When Caroline Thorpe succeeded in casting doubt on the verdict of the inquest into her brother’s death, she could not have anticipated what would follow.Freddie was Earl Thorpe of Burnham, and as the Kings Lake detectives, headed by DCI Cara Freeman, soon begin to realise, influential people have gone to considerable lengths to cover up a potential scandal surrounding the young man’s death.Their investigation will take them from Norfolk into the capital, and from idealistic y...

An experienced detective’s unorthodox methods land him in troubled waters in this first book in the DC Smith/Kings Lake Investigation series by prolific British crime writer Peter Grainger.The story opens with the apparently accidental drowning of a sixth form student in the Norfolk countryside. As a matter of routine, or so it seems, the case passes across the desk of Detective Sergeant Smith, recently returned to work after an internal investigation into another ...

A simple case takes an unexpected turn as the Kings Lake Central murder squad must learn to work together in order to solve the twisted murder mystery.The new Kings Lake Central murder squad is about to spend its first morning on team-building exercises and reviewing cold cases when the call comes in that the body of one of the city’s rough sleepers has been found in a shop doorway. It happens, someone says, he isn’t the first to die on the streets and he won’t be ...

Two retired police officers step back into their old roles after one of the former officers learns of his son's arrest over a drug charge—leaving both men on the search for the truth.“He said if he hadn’t heard from you by high noon today, he was going to strap on his six-guns and ride back into town. So I think you should call him, Charlie. Call him before you come home.”Charlie Hills, former desk sergeant at Kings Lake Central, is in trouble. He ...

In this thrilling novel, dark secrets and reminders of the past must be brought into the light as DC Smith and his team try to stick together and solve their most challenging case yet.“We are living in the departure lounge,” said Ralph Greenwood, “and flights leave with monotonous regularity.” So when another resident of the Rosemary House care home is found dead in her chair one Saturday evening in December, no-one is very surprised—not until the results of a rout...

DC Smith’s job is put on the line when a woman’s insurance company hires him to confirm that her missing husband is no longer alive—so her second husband can cash in on a hefty insurance claim.Jo told him the phone call had been about a woman who wanted to have her husband declared dead. DC Smith is called by a woman named Amanda Fitch who wants to have her husband declared dead, but there's no body, no proof of death, and Smith does not want to get involved.

In this heart-pounding thriller, DC Smith is looking for a body, but what he finds is far more sinister ...When a worker goes missing from a North Sea gas platform, there seem to be just two possible explanations—it was a tragic accident or a suicide. It does not take Smith and his detectives long, however, to discover that James Bell led a double life back onshore in Kings Lake, a life complicated enough to make him at least one dangerous enemy.Before the ...

Detective Sergeant Chris Waters got the call at 5:29 that July morning. “This is it,” said DCI Reeve, “you'll be first there, it's all yours.” Suddenly, after months of waiting and wondering, Waters finds himself in at the deep end, and alone at the scene of a puzzling murder. When a young woman's body is discovered near the edge of town, the Kings Lake Major Investigation Team must learn that the smallest details can hide the darkest secrets. Known to some as charming and vibrant—and to o...

Sometimes the past comes back to haunt you, and for DC Smith, that time is now ...When fourteen-year-old Zoe Johnson doesn’t come home on a Monday night in early December, the alarm bells in Kings Lake Central police station do not ring straight away—after all, she’s from the Dockmills, one of the toughest estates in the town. But for Detective Sergeant DC Smith, due to retire in just three weeks’ time, there are some strange echoes of the case that has haunted him...

DC Smith must confront both a violent history and the ghosts of his own past in this twisty thriller.**“The greatest fictional sleuth you've probably never heard of." —**Financial TeamsRecovering from knee surgery, DC Smith is prescribed two weeks of bed rest. There will be no chasing murderers through the streets of Kings Lane—just a simple cuppa and a good book. He’s almost looking forward to it. That is, until there is a knock a...

As the first anniversary of the formation of the Kings Lake murder squad approaches, there's a problem—they’ve run out of murders. As a result, they are given the task of reviewing unsolved cold cases. One of these comes back to life in unexpected ways as the team tries to discover the identity of the young woman whose body was found in the Norfolk countryside two decades ago. And even if they can give her a name, how can they possibly find her killer after so many years?

In this heart-pounding novel, Detective DC Smith’s unorthodox investigation methods land him in a royally twisted situation as he looks into the tragic death of a Lord.During DC Smith’s third investigation with the Diver and Diver Associates agency, they have been asked by a member of Norfolk’s aristocracy to look into the tragic death of her younger brother, Freddie, the late Lord Thorpe.The inquest verdict was of misadventure, but it isn’t long before Smi...