"Oliver, a university lecturer with an obsession for anagrams and crosswords, has been a question-setter for "Mastermind". When made redundant by the new Vice-Chancellor of the New University (his former Polytechnic) in a general restructuring of the university, Oliver decides to use his new-found freedom to search for his favourite crossword compiler, known only by the pseudonym of "Aristotle". When he locates "Aristotle's" Welsh home, he is horrified...

A saccharine-sweet car salesman in a small Minnesota town is heavily in debt, but he has a plan: he'll go to Fargo, ND, and hire two thugs to kidnap his wife, in a scheme to collect a hefty ransom from his wealthy father-in-law. However, the plan goes awry, and the local Police Chief, coffee-drinking, parka-wearing, and extremely pregnant, will stop at nothing to get her man.

LAPD detective Erin Bell was, as a young cop, placed undercover with a gang in the California desert with tragic results. When the leader of that gang re-emerges many years later, Bell must work her way back through the remaining members and into her own history with them to finally reckon with the demons that destroyed her past.

Though crime is nothing new in Yorkshire, police sergeant Catherine Cawood finds her world turned upside down when the man she blames for her daughter's death, Tommy Lee Royce, is released from prison. Meanwhile, a desperate father arranges a kidnapping with a local drug lord to receive his wealthy boss' ransom money. The plan spirals out of control, however, when Tommy becomes involved with the deal and takes things too far.

Leading New Scotland Yard's Murder Review Team has Commander Clare Blake feeling trapped in her office. Eager to get back to investigative work, Blake welcomes a transfer to the Homicide and Serious Crime division, where she's assigned to a slate of difficult cases. Ambitious, imperious, and dedicated, Blake keeps her private life separate from her work, until two deeply personal crimes threaten everything she has worked for.

In the picturesque English region of Wildemarsh, Detective Matilda Stone investigates crimes with the aid or, often, meddling of her three mystery-writing aunts, who raised her from childhood. Together, they look into a murder at a health spa, a killing in the contemporary art world, and the theft of an Edgar Allen Poe manuscript. Matilda has decidedly less success with her personal affairs, continuing to pine for Dr. Daniel Lynch even as she begins...

Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope and her assistant Detective Sergeant Aiden Healy work to solve four more perplexing cases, set in rural Northumberland.

Includes four all-new, feature-length mysteries. From the death of a woman found on the Northumberland cliffs to the body of a fisherman pulled out of the sea, these cases prove to be some of the most difficult and emotional in Vera's career.

As disheveled and indomitable as ever, DCI Vera Stanhope leads her tightly knit team of Northumberland police through four more daunting cases. No one seems to know anything about the police officer whose body turns up in a slaughterhouse incinerator, the woman killed in a car crash meant to look like an accident, the suburban neighbor found dead in her back garden, and the teenager whose body floats to the surface of a reservoir. How will Vera break...

The central character is Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope. Who is obsessive about her work and driven by her own demons. If she's lonely she doesn't show it and faces the world with caustic wit, guile, and courage. Her trusted an dlong suffering colleague is Sergeant Joe Ashworth. Together they approach every new case with unparalleled gusto and professionalism.