Read the award-winning and Number One bestselling Val McDermid at the top of her game in these three nail-biting crime thrillers.

Winter 1963: two children have disappeared off the streets of Manchester; the murderous careers of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady have begun. On a freezing day in December, another child goes missing: thirteen-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from her town, an insular community that distrusts the outside world. For the young George Bennett, a newly promoted inspector, it is the beginning of his most difficult and harrowing case: a murder with no body, an investigation with more dead ends and closed faces than he'd have found in the anonymity of the inner city, and an outcome which reverberates through the years. Decades later he finally tells his story to journalist Catherine Heathcote, but just when the book is poised for publication, Bennett unaccountably tries to pull the plug. He has new information which he refuses to divulge, new information that threatens the very foundations of his existence. Catherine is forced to re-investigate the past, with results that turn the world upside down. A Greek tragedy in modern England, Val McDermid's A Place of Execution is a taut psychological thriller that explores, exposes and explodes the border between reality and illusion in a multi-layered narrative that turns expectations on their head and reminds us that what we know is what we do not know. A Place of Execution is winner of the 2000 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a 2001 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Novel.

From the author called the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world ("Time") comes her newest novel featuring Inspector Wexford.

When clinical psychiatrist Charlie Flint is sent a mysterious package of press cuttings about a brutal murder, it instantly grabs her attention. The murder occurred on the grounds of her old Oxford college—a groom battered to death just hours after his wedding. As Charlie delves back into the closeted, mysterious world that is academic life at Oxford, every step she takes toward the truth is a step closer to danger.

'Young is a sharp and funny writer with a brilliant eye for moral fudging and verbal hypocrisy, and she has a splendid foil in Miss Mole' Sally Beauman WINNER OF THE JAMES TAIT BLACK MEMORIAL PRIZE 'Who would suspect her sense of fun and irony, of a passionate love for beauty and the power to drag it from its hidden places? Who would imagine that Miss Mole had pictured herself, at different times, as an explorer in strange lands, as a lady wrapped in luxury and delicate garments?' Miss Hannah Mole has for twenty years earned her living precariously as a governess or companion to a succession of difficult old women.Now, aged forty, a thin and shabby figure, she returns to Radstowe, the lovely city of her youth. Here she is, if not exactly welcomed, at least employed as housekeeper by the pompous Reverend Robert Corder, whose daughters are sorely in need of guidance. But even the dreariest situation can be transformed into an adventure by the indomitable Miss Mole. Blessed with imagination, wit and intelligence, she wins the affection of Ethel and her nervous sister Ruth. But her past holds a secret that, if brought to life, would jeopardise everything.

Rich in atmosphere, Val McDermid's Killing the Shadows uses the backdrops of city and country to create an air of threatening menace, culminating in a tense confrontation between hunter and hunted, a confrontation that can have only one outcome. A killer is on the loose, blurring the line between fact and fiction. His prey - the writers of crime novels who have turned psychological profilers into the heroes of the nineties. But this killer is like no other. His bloodlust shatters all the conventional wisdom surrounding the motives and mechanics of how serial killers operate. And for one woman, the desperate hunt to uncover his identity becomes a matter of life and death. Professor Fiona Cameron is an academic psychologist who uses computer technology to help police forces track serial offenders. She used to help the Met, but vowed never to work for them again when they went against her advice and subsequently botched an investigation. Still smarting from the experience, she's working a case in Toledo when her lover, thriller writer Kit Martin, tells her a fellow crime novelist has been murdered. It's not her case, but Fiona can't help taking an interest. When the killer strikes again Fiona finds herself caught in a race against time - not only to save a life but also to find redemption, both personal and professional.

First in the popular series featuring Lindsay Gordon, a self-proclaimed 'cynical socialist lesbian feminist journalist' with a penchant for hanging around police interrogation rooms under suspicion of some crime or other.

A Scottish journalist is drawn into a world of corruption, terror, and murder in the new novel by “one of crime fiction’s most eminent writers” (Entertainment Weekly). The year started badly and only got worse—blizzards, strikes, power cuts, and political unrest were the norm. For investigative journalist Allie Burns, however, someone else’s bad news was the unmistakable sound of opportunity knocking, and 1979 is ripe with possibilities. But Allie is a woman in what is still a man’s world. Desperate to get away from the “women's stories” the Glasgow desk keeps assigning her, she strikes up an alliance with wannabe investigative journalist Danny Sullivan. From the start, their stories create enemies. First an international tax fraud, then a potential Scottish terrorist group aiming to cause mayhem ahead of an impending referendum. And then Danny is found murdered in his flat. For Allie, investigative journalism just got personal. The debut of an intense new series, 1979 is an atmospheric journey into the past with intriguing insight into the present, from a Diamond Dagger winner and multiple Edgar Award finalist. “The queen of psychological thrillers.” —Irish Independent “There are few other crime writers in the same league.” —The Washington Post

A woman digs up a buried treasure—and a buried body—in the Scottish Highlands: “There are few other crime writers in the same league.”—Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post Six feet under in a Highland peat bog lies Alice Somerville’s inheritance, buried by her grandfather at the end of World War II. But when Alice finally uncovers it, she finds an unwanted surprise—a body with a bullet hole between the eyes. Meanwhile, DCI Karen Pirie is dealing not only with this cold case but with a domestic violence case, and as as she gets closer to the truth, it becomes clear that not everyone shares her desire for justice. Or even the idea of what justice is. An engrossing, twisty thriller, Broken Ground is an outstanding entry in this Diamond Dagger-winning author’s “superior series” (The New York Times Book Review). “As always, McDermid’s story lines are as richly layered as her protagonist.”—Publishers Weekly “One of the best things about this series is the details of Karen's working life, the obstacles as well as the satisfactions, and the small pleasures of her off hours.”—Kirkus Reviews

A witty and sophisticated mystery featuring bestselling author Josephine Tey's popular Inspector Alan Grant, a beloved character created by a woman considered to be one of the greatest mystery writers of all time.Literary sherry parties were not Alan Grant's cup of tea. But when the Scotland Yard Inspector arrived to pick up actress Marta Hallard for dinner, he was struck by the handsome young American photographer, Leslie Searle. Author Lavinia Fitch was sure her guest "must have been something very wicked in ancient Greece," and the art colony at Salcott St. Mary would have agreed. Yet Grant heard nothing more of Searle until the news of his disappearance. Had Searle drowned by accident or could he have been murdered by one of his young women admirers? Was it a possible case of suicide or had the photographer simply vanished for reasons of his own?