Roger Ormerod

Several restaurant workers are murdered by a robber, whose brother is killed by police during the chaotic event. As everyone struggles to heal after the incident, the gunman is determined to kill everyone involved in his brother's death.

Paul Manson has just gotten out of prison, where he served four years for killing his father while preventing the older man from beating Paul's mother to death. Just prior to his release, he's asked if he'll do a favor for another inmate by carrying out a contract killing on a woman named Philomena Wise. Manson refuses and, after he gets out, takes it upon himself to find Philomena Wise and warn her. Philomena turns out to be a private detective and is murdered before Manson can deliver his warning - but the body Manson sees in the police mortuary is not that of Philomena Wise...

Retired Detective Inspector Richard Patton and his wife Amelia return to the world of crime when Patton is asked by his wife's old college friend to investigate a burglary that leads to a murder and threatens Patton's loyalty to Amelia's friend

Dead Ringer, Seeing Red and Ormerod's other mysteries have made his Inspector Richard Patton a favorite of fans who enjoy British police procedurals. Now retired, Patton takes his lover, Amelia, on a fortnight's visit to suave Bruno Fillingley's stately home. Aside from the detective, the guests are aspiring artists, like Amelia, who pay their host for advice and critiques. Then one of them, Roy Towers, is shot dead, leaving his Still Life with Pistol on the easel.Brooking no interference from Patton, the police arrest his host for the murder, together with a woman identified as Towers's ex-wife and Bruno's mistress. Later, however, the retired officer ferrets out facts that reveal the killer. As expected, the author is witty and inventive, but perhaps a bit too tricky with arcane clues that will prove a challenge even for clever who-dunit buffs.

Fred Wallach was not so much a missing person as a disappeared one. It held all the elements of an illusionist's trick. There he'd been, shut away in a bare shed with no way out by window or door and yet he had gone. To David Mallin it was not an ideal case for their first as a partnership. But George Coe was enthusiastic. A locked room mystery, he claimed. Well... not quite, perhaps, because there was no corpse. Impatient to get home, David quickly solved the mystery, revealing the missing corpse. Unfortunately he also uncovered another locked room problem, and this time it was one without such an easy solution. The reaching of the end was a harrowing experience for David, who had to face himself before he faced the murderer.

It's been more than six months since her husband's brutal death, and Julia Ransom is just beginning to breathe again. She loved her husband, renowned psychic August Ransom, but the media frenzy that followed his murder sapped what little strength she had left. Now, after dinner with friends, strolling along San Francisco's Pier 39, she realizes that she's happy. Standing at the railing, she savors the sounds around her-tourists, seals on a barge-and for a moment enjoys the sheer normalcy of it all. And then it comes to an end. Out of nowhere she's approached by a respectable-looking man who distracts her with conversation before violently attacking her and throwing her the railing. If it hadn't been for Special Agent Cheney Stone, out to stretch his legs between courses at a local restaurant, Julia would have vanished into the bay's murky depths. Not only does he save her from a watery grave, but he senses a connection between her assault and her husband's death, and sets out to serve as her protector while reopening August Ransom's murder investigation. Meanwhile, in Maestro, Virginia, Sheriff Dixon Noble-last seen in Point Blank-still mourns his wife, Christie, who vanished hree years earlier. His life, too, is just getting back to normal when he learns of a San Francisco woman named Charlotte Pallack, whose shocking resemblance to Christie sends Dix across the country. Though he knows in his heart that she can't possibly be his wife, Dix is compelled to see her with his own eyes. Once in San Francisco, Dix and Cheney's paths inevitably cross. With the help of agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock, whose San Francisco connections prove essential in unlocking the mystery behind Charlotte Pallack's identity as well as the forces behind Julia Ransom's attempted murder, Sheriff Noble and Agent Stone push deep into a complex world of psychics and poseurs. As the stakes and the body count rise, Savich, Sherlock, Dix, and Cheney fight for answers-and their lives.