All his life, for almost as far back as he could remember, Victor had had a phobia. In prison, inevitably, he reflected on the grotesque way it had begun, about the panics and violent anger. He...

On the day Lizzie came back from the dead, the police and her family had already begun to search for her body. She had been missing for three days. A short while later, another young woman...

Who would have believed that Alice Whittaker’s life could change? She was thirty-seven, rich but dowdy, with no career. Her life was a lonely failure, though she had got by with the one thing...

Philip Wardman had more than just the ordinary squeamishness where death was concerned. Yet he could hardly avoid the suspicious disappearance of his sister's friend Rebecca Neave, especially when...

The latest victim in a series of apparently motiveless murders is found near Inez Ferry’s antique shop in Marylebone. Someone saw a shadowy figure running away, but the only other clues are that...

Dex works as a gardener for Dr Jefferson at his home on Hexam Place in Pimlico: an exclusive street inhabited by the rich, and serviced by the not so rich. The hired help, a motley assortment of...

The body found under the hedge was that of a middle-aged woman. The grey eyes were wide and staring, and in them Detective Chief Inspector Wexford thought he saw a sardonic gleam. But that must...

Concealed by a shroud of dirty brown velvet was what looked like a heap of rags. In the desolate subterranean car park of the Barringdean Shopping Centre, Reg Wexford had been too preoccupied to...

The building of a new road through rural habitats was certain to divide the local community. It didn’t take long for the environmental groups to arrive. Even the badgers had to be moved. And it...

Sixteen-year-old Elvira's mother is dead. Elvira is sad, of course, but not as sad as her younger sister, Spinny. Spinny is afraid their father, Luke, will be heartbroken, but Elvira knows better...

On a stormy February afternoon, little Stella Rivers disappeared and was never seen again. There were no clues, no demands and no traces. And there was nowhere else for Wexford and his team to...

The Chinese government wanted advice on crime prevention and detection, and Scotland Yard’s Chief Superintendent Howard Fortune has assembled a team that includes the best detection experts, bar...

The title story is about a man whose life, in a sense, is a book. Life for Ambrose Ribbon is lonely and obsessive without his mother, yet there is one book that he associates particularly with her...

This case is proving a difficult one for Chief Inspector Wexford. All he has to go on are his own intuitive suspicions. Was he becoming cynical and untrusting or was this one of the most ingenious...

A man and his daughter lie dead after a car accident. Strangely, no other car was involved and no cause has been found. Wexford’s only option is to wait and hope that the one surviving victim,...