A young girl has been murdered. Then another. Both blonde. A serial killer at work - or a copycat?'Maurice Procter is a born storyteller' Sunday TimesInspector Martineau has a nasty murder to solve: that of a blonde girl, aged just twelve. Martineau knows that child murder can be habit forming, that such cases encourage copycats. They have to move quickly.But they aren't quick enough, and two days later, the girl's death is followed by anoth...

Two Granchester constables find a wrecked, blood-soaked car. But there's no one in it, and no one has turned up at the nearest village. Then, miles away, a body is found on the road.A patrolman on night duty opens an unlocked door at the shop of a dealer in gemstones, a man named White. The police want to talk to White. Meanwhile, White has talked to mobster Dixie Costello. White's safe has been broken into, and diamonds are missing, but he hasn't told the police what has been take...

The XXC mob is giving Scotland Yard a run for its money, but the police have no idea who they are. As the gang is London-based, Granchester's Chief Inspector Martineau is not overly concerned.Then London gets too hot even for this gang. Cain, one of its members, decides they'll slip out of London one by one, so that Scotland Yard will think they've been done for.Then Martineau gets a 999 call early one Sunday morning: a safe has been broken into during the night.Mar...

'Maurice Procter's Chief Inspector Martineau is one of fiction's best policemen' New York TimesThe Plumber's men are swift workers, who take murder in their stride. But who is the Plumber himself - the brains behind the highly organized and disciplined gang terrorizing Granchester? And how, in a town where everyone is too scared to open their mouths for fear of being the next target, will Detective Inspector Martineau break up this tightly woven network?

Janey Elliott fails to return home one evening from a friend's, and her husband John goes out looking for her car. He and the friend's husband find Janey, brutally murdered.The gruesome killing of beautiful but wayward Janey Elliott calls for the special services of the Metropolitan Police. Does the element of sexual violence point to a frenzied killer, or is it a cover for a more straightforward motive? Scotland Yard soon find the answer to that question, but the murderer remains ...

A small village is the scene of two brutal murders - and everyone is under suspicion.A classic of crime fictionThe village of Pennycross is the scene of two brutal child murders within a few months. The villagers' lives are monitored by a team of police, led by Chief Inspector Hunter, as they watch and wait, piecing together the clues to trap the killer before another life is lost.Inspector Hunter comes to learn much about the inhabitants of Pennycro...

One Saturday, DC Brabant walks into the CID office of Granchester City Police. He has been at the football, looking for pickpockets, and has had his own wallet stolen. His boss, DCI Martineau, is amused, until Brabant reveals that his police warrant card was inside.The missing warrant investigation soon picks up momentum: an elderly businessman goes missing, and his secretary turns out to have much wider interests, that extend to Granchester City Football Club and a knot of conflic...

US Federal agent John Dennison arrives in the UK to meet Chief Inspector Philip Hunter of Scotland Yard, and to find $300,000, smuggled ashore via Liverpool. According to Dennison, the smugglers are intent on buying diamonds, to ship back to the US.Two suspects are followed to a London hotel and the diamonds are found. Shockingly, they are discovered to be real . . . but synthetic.The diamond deal, involving an eccentric middleman, exposes a much bigger racket. Hunter and D...

Classic police procedural by a 'born storyteller' (Sunday Times), who combined natural flair with his experience in the police to truly authentic effect.Hell is a City is the first of Maurice Procter's Inspector Martineau series and was made into taut, fast-paced film in 1959 by Hammer Studios, set against the grimy back streets and rain-streaked bright lights of Manchester.When hardened criminal Don Starling escapes from jail, killing a prison gua...

A millionaire's sage-green Rolls Royce has been discovered, empty, beside a graveyard, and a little later the murdered body of the millionaire is discovered inside the graveyard - above ground.The hunt for the murderer is complicated by the behaviour of the dead man's family, including his pretty second wife. And the members of a very different family, seemingly far less respectable, appear to be connected to this complex case.But Inspector Martineau and the Granchester pol...

Actor turned thief Rafe Tyrrel knows where more than two and a half million pounds is hidden, the proceeds of a Royal Mail train robbery and a post office job, both the work of his Islington gang.Now Rafe is in a high-security prison in Granchester. Detective Chief Inspector Martineau knows that every gang in England will want a cut of that money, and will try to get to Rafe.One of Rafe's gang, Pilgrim, moves the rest of the men to industrial towns around Granchester - read...

Chief Inspector Martineau and Sergeant Devery have every motive for finding and pursuing a killer who murdered their friend and colleague Inspector Robert McQuade, especially as it now appears that the same person may have Martineau in his sights. But what does all this have to do with a crooked stockbroker and a man who is trying to frame the Chief Inspector for taking bribes? And could the investigation be putting his family in jeopardy?