Woods. Above the grave is a tree that has been engraved with a goodbye note to Jimmy Tanner. When forensics dig up the skeleton, they find a second one belonging to a sixteen year-old girl who is five-months pregnant and she has Memento Mori etched into her skull. to edit. |
Sir Arthur Quinton is murdered in his own bedroom during a garden party at Darcy Court and Parish and Richards must use all their skill to find the culprit and bring them to justice. As usual though, the investigation twists and turns to an unnerving conclusion. Xena and Stick are told to co-operate with the Lead Investigator of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB) when it’s discovered that a light plane has been sabotaged at Hunsdon Flight School, but Xena has never been one for co-operating, even though there’s a memorandum on the subject. As they struggle to identify a suspect, the investigation takes a strange twist towards a thirty year-old unsolved case that DCI Mira D’Aramitz failed to solve. |
Parish and Richards are given the case of a naked man found in a ditch who has been tortured, his genitalia severed and stuffed in his mouth. It quickly becomes apparent that the victim is an accused rapist who was released the previous day due to mistakes made by the Crown Prosecution Service. The case soon becomes a national issue, the feminists get involved and a circuit judge is abducted. Xena and Stick have the case of a man who is shot on his own doorstep by a clown in a stolen car. It soon become evident that they’re dealing with much more than a simple murder, especially when a silver charm bracelet found in the boot of the torched stolen car leads them back to a jewellery robbery in 2003 and a missing Swedish university student called Lotta Stenson. Then, of course, Xena has other worries, such as the murder of an MI5 agent that Ryder Dutton wants her to solve, and an implanted microchip in the murder victim that nobody knows what it does. |
Parish and Angie go on holiday to the island of Santorini in Greece, but when Angie goes missing the morning after their arrival, Parish has to work with the local police to find her. Richards is tasked with going through the cold cases at the Evidence Warehouse in Rye and making notes for future action. It’s been made clear that she is not to investigate on her own. She begins to delve into a thirty year-old case involving the death of a man found in his own farmhouse, but Richards much prefers to be out and about rather than stuck in a dingy old warehouse. Just as she finds herself a man, the house becomes a crime scene, the dogs go missing and the children are abducted. Xena and Stick are given the case of a boy’s skeleton found in a shallow grave on the bank of the River Lee in the caravan park at Dodd’s Weir. It soon becomes apparent that there are more missing boys – lots more, and the Chief Constable doesn’t want it to get out. Ryder Dutton wants her to obtain the name of a traitor passing the UK’s secrets to the Russians, but to do that she must sleep with the Defence Attaché – Valery Nikitin. Unfortunately for Xena, Nikitin is a sadist. And how is Stick able to save Xena’s career – what’s he hiding? |
Parish and Richards are holding the fort. In DCI D'Aramitz's absence, the Chief Constable gives them the case of an emaciated body found in Hatfield Forest and sends DCI Lester to take over as the Senior Investigating Officer, because Parish hasn't been accredited as a PIP3. The trouble is, Lester is a micromanager and wants to control everything they do. And then Toadstone tells Parish about the noises coming from the apartment next door and his problem sleeping, so Parish offers to have a word with the neighbours. And then there's the Ellen Gold case from ten years ago, but has Richards found the missing link?
DCI Mira D'Aramitz gets word from her brother Giuseppe that her father is dying, so after twenty years away she decides to travel back to Agropoli in Italy to say goodbye to him, but it becomes a lot more complicated than a simple goodbye when her father, brother and sister-in-law are all murdered. Commissioner Marco Righi takes charge of the case, and between them they must stay one step ahead of the killers to unravel a thirty year-old mystery. Stick takes leave, because he's been invited to the reading of the will in Poole, Dorset of a half-brother he never knew he had. Xena returns from the Cayman Islands and invites herself along. What should be a simple inheritance turns into the hunt for a mechanical combination safe in a designer house where they become prisoners. Then, they have to go to No Man's Fort in the Solent near Portsmouth to find a message from Stick's dead father. |
Parish and Richards are given the case of a semi-naked female body found on the side of the A10. It appeared that the young woman was pregnant and the only thing found on her is a necklace with a biblical quote on one side and "Tom" on the other. As they investigate, it gradually becomes clear that the teenager was the victim of a registered sex offender, but is he the killer? And who is "Tom"? Where and who is Michael Blair? And how does Tilly Nicholls fit into the puzzle? And who is JL in Angie's phonebook? Xena and Stick have the case of a body that has floated to the surface, after being submerged for a month in Barclay Park lake. There are twenty-one penetration wounds around the head, neck and chest. They discover that the victim was a drug addict and low-level dealer working for County Lines. But the Drug Squad won't give them any information, because they're running an operation and have an officer deep undercover that they need to protect. Xena also has to put up with Pecker, a new pathologist, a virtual helicopter and a dentist called Cole Stanton who wants to take her out to dinner. |
Parish and Richards are given the case of a dismembered male body found in an abandoned cesspit, but one body quickly becomes three, then eight . . . Richards finds out from her mother who JL is and it involves the thirty-four year-old case of Edgar Lassiter who raped and murdered three young girls and has recently died in Broadmoor. Also, Richards receives a call from three internet sleuths who think they've found a new lead in an old case from the 1970s dubbed the Corpse in the Copse by the press when the body of a young woman was unearthed in 2008. The problem is that they need to access records from the Old Norfolk Hospital, which are protected by a Lord Chancellor's Instrument. Then, Richards receives a warning telling her to leave the past in the past, a car with two people in parks outside their house overnight, and one of the internet sleuths dies in a hit-and-run. Meanwhile, Stick is searching for Xena. He co-opts the help of Sergeant Toomey in Traffic and Mister Peckham in Forensics. The Chief gives him twenty-four hours, but he disobeys orders to keep looking for her. Then, the Chief relents and gives him a temporary partner, so that he's not on his own – PCSO Barbara Mulroney who's been on the job for three weeks.
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