Dead Beat

'Somebody has been here before us. And he's still here . . .' When a body is discovered in the remote depths of the Highlands, DCI Karen Pirie finds herself in the right place at the right time. Unearthed with someone's long-buried inheritance, the victim seems to belong to the distant past - until new evidence suggests otherwise, and Karen is called in to unravel a case where nothing is as it seems. It's not long before an overheard conversation draws Karen into the...

Stephanie Harker is travelling through security at O'Hare airport with five-year-old Jimmy. But in a moment, everything changes. In disbelief, Stephanie watches as a uniformed agent leads her boy away - and she's stuck the other side of the gates, hysterical with worry. The authorities, unaware of Jimmy's existence, just see a woman behaving erratically; Stephanie is wrestled to the ground and blasted with a taser gun. By the time she can tell them what has happened, Jimmy is long gone. But as...

A taut psychological thriller from the bestselling author behind the popular Wire in the Blood TV seriesWhen career criminal Jack Farlowe's body is found washed-up on a Suffolk shore, it looks to the police like a clear-cut case. Broken-hearted at his daughter's death, he has drowned himself – good riddance and one less crime to solve, according to CID.Then again, maybe not. For, one by one, Farlowe's enemies are being killed. And the horrific manner of their deaths makes drowning look like a...

Three crime novels featuring PI Kate Brannigan from Sunday Times No.1 bestselling author Val McDermid.DEAD BEAT: Kate Brannigan is a female private detective set to do for Manchester what V.I. Warshawski has done for Chicago. As a favour to her rock journalist boyfriend, Kate agrees to track down a missing song-writer Moira Pollock, a search that takes her into some of the seediest parts of Leeds and Bradford. But little does she realise that finding Moira is only a prelude to murder…KICK BACK:...

Read the award-winning and Number One bestselling Val McDermid at the top of her game in these three nail-biting crime thrillers.A PLACE OF EXECUTION: In 1963, Alison Carter vanished in the Peak District. Journalist Catherine Heathcote remembers the case from her childhood, and interviews DI George Bennett for his recollection of the hunt for Alison. But when a fresh lead emerges, Bennett tries to pull the story – plunging Catherine into a world of buried secrets and explosive revelations…THE...

A riveting psychological thriller, now a major ITV drama, from the Number One bestselling Queen of crime fiction Val McDermid.In the Peak District village of Scarsdale, thirteen-year-old girls didn’t just run away. So when Alison Carter vanished in the winter of ’63, everyone knew it was a murder.Catherine Heathcote remembers the case well. A child herself when Alison vanished, decades on she still recalls the sense of fear as parents kept their children close, terrified of strangers.Now a...