Showing results by author "M W Craven" in All Categories

Birds, Strangers and Psychos is a thrilling anthology that brings together the biggest names in mystery and crime fiction to pay homage to Alfred Hitchcock, the legendary filmmaker whose name is synonymous with suspense. Acclaimed editor Maxim Jakubowski curates 24 original short stories, each inspired by the mood, tension, and style that defined Hitchcock’s groundbreaking work.

Investigating how a severed hand ends up on the third green of a Cumbrian golf course is not how Detective Inspector Avison Fluke has planned to spend his Saturday. So when a secret protection unit from London swoops in quoting national security, he's secretly pleased. But trouble is never far away. A young woman arrives at his lakeside cabin with a cryptic message: a code known to only a handful of people, and it forces Fluke back into the investigation he's only just been barred from.

Detective Sergeant Washington Poe is in court, fighting eviction from his beloved and isolated croft, when he is summoned to a backstreet brothel in Carlisle where a man has been beaten to death with a baseball bat. Poe is confused—he hunts serial killers and this appears to be a straightforward murder-by-pimp—but his attendance was requested personally, by the kind of people who prefer to remain in the shadows. As Poe and the socially awkward programmer Tilly Bradshaw delve deeper into the case, they are faced with seemingly unanswerable questions.

Koenig has been on the run for six years. Now suddenly his face is on every television screen in the country and his cover is blown. A woman has gone missing, and her father will do anything to find her. He wants Koenig to discover what happened, no matter the cost.

After The Puppet Show, a new storm is coming. Jared Keaton, chef to the stars. Charming. Charismatic. Psychopath. He's currently serving a life sentence for the brutal murder of his daughter, Elizabeth. Her body was never found, and Keaton was convicted largely on the testimony of Detective Sergeant Washington Poe. So when a young woman staggers into a remote police station with irrefutable evidence that she is Elizabeth Keaton, Poe finds himself on the wrong end of an investigation, one that could cost him much more than his career.

Washington Poe has a story to tell. And he needs you to listen. You'll hear how it started with the robber birds. Crows. Dozens of them. Enough for a murder. He'll tell you about a man who was tied to a tree and stoned to death, a man who had tattooed himself with a code so obscure, even the gifted analyst Tilly Bradshaw struggled to break it. He'll tell you how the man's murder was connected to a tragedy that happened fifteen years earlier when a young girl massacred her entire family. And finally, he'll tell you about the mercy chair.

Detective Sergeant Washington Poe can count on one hand the number of friends he has. And he'd still have his thumb left. There's the guilelessly innocent civilian analyst, Tilly Bradshaw of course. Insanely brilliant, she's a bit of a social hand grenade. He's known his beleaguered boss, Detective Inspector Stephanie Flynn for years as he has his nearest neighbour, full-time shepherd/part-time dog sitter, Victoria. And then there's Estelle Doyle. Dark and dangerous and sexy as hell.

Detective Inspector Avison Fluke is a man on the edge. He has committed a crime to get back to work, concealed a debilitating illness and is about to be made homeless. Just as he thinks things can't get any worse, the body of a young woman is found buried on a Cumbrian building site. Shot once in the back of the head, it is a cold, calculated execution. When the postmortem reveals she has gone to significant expense in disguising her appearance, Fluke knows this is no ordinary murder.

A collection of seven short stories, featuring crime-fighting duo Tilly and Poe: The Killing Field, Why Don't Sheep Shrink?, Dead Man's Fingers, Strange Ink, A Permanent Solution, Mondo Bizzarro and Once in a Red Moon.

When a shocking murder and abduction on the streets of London leads investigators to open a safe in Langley for the first time in ten years, they find a note directing them to a few key individuals. Three of the people on the list are dead. The fourth is Ben Koenig. Koenig has no idea why his name is on the list. Then he realizes that he knows the woman who carried out the killings. Ten years earlier, without being told why, he was tasked with helping her disappear.

It's Christmas, and a serial killer is leaving displayed body parts all over Cumbria. A strange message is left at each scene: #BSC6. Called in to investigate, the National Crime Agency's Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw are faced with a case that makes no sense. Why were some victims anaesthetised, while others died in appalling agony? Why is their only suspect denying what they can irrefutably prove but admitting to things they weren't even aware of? And why did the victims all take the same two weeks off work three years earlier?

A serial killer is burning people alive in the Lake District's prehistoric stone circles. He leaves no clues, and the police are helpless. When his name is found carved into the charred remains of the third victim, disgraced detective Washington Poe is brought back from suspension and into an investigation he wants no part of. He is reluctantly partnered with brilliant but socially awkward civilian analyst Tilly Bradshaw, and the mismatched pair uncover a trail that only he is meant to see. The elusive killer has a plan, and for some reason Poe is part of it.

A shooting at Gretna Green. A bride is murdered on her wedding day, seconds after she slips on her new ring. It's brutal and bloody but she isn't the first victim and she won't be the last. With the body count now at 17, people are terrified, not knowing where the sniper will strike next. With the nation in a state of panic, the police are at a loss and turn to Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw - the only team who just might be able to track down a serial killer following no discernible pattern and with the whole country as his personal hunting ground.

El sargento detective Washington Poe puede contar a sus amigos con los dedos de una mano, y una de ellos es Estelle Doyle, la mordaz patóloga forense a la que acude cada vez que tiene preguntas sobre algo húmedo y orgánico. Cuando el padre de Estelle aparece muerto en su domicilio con dos tiros en la cabeza, Poe no dudará en acudir en su ayuda. Estelle tiene residuos de pólvora en las manos y sus huellas son las únicas que aparecen entrando a la casa. Mientras tanto, un envenenador al que la prensa ha apodado "el Botánico" envía poemas y flores prensadas a personas famosas.

Un asesino en serie está quemando vivas a sus víctimas. No hay ningún tipo de pistas en las escenas del crimen y la policía ha perdido todas las esperanzas. Cuando su nombre es hallado en los restos carbonizados de la tercera víctima, Washington Poe, un detective suspendido de empleo y caído en desgracia es llamado para que se haga cargo de la investigación, un caso del que no quiere formar parte. De mala gana acepta como su nueva compañera a Tily Bradshaw, una brillante pero poco social analista civil.

Dangling from a hook in a meat packing plant isn't how Detective Sergeant Washington Poe wants to spend his weekend. He's been punched and kicked and threatened, and when a contract killer arrives, it seems things are about to go from bad to worse. He goes by the name of the Pale Man, and he and his straight-edged razor have been feared all over London for 20 years. But Poe knows two things the Pale Man doesn't. Although it might seem like a hopeless situation, Poe has planned to be here all along.

Seit sechs Jahren sitzt der charismatische Sterne-Koch Jared Keaton im Gefängnis wegen Mordes an seiner eigenen Tochter. Zwar wurde die Leiche von Elizabeth nie gefunden, doch die hartnäckigen Ermittlungen von DS Washington Poe hatten schließlich zu Keatons Verhaftung und Verurteilung geführt. Als jetzt in einem Polizeirevier in Cumbria eine junge Frau auftaucht, die behauptet, Elizabeth Keaton zu sein, steht Poes Welt plötzlich auf dem Kopf. Denn eine DNA-Analyse scheint zweifelsfrei zu beweisen, dass die Frau die Wahrheit sagt.

Poe and Tilly are having breakfast, wondering how to spend the rest of their holiday, when their presence is requested at a Cumbrian airfield. An airfield that, during the 2001 foot-and-mouth crisis, was known as the killing field.

Si crees que sabes lo que va a pasar a continuación es porque estás exactamente donde él quiere que estés... Es Navidad y un asesino en serie deja a la vista partes del cuerpo de su última víctima por todo Cumbria. Un extraño mensaje aparece en cada escena del crimen: # BSC6. Washington Poe y Tilly Bradshaw, de la Agencia Nacional contra el Crimen, se enfrentan a un caso que no tiene sentido. ¿Por qué algunas víctimas fueron anestesiadas, mientras que otras murieron en una agonía espantosa?

Poe and Tilly are on an HR course in Wales when a murder is committed in their hotel. But, maybe not everything is as it seems.