International Crime

In the wake of an earthquake, the water level of an Icelandic lake drops suddenly, revealing the skeleton of a man half-buried in its sandy bed. It is clear immediately that it has been there for many years. There is a large hole in the skull. Yet more mysteriously, a heavy communication device is attached to it, possibly some sort of radio transmitter, bearing inscriptions in Russian. The police are called in and Erlendur, Elinborg, and Sigurdur Olii begin their investigation, which gradually leads them back to the time of the Cold War when bright, left-wing students would be sent from Iceland to study in the "heavenly state" of communist East Germany.

On Christmas Eve, DCI Mackenzie Jones is called to a shooting at a remote farmhouse. Ralph Mallender believes his father lies dead inside. When three more bodies are discovered, it's clear a festive family gathering has turned into a gruesome tragedy. At first it seems like an open and shut case: a murder suicide committed by Ralph's volatile brother Cameron. Then new evidence makes Mack suspect the man who reported the crime is in fact the perpetrator. But Mack isn't the only one with a stake in the case.

When local nobleman Étienne de Bremont falls to his death from the family château, it sets the historic town of Aix-en-Provence abuzz with rumors. The once-idyllic town suddenly seems filled with people who could have benefited from Bremont's death - including his playboy brother, François, who's heavily in debt and mixed up with some unsavory characters. But just as the list of suspects is being narrowed down, another death occurs. And this time, there can be no doubt - it's murder.

Cuba and the United States are in talks to normalize relations, something the old guard on the Communist-controlled island has vowed to stop - by any means necessary. Zayda de la Guardia, a rogue general in the Cuban security services, has gotten his hands on a nuclear weapon left over from the Cold War. He plans to launch it on Miami, an attack that could kill millions. There’s just one thing standing in his way: Special agent Jericho Quinn and his team have traveled undercover to Cuba to unravel de la Guardia’s plot before it ignites a nuclear holocaust.

Struggling with his new role as a detective chief inspector, John Tanner is warned of a convicted psychopath’s early release. When a couple is found later that day; the man stabbed to death, the woman with her throat cut, he's forced to assume the convict is responsible. But when the male victim turns out to be heir to a global pharmaceutical company, and his twelve-year-old son is nowhere to be found, he has to start looking closer at the victim’s family, and their sprawling stately ancestral home.

Scandinavian crime writer and international literary phenomenon Arnaldur Indridason pens compulsively readable mysteries that have shot to the tops of best-seller lists around the world. When the U.S. Army attempts to secretly remove a plane from an Icelandic glacier, World War II intrigue erupts in the present - and threatens to engulf everyone in its path.

The Department of Sensitive Crimes takes on three extremely strange cases. First, the detectives investigate how and why a local business owner was stabbed...in the back of the knee. Next, a young woman's imaginary boyfriend goes missing. And, in the final investigation, Varg must determine whether nocturnal visitations at a local spa have a supernatural element.

In London’s MI5 headquarters a scandal is brewing that could disgrace the entire intelligence community. The Downing Street superforecaster—a specialist who advises the Prime Minister’s office on how policy is likely to be received by the electorate—has disappeared without a trace. Claude Whelan, who was once head of MI5, has been tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads him straight back to Regent’s Park itself, with First Desk Diana Taverner as chief suspect. Has Taverner overplayed her hand at last?

In Slough House, the London outpost for disgraced spies of MI5, memories are stirring, all of them bad. Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, whose sins make him outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career, even if he tears his life apart in the process. Meanwhile, in Regent's Park, Diana Taverner's tenure as First Desk is running into difficulties. If she's going to make the Service fit for purpose, she might have to make deals with a familiar old devil....

A hugely enjoyable, must-listen murder mystery sure to appeal to fans of Elly Griffiths, Anthony Horowitz, and Agatha Christie, with one of the best and most satisfying conclusions you'll ever hear. A classic in Japan, available in English for the first time.

What happens when an old spook loses his mind? Does the Service have a retirement home for aging spies who can no longer remember their secrets are secret? Or are senile spies taken care of in a different, more permanent fashion? These are the paranoid concerns of David Cartwright, a Cold War–era operative and one-time head of MI5 who is sliding into dementia, and questions his grandson, River, must answer now that the spy who raised him sometimes forgets to wear pants. But River, himself an agent at Slough House, MI5’s outpost for disgraced spies, has other things to worry about.

Dan Roy is an elite Black Ops solider. His life has been a never-ending spectrum of action. Now, his soul needs a break. He moves to London, looking to forgive and forget. But life has other plans for him. An old face from the past pulls him back into a vicious plot that ranges from London to Afghanistan. Dan agrees to help, but he is betrayed. His only confidant dies mysteriously, and soon Dan and those close to him are chased by a force far greater than himself. In a race against time to save the world from destruction, Dan Roy finds himself up against a terrifying terrorist attack.

Bestselling author Martin Walker pens stories filled with small-town ambience and charming characters. In The Devil’s Cave, police chief Bruno Courréges is investigating a murder as the tiny French village of St. Denis prepares for Easter. An unknown woman - dead, naked, and bearing the marks of a black magic ritual - is found in a boat floating down the River Vézère. With the townsfolk terrified, clues quickly lead Bruno to the Gouffre de Colombac - the Devil’s Cave.

Photographer Isla Wilson is thrilled she's landed her dream job, but the clients who hired her are getting stranger by the day. It sounded so perfect—a month's assignment at the lush Scottish Highlands property of architect Alban McGregor, and his wife, Jessica. But in the woods, there's a playhouse with a chilling history. Two years ago, the McGregors' daughter Elodie was abducted and then died in that playhouse. The townspeople insist her abductor had to be a stranger in their town. Alban refuses to knock the playhouse down, even keeping a picture of it on his wall.

After the recent death of her mother and the dissolution of her marriage, 30-something Eden Elliott is seriously in need of a fresh start. At the urging of her best friend, best-selling author Ami Pederson, Eden decides to embark on an open-ended trip to the picturesque village of Glenkillen in the Scottish Highlands, to do some hands-on research for a book of her own. But almost as soon as Eden arrives in the quaint town, she gets caught up in a very real drama....

Martin Walker’s novels starring Chief of Police Bruno Courrèges are a boon to Francophiles and mystery lovers around the world. In The Crowded Grave, Bruno is up to his ears in trouble after a local archaeological dig unearths a corpse with a bullet in its head. Further complicating matters are a meddlesome local magistrate, animal rights activists, and a missing professor - not to mention two lovely ladies vying for Bruno’s affections.

Sara Keane's husband, Damien, has uprooted them from England and moved them to his native Northern Ireland for a "fresh start" in the wake of her nervous breakdown. But three sleepless nights into their new life, Sara understands it's not an entirely fresh start after all: Damien's new boss is his ex-con father, whose contracting business is run with violence and tinged by paramilitary association. Sara, who knows no one in Northern Ireland, is jobless, carless, friendless - all but a prisoner in her own house.

You've lost your job as a department store lingerie buyer, your car's been repossessed, and most of your furniture and small appliances have been sold off to pay last month's rent. Now the rent is due again. And you live in New Jersey. What do you do? If you're Stephanie Plum, you become a bounty hunter. But not just a nickel-and-dime bounty hunter - you go after the big money. That means a cop gone bad.

Detective Sergeant Norman likes the idea of a permanent home in the small Welsh coastal town. With his reinvented career invigorating him, he finds himself enjoying working for his younger female DI. But when she asks him to investigate a puzzling seaside suicide, his first job is to find the corpse belonging to the discarded clothing left on the sand.... With the deceased man’s remains presumed lost at sea, DS Norman believes his case has run up a blind alley...until local builders dig up a female human skull.

Bruno, chief of police in the French town of St. Denis, is already busy with a case when the body of an undercover French Muslim cop is found in the woods, a man who had called Bruno for help only hours earlier. But Bruno's sometime boss and rival, the Brigadier, doesn't see this investigation as a priority - there are bigger issues at stake. Bruno has other ideas.