Book picks similar to
Introducing the Toff by John Creasey
mystery
british
thriller
fiction
Dead on Demand
Daniel Campbell - 2012
Everything changes for Edwin when his wife files for divorce. On the brink of losing his home, his job and his little girl, Edwin orchestrates an intricate plan to eliminate his wife and regain his former lifestyle.The police are baffled when bodies begin to appear all over London with no apparent connection between them. Inspector David Morton must think outside the box as he investigates the deadly web of deceit behind the murders.
Where It Hurts
Reed Farrel Coleman - 2016
A retired Suffolk County cop, Gus had everything a man could want: a great marriage, two kids, a nice house, and the rest of his life ahead of him. But when tragedy strikes, his life is thrown into complete disarray. In the course of a single deadly moment, his family is blown apart and he is transformed from a man who believes he understands everything into a man who understands nothing.Divorced and working as a courtesy van driver for the run-down hotel in which he has a room, Gus has settled into a mindless, soulless routine that barely keeps his grief at arm’s length. But Gus’s comfortable waking trance comes to an end when ex-con Tommy Delcamino asks him for help. Four months earlier, Tommy’s son T.J.’s battered body was discovered in a wooded lot, yet the Suffolk County PD doesn’t seem interested in pursuing the killers. In desperation, Tommy seeks out the only cop he ever trusted—Gus Murphy.Gus reluctantly agrees to see what he can uncover. As he begins to sweep away the layers of dust that have collected over the case during the intervening months, Gus finds that Tommy was telling the truth. It seems that everyone involved with the late T.J Delcamino—from his best friend, to a gang enforcer, to a mafia capo, and even the police—has something to hide, and all are willing to go to extreme lengths to keep it hidden. It’s a dangerous favor Gus has taken on as he claws his way back to take a place among the living, while searching through the sewers for a killer.
The Dark Winter
David Mark - 2012
To that moment when the masked man appeared from the doorway of the church and looked into his eyes.‘Is there anything distinctive, Sarge?’ asks Nielsen.‘Yes’, he says, with the sudden sense that memory is important.‘There were tears in his eyes.’DS Aector McAvoy is a man with a troubled past. His unwavering belief in justice has made him an outsider in the police force he serves.When three seemingly unconnected people are brutally murdered in the weeks before Christmas, the police must work quickly to stop more deaths. It is only McAvoy who can see the connection between the victims. A killer is playing God – and McAvoy must find a way to stop the deadly game.
The Dark Side of the Road
Simon R. Green - 2015
He's employed to search out secrets, investigate mysteries and shine a light in dark places. Sometimes he kills people. Invited by his employer, the enigmatic Colonel, to join him and his family for Christmas, Ishmael arrives at the grand but isolated Belcourt Manor in the midst of a blizzard to find that the Colonel has mysteriously disappeared. As he questions his fellow guests, Ishmael concludes that at least one of them not least Ishmael himself - is harbouring a dangerous secret, and that beneath the veneer of festive cheer lurk passion, jealousy, resentment and betrayal. As a storm sets in, sealing off the Manor from the rest of the world, Ishmael must unmask a ruthless murderer they strike again.
A Field of Red
Greg Enslen - 2013
Harper is visiting the small Ohio town of Cooper's Mill, trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter and a grandson he's never met. But he finds the town gripped in fear-two young girls have gone missing, taken in broad daylight from a busy street. And the police are coming up blank. But once Harper is drawn reluctantly into the investigation, he'll stop at nothing to find the girls. And he doesn't care who gets in the way.
Thirteen Guests
J. Jefferson Farjeon - 1936
Among the guests are an actress, a journalist, an artist, and a mystery novelist. The unlucky thirteenth is John Foss, injured at the local train station and brought to the house to recuperate – but John is nursing a secret of his own.Soon events take a sinister turn when a painting is mutilated, a dog stabbed, and a man strangled. Death strikes more than one of the house guests, and the police are called. Detective Inspector Kendall’s skills are tested to the utmost as he tries to uncover the hidden past of everyone at Bragley Court.This country-house mystery is a forgotten classic of 1930s crime fiction by one of the most undeservedly neglected of golden age detective novelists.
Murder In Thrall
Anne Cleeland - 2013
. . First-year detective Kathleen Doyle and Chief Inspector Michael Sinclair, Lord Acton, are a most unlikely pair. An Irish redhead of humble beginnings and modest means, Doyle is the antithesis of Acton, the British lord who has established himself as a brilliant but enigmatic figure with a knack for solving London's most high profile homicides. But Acton senses something exceptional beneath Doyle's awkward naivete and taps her to help him with his investigations. And her spot-on intuition is just what he needs to solve a chilling string of murders. . .When a horse trainer is found dead at a racetrack, Doyle and Acton begin interviewing witnesses and the victim's associates, but the killer continues to strike and they're left with more questions than answers. Their investigation is further muddled by their colleagues at CID Headquarters, whose career-driven jealousies and workplace blunders could jeopardize the case--and their nosing into the nature of Doyle and Acton's after hours relationship could lay bare the most classified information of all. . .Perhaps the trainer was the target of a jilted lover on a killing spree. Or maybe the victims were collateral damage in a political coup gone awry. As the murders pile up, Doyle and Acton uncover something far more sadistic than they could have imagined, and now that they know too much, they'll find themselves squarely in the crosshairs of a cold-blooded killer. . .
The Sins of the Fathers
Lawrence Block - 1976
Her alleged murderer—a minister's son—hanged himself in his jail cell. The case is closed. But the dead girl's father has come to Matthew Scudder for answers, sending the unlicensed private investigator in search of terrible truths about a life that was lived and lost in a sordid world of perversion and pleasures.
The Unfinished Clue
Georgette Heyer - 1933
His arrogance and abrasive manner had alienated his wife, her sister, his house guests, his wayward son, even a desperate friend. Of course, his attentions to one attractive young guest in plain view of her husband simply multiplied the possible suspects in his murder.
India Black
Carol K. Carr - 2010
But when it comes to selling secrets, India's price cannot be paid by any man...In the winter of 1876, the beautiful, young madam, India Black, is occupied with her usual tasks—keeping her tarts in line, avoiding the police, and tolerating the clergyman bent on converting her girls. But when Sir Archibald Latham of the War Office dies from a heart attack while visiting her brothel, India is unexpectedly thrust into a deadly game between Russian and British agents who are seeking the military secrets Latham carried.French, the handsome, British spy, discovers India disposing of Latham's body and blackmails her into recovering the missing documents. Their quest takes them from the Russian embassy to Claridge's Hotel, from London to the English coast, all the while dodging Russians intent to do them harm.But it is their own tempestuous relationship they will have to weather as India and French attempt to resist the mutual attraction between them—an attraction that can prove as deadly as the conspiracy entangling them.
Don't Know Jack
Diane Capri - 2012
Fifteen years and sixteen novels later, Reacher still lives off the grid, until trouble finds him, and then he does whatever it takes, much to the delight of readers and the dismay of villains. Now someone big is looking for him. Who? And why? Hunting Jack Reacher is a dangerous business, as FBI Special Agents Kim Otto and Carlos Gaspar are about to find out. Otto and Gaspar are by-the-book hunters who know when it's necessary to break the rules; Reacher is a stone cold killer. But is he their friend or their enemy? Only the secrets hidden in Margrave, Georgia will tell them.
The Crime at Black Dudley
Margery Allingham - 1929
As they playfully recreate the ritual of the Black Dudley Dagger, someone dies. Pathologist George Abbershaw suspects foul play, and when a vital item is mislaid, a gang of crooks hold the guests hostage. Will they escape the house – what did happen to the Colonel – and just who is the mysterious Mr Campion? Neither the story nor Albert Campion is quite as vapid and slow as you might expect....apa in US as THE BLACK DUDLEY MURDER, 1929
Inherit the Bones
Emily Littlejohn - 2016
And in the winter, skiers and snowboarders take over the mountains. Season by season, year after year, time passes and the lies, like the aspens and evergreens that surround the town, take root and spread deep.Now, someone has uncovered the lies, and it is his murder that continues a chain of events that began almost forty years ago. Detective Gemma Monroe’s investigation takes her from the seedy grounds of a traveling circus to the powerful homes of those who would control Cedar Valley’s future.Six-months pregnant, with a partner she can’t trust and colleagues who know more than they’re saying, Gemma tracks a killer who will stop at nothing to keep those secrets buried.
Murder at Hawthorn Cottage
Betty Rowlands - 1990
Now, she flees London, her devoted but over-protective lover and her kindly but dominating agent, and takes refuge in the Cotswolds. With no more serious distractions than Iris, her eccentric, artistic neighbour, her cheerful, romantic domestic help Gloria and a rector who is a secret devotee of her fiction, Melissa dreams of undisturbed peace for the production of yet more bestsellers.But a series of bizarre telephone calls leads to a meeting with an engaging young journalist convinced that a real crime has been committed. When a corpse is discovered in woodlands a short distance from her isolated cottage, curiosity gets the better of judgment. In the course of a little gentle sleuthing, Melissa finds the truth stranger than her own fiction and uncovers a story of villainy, frustration and despair which leads to further violent death before the mystery can be resolved.
The Merchant's House
Kate Ellis - 1998
Then Wesley's old friend from university, archaeologist Neil Watson, unearths the bodies of a strangled young woman and a new-born baby on the site of a seventeenth century merchant's house: though luckily for the overstretched police force the skeletons are centuries old. But as the search for the missing child intensifies and the true identity of the body on the cliff path is established, Wesley begins to suspect a tragic link, spanning the centuries, between his investigations and Neil's: for motives of jealousy, sexual obsession and desperate longing are as old as time. And when the dark secret of the merchant's house is finally revealed, Wesley must act swiftly to avert a further tragedy.