Bøger af Phillip Strang

An early-morning jogger is murdered in Hyde Park. It's the centre of London, but no one saw him enter the park, no one saw him die.He carries no identification, only a water-logged phone. As the pieces unravel, it's clear that the dead man had a history of deception.Is the murderer one of those that loved him? Or was it someone with a vengeance?It's proving difficult for DCI Isaac Cook and his team at Challis Street Homicide to find the guilty person - not that they'll cease to search for the truth, not even after one suspect confesses.

One murderer, two bodies, two locations, and the murders have been committed within an hour of the other. There's a connection, but what is it?They're separated by a couple of miles, and neither woman has anything in common with the other.Isaac Cook and his team at Challis Street Police Station are baffled as to why. One of the women is young and wealthy, the daughter of a famous man; the other is poor and hardworking and unknown.

A corpse in the fireplace of an old house. It's been there for thirty years, but who is it?It's clearly murder, and what connection does the body have to the previous owners of the house?It was bound to be discovered eventually but was that what the murderer wanted?The main suspects are all old and dying, or already dead. There's a motive, but what is it?Isaac Cook and his team have their work cut out trying to put the pieces together. Those who know are not talking out of an old-fashioned belief in that a family's dirty laundry is not to be aired in public, and certainly not to a policeman - even if that means the murderer is never brought to justice!

A mass shooting. An amoral Romanian gangster. A Russian oligarch who claims to be an honest businessman, but isn't.No one knows who was the target or why, but there are eight dead. The men seem the most likely, or could have it been one of the two women, the attractive Gillian Dickenson, or even the celebrity-obsessed Sal Maynard?There's a gang war brewing, and if there are deaths, they don't care as long as it's not one of them. But to Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook, it's his area of London, and he needs to find out who killed the eight.It's unpredictable, and initially, it had been the West Indian gangs that had held sway in the area. But then, a more vicious Romanian gangster had usurped them. And now he's being marginalised by the Russians. And their leader is the head of the most vicious Russian mafia organisation, and he's got residency in England, as well as money and influence, the ear of those in power.

No one gave much credence to the man when he was alive. In fact, most people never knew who he was, although those who had lived in the area for many years recognised the tired-looking and shabbily-dressed man as he shuffled along, regular as clockwork on Thursday's at seven in the evening to the local off-licence.It was always the same: a bottle of whisky, premium brand, and a packet of cigarettes. He paid his money over the counter, took hold of his plastic bag containing his purchases, and then walked back down the road with the same rhythmic shuffle. He said not one word to anyone on the street or in the shop.Apart from the three-storey mansion where he lived, one of the best residences on one of the best streets in London, with its windows permanently shuttered, no one would have regarded him as any other than homeless and destitute. Just a harmless eccentric, until the morning when he was found dead in his front garden.

A Downmarket Hotel. A Moral Campaigner. A woman who had killed her husband. Both Dead. Both Compromised.On the bed, the naked bodies of a man and a woman. 'Bullet in the head's not the way to go, ' Larry Hill, Isaac Cook's detective inspector, said.'Do you recognise him?' Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook said.'James Holden, from what I can see.''Rent by the hour?''Not according to her handbag. There's a business card. She worked for the man.''You know this will be all over the media within the hour, ' Isaac said.'James Holden, a proponent of the sanctity of the marital bed, man and wife. It's bound to be.'

He was thought to be dead, until he returns to exact revenge against those who had blighted his life. His only concern is to protect his wife and daughter. He will stop at nothing to achieve his aim.'Big Greg, I never expected to see you around here at this time of night.''I've told you enough times.''I've no idea what you're talking about, ' Robertson replied. He looked up at the man, only to see a metal pole coming down at him. Robertson fell down, cracking his head against a concrete kerb.The two vagrants, no more than twenty feet away, did not stir and did not even look in the direction of the noise. If they had, they would have seen a dead body, another man walking away.

A dismembered corpse floats in the canal in Little Venice, an upmarket tourist haven in London. The identity is unknown, but what is the significance?DCI Isaac Cook is baffled as to why it's there. Is it gang-related, or is it something more?Whatever the reason, it's clearly a warning, and Isaac and his team are sure it's not the last body that they'll have to deal with.With time, the pieces are put together, ensuring those in the senior hierarchy of the drug syndicate are either dead or in prison.

Before she left she carved a number in blood on his chest. But why the number 2, if this was her first murder?A woman stalks London. She kills at will. Her targets are men who have wronged her, or have they?What is behind her hatred and why is she keeping count?DCI Cook and his team know who she is, at least after she has killed the first four, but the woman disappears in plain sight. The pressure's on to stop her, but she's always one step ahead.And this time, DCS Goddard can't protect his protégé, Isaac Cook, from the wrath of the new commissioner at the Met.

A day at the races for Detective Inspector Tremayne, idyllic at the outset, soon changes. A horse is dead, and then the owner's daughter is found murdered, and Tremayne's there when the body is discovered.The question is, was Tremayne set up, in the wrong place at the right time? He's the cast-iron alibi for one of the suspects, and he knows that one murder leads to two, and more often than not, to three.The dead woman had a chequered history, not as much as her father, and then a man commits suicide. Is he the murderer, or was he the unfortunate consequence of a tragic love affair? And who was it in the stable with the woman just before she died? There is more than one person who could have killed her, and all of them have secrets they would rather not be known.Tremayne's health is troubling him. Is what they are saying correct? Is it time for him to retire, to take it easy and to put his feet up? But that's not his style, and he'll not give up on solving the murder.

A group of children play. Not far away, in the ditch on the other side of the farmyard, the body of a young woman.The nearby village hides as many secrets as the community at the farm, a disparate group of people looking for an alternative to their previous torturous lives. Their leader, idealistic and benevolent, espouses love and kindness, and somebody's not following his dictate.The second death, an old woman, seems unrelated to the first, but is it? Is it part of the tangled web that connects the farm to the village?The village, Detective Inspector Tremayne and Sergeant Clare Yarwood find out soon enough, is anything but charming and picturesque. It's a hotbed of intrigue and wrongdoing, and what of the farm and those who live there. None of them can be ruled out, not yet.

A Bronze-Age burial mound close to Stonehenge, an archaeological excavation. The expectation: an ancient body, historical artefacts. They did not expect to find a recent burial there as well.It's another case for Detective Inspector Tremayne and Sergeant Yarwood. The more recent of the two bodies, the brother of the mayor of Salisbury.The person responsible keeps leading back to the brother, the upright and serious-minded Clive Grantley. Tremayne's sure that it's him, but Clare Yarwood's not so sure.But is her belief based on evidence or personal hope?

Someone had once told Detective Inspector Keith Tremayne that some people were lucky and some weren't. Tremayne knew only one thing: the man lying dead in a pool of blood had qualified on the lucky after winning sixty-eight million pounds on a lottery ticket, but now his luck had run out.Tremayne knew the victim, Alan Winters; even knew his family. The man with all his new wealth had not hidden behind closed doors, fending off the scrounging relatives, the newly found friends. That wasn't Winters' style. He had been out and about, driving expensive cars, living well.And now he was dead. Tremayne knew the questions would start to roll. And why was he lying on the Altar Stone at Stonehenge, naked, with his throat cut? Clare Yarwood, his sergeant, had seen the body as well, turned away initially at the sight of it, but had taken a deep breath and stood alongside Tremayne. 'Nasty one, guv, ' she said.

Nobody liked Gloria Wiggins, a woman who regarded anyone who did not acquiesce to her jaundiced view of the world with disdain. James Baxter, the previous vicar, had been one of those, and her scurrilous outburst in the church one Sunday had hastened his death.And now, years later, the woman was dead, hanging from a beam in her garage. Detective Inspector Tremayne and Sergeant Clare Yarwood had seen the body, interviewed the woman's acquaintances, and those who had hated her.None confessed to having murdered her, but when the body count starts to rise, secrets start to be revealed.

Ethan Mitchell, old for his years after seventeen years in prison, knew the exact amount of time since his arrest for murder: eighteen years, five months and three days. After so long in prison, many things confused him on his release, but one thing he was sure of was that people do not come back from the dead. However, one month before his release from prison for the murder of a man, he had received a letter. It had only two sentences. Time will not save you. St Mark's Church, three in the afternoon, the first Wednesday after your release.He had recognised the writing. After all, hadn't they grown up together. The signature was unmistakable: it was his brother Martin's. But that's not possible, Mitchell thought. I killed him, spent seventeen years in prison for his murder.A voice echoed through the church; Ethan felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 'Martin, it can't be, ' Ethan said. 'You're dead. I killed you.''You'll see me soon enough, ' the man said. At ten feet from Ethan, he stopped and reached into his right-hand jacket pocket.'No, don't.''It's only right, ' the man said. He levelled the gun that he taken from the pocket and emptied three bullets into Ethan, the noise echoing around the church. The man then put the gun into his pocket and walked out of the church and onto the busy street.

If it hadn't been for the circumstances, Detective Inspector Keith Tremayne would have said the view was outstanding. Up high, overlooking the farmhouse in the valley below, the panoramic vista of Salisbury Plain stretching out beyond. The only problem was that near where he stood with his sergeant, Clare Yarwood, there was a body, and it wasn't a pleasant sight.'What happened?' Tremayne asked. He was a cantankerous man, he knew that, and he wasn't in a good mood on account of the biting wind and the squelching mud underfoot.'I found him when I came up here to check on the livestock, ' the farmhand said.'At what time?' Tremayne moved away from the body, attempting to find somewhere drier. The condition of the track up to the site was so bad that the vehicle sent to transport the dead man to the mortuary could not make it up. Even Tremayne and Clare had had to hang onto a tractor to get up the slope, and now the weather looked as if it were about to worsen.Tremayne had never been keen on farms, and especially horses, although Clare loved them. Tremayne assumed she wouldn't be so fond of the one that trampled Claude Selwood to death.'At what time?' Tremayne moved away from the body, attempting to find somewhere drier. The condition of the track up to the site was so bad that the vehicle sent to transport the dead man to the mortuary could not make it up. Even Tremayne and Clare had had to hang onto a tractor to get up the slope, and now the weather looked as if it were about to worsen.Tremayne had never been keen on farms, and especially horses, although Clare loved them. Tremayne assumed she wouldn't be so fond of the one that trampled Claude Selwood to death.

The man was not meant to die; the daggers were only theatrical props, plastic and harmless. A summer's night, a production of Julius Caesar among the ruins of an Anglo-Saxon fort. Detective Inspector Tremayne is there with his sergeant, Clare Yarwood. The assassination scene, the man collapses to the ground, Brutus defending his actions; Mark Antony's rebuke.It was meant to be high drama, not murder, but someone's switched the daggers.The man's death, in plain view of two serving police officers.They're a disparate group, the amateur actors. One's an estate agent, another, an accountant. And then there is the teenage man, the gay, the funeral director. And what about the women? They could be involved.They've all got a secret, but which of those on the stage wanted Gordon Mason, the actor who had portrayed Caesar, dead?

Old Joe had lived on the street in Kings Cross for a long time. Those that knew him regarded him as harmless, although a nuisance cadging money from passers-by.Although someone regarded him as more, the reason he was found dead one morning on Darlinghurst Road. This was Kings Cross, once a hub of inequity, of strip joints and gentleman's clubs, of licensed premises and restaurants. But now, the area is changing, going upmarket, another enclave for those that can afford it, not a place for the homeless, nor is it a place of murder, but then, another murder in Point Piper, upmarket and exclusive, a woman, her throat cut.Detective Gary Haddock's a seasoned hand in Homicide but is baffled by the murders. After four, are they serial or random? And if they are, why?Sergeant Natalie Campbell from Kings Cross Police Station is wet behind the ears when she pairs with Haddock, but she soon learns that she is more astute than the man, although she's a risk taker. He has to protect her, but she will take the investigations forward.

Organized Crime. Drug Smuggling. Islamic Fundamentalism. A powerful mix for a complex, sometimes dark novel!Malika waits for someone to pay her price - a few scraps of heroin.The smugglers' village, close to the Afghan border, is cold and unwelcoming - its only entertainment, the women who will put on a show and give themselves to anyone willing to pay.A Russian gangster on the run from the KGB finds himself there against his will, but where else can he go - they want him dead.A drug lord, an Afghan warlord and the Russian Mafia are entwined in a plan to increase the quantity of heroin shipped out of Afghanistan.The drug lord sees the Russian mafia taking his business. He will not let it happen without a fight. The Afghans, double-dealing and treacherous as ever sense an opportunity to play the Tajikistan drug lord off against the Russian mafia.The Afghans only care for their money, not who they deal with and if that means death to a few or many, concerns them little. Profit is what they want for their disparate causes, and the cost of a life has little value.