Welsh Crime Thrillers

One morning Gwen Thomas takes a short walk with her Siberian husky in the outskirts of the Welsh town she calls home. She is drawn to a desolate area where, some 20 years ago as a teenager, she was brutally attacked and her friend killed. Disorientated by a sudden rush of memories, she has a fall. Later, recovering in hospital, she begins to recollect the events that led up to her friend’s death.

Detective Inspector Ray Lennox has fled to Miami to escape the aftermath of a mental breakdown induced by occupational stress and cocaine abuse, and a harrowing child-sex murder case back in Edinburgh. But his fiancée, Trudi, is only interested in planning their wedding, and soon Lennox is cast adrift, alone in Florida. A coke-fuelled binge brings him into contact with another victim of sexual predation, 10-year-old Tianna, and Lennox flees across the state with his terrified charge, determined to protect her at any cost.

Former detective Ray Lennox is determined to start a new life. He has left Edinburgh Police behind for a fresh career and a fresh relationship in Brighton. Then he meets Mathew Cardingworth. Rich, smooth-talking and immaculately dressed, he is seemingly a pillar of the local community - yet he soon draws Lennox back to a past that he's desperate to forget. As Lennox identifies the links between Cardingworth, a series of violent attacks and the disappearances of a group of foster care boys, he is forced to ask himself: what must he sacrifice to expose the truth?

A woman has been murdered and mutilated in her own home, with her liver cut out and a message left within it. Tasked with leading the case, DI Tudor Manx identifies several suspects, including the victim’s estranged husband. But all trails run cold. Then, another victim dies—and from the modus operandi. It seems that North Wales Police are dealing with a serial killer. But who would target the inhabitants of such a peaceful island?

Plans for a town pantomime are thrown in the air after one of the actors is murdered. The victim is local gossip, nosy parker and aspiring manipulator Ivor Gladwin. Reviled by many and ignored by more, the list of people who could have wanted rid of him seems to grow by the minute. Despite having overstepped the mark in past cases, because of her familiarity with the individuals involved, ex police officer Fabia Havard is actually tasked by her boyfriend, and serving DCI, to look into the matter on the side.

Ritchie Gulliver MP is dead. Castrated and left to bleed in an empty Leith warehouse. Vicious, racist and corrupt, many thought he had it coming. But nobody could have predicted this. After the life Gulliver has led, the suspects are many: corporate rivals, political opponents, the countless groups he's offended. And the vulnerable and marginalised, who bore the brunt of his cruelty—those without a voice, without a choice, without a chance. As Detective Ray Lennox unravels the truth, and the list of brutal attacks grows, he must put his personal feelings aside.

Jim Brennan is flying high. Against all odds he is a big man at the university, tipped for the head job and an office at the top of the ivory tower. He has a beautiful, accomplished wife and two healthy children. Jim drives an Audi, and his dog is a pedigree bichon frise. Not bad for the son of a hardman who grew up in a room and kitchen. But it is not easy to escape the past. Certain people have been keeping an eye on Professor Jim Brennan. When is son is arrested on drugs charges and lands in prison after breaking bail conditions, Jim is approached by men he thought he had left behind.

Auctioneer Rilke has been trying to stay out of trouble, keeping his life more or less respectable. Business has been slow at Bowery Auctions, so when an old friend, Jojo, gives Rilke a tip-off for a house clearance, life seems to be looking up. The next day Jojo washes up dead. Jojo liked Grindr hook-ups and recreational drugs - is that the reason the police won't investigate? And if Rilke doesn't find out what happened to Jojo, who will?

A mythical man known as Nightmare haunted young children for years. Until he became real. DCI Harry McNeil knows the legend all too well. Growing up in the Highlands, Nightmare was on his and every other child's mind as they went to sleep. Then, Nightmare claimed his first victim. A young girl, found dead in an abandoned cemetery with the words, I am Nightmare, carved into her chest. Two more victims, the same words carved into them. Then Nightmare disappears. Now, years later, there have been reports of graffiti being sprayed around Inverness and on graves in old cemeteries.

Do you really know what the neighbours are up to? Hilbre Grove is a quiet cul-de-sac, like many others on the Wirral. But when a couple returns from their holidays to find a mutilated, decomposing body in their bungalow, The Scissor Man’s reign of terror begins. With another woman missing, DCI Will Blake is determined to stop the psychopath from killing again. To hunt down The Scissor Man, Blake must face up to his painful past, putting his career on the line. But every home has its own dark secrets.

With the festive season almost upon him, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson is winding down at work and gearing up socially - kicking off Christmas with a week of sex and drugs in Amsterdam. There are irritating flies in the ointment, though, including a missing wife, a nagging cocaine habit, a dramatic deterioration in his genital health, a string of increasingly demanding extra-marital affairs. The last thing he needs is a messy murder to solve.

When the body of a local crime lord is found buried up to his neck in the tidal sands of North Wirral, all the clues point DCI Blake and his team toward his main rival in organized crime. But, as the investigation progresses, it turns out that there was more than one person happy to see the victim dead. Meanwhile, the man’s family have come to their own conclusions and are looking to settle the score.

Could you obey an order that might cost you everything? When the director of a local veterans’ charity is found murdered on the steps of a war memorial, it seems like a straight-forward case of random street violence. But similarities with a previous death arouse Blake’s suspicions and the apparently well-loved victim turns out to have had hidden flaws and many enemies. Blake is drawn into a web of intrigue and danger as he investigates the murder. Could it be terrorist activity? Is a psychotic serial killer stalking veterans? Or is there another explanation?

Just as DCI Will Blake is about to set off to hunt for his missing partner, a phone call from Scotland drags him in a completely different direction. Blake’s sister has been accused of murder, and she needs his help to clear her name. But the local police aren’t too impressed with the "celebrity scouse copper" dropping in and Blake’s problems escalate.

April 1284. As a newly widowed lady-in-waiting to the very pregnant Queen Eleanor of England, Catrin never expected to return to Wales again. She was definitely unprepared to be confronted with murder when she got there - or to find herself face-to-face with Rhys, the childhood friend she lost 20 years before. Rhys had never intended to return home either, but a lifetime of war has deposited him right back where he started - impoverished and owing service to Catrin's older brother.

When DCI Will Blake is called to investigate a blood-drenched gravestone, the evidence leads to Trevor Long, local paranormal investigator, self-styled medium, and conspiracy theorist. Long vanished while he was investigating the mysterious, axe-wielding Sons of Sol, worshippers of the Viking sun goddess. But Long’s life, like his death, is far from straightforward, and Blake’s team is drawn into a deadly game.

The murder of a young girl found barefoot in a country park and the re-emergence of shoes from the victims of a serial killer from over 40 years ago. A coincidence or a connection? Will Blake is determined to find out, but as he unearths the past, questions are raised about the original investigations, and it becomes clear that The Wirral has a killer on the loose, once again.

When a young boy goes missing, DCI Will Blake and his team are led into the little-known subterranean world beneath the Wirral. But the investigation unearths the body of a man who has been missing for almost 60 years. Ernie Hughes, lead singer of the little known Merseybeat band Arthur and the Galahads, disappeared one November in 1964, the night before the band were off to chase their dreams in Hamburg. It appears that Ernie’s death was violent. Blake’s investigations take him back to the heady days of The Cavern Club and Liverpool during the swinging '60s.

When a three-year-old girl goes missing in the sprawling Birkenhead Park, Blake has a puzzle on his hands. The child seemed to vanish into thin air and nobody saw anything, not even her nanny. A known paedophile is spotted in the area and the clock begins ticking as Blake tries to find the lost girl. The team uncover secret after secret as they investigate but Blake has got problems closer to home as his girlfriend’s past comes back to haunt her in a brutal and devastating way. When a key witness dies, Blake realises that a killer is on the loose.

Charming film writer and director Geraint Denbigh is found lifeless in the garden of his Welsh home. It looks like he fell from a window, but eagle-eyed Detective Chief Inspector Matt Lambert soon finds irregularities in the crime scene. Before long he determines it was murder. Recently retired, the victim was writing about his eventful life and many of his former colleagues and associates could have had reason to stop him before he spilled the beans on their transgressions.