Jo Bannister

"When does a secret admirer become a stalker? When chocolates on the doorstep give way to the sound of an intruder on the stairs? When the victim's friends are waylaid in the dark and beaten bloody? When she receives photographs memorializing these events? Or when people start dying? For Constable Hazel Best, the pivot point is the attack on her friend Gabriel Ash. That's when she focuses all her ingenuity on finding the man responsible. Her police...

No one ever said: "See Norbold and die." So why would a man from DC Hazel Best's past cross England in order to get himself beaten senseless in this uninspiring Midlands town? Everyone assumes he was looking for Hazel. She can't think why he would; and when David Sperrin wakes up, he can't think why he would either. Amnesia - or something to hide? Flashbacks as Sperrin's battered brain recovers only make the case more troubling. His sharpest memory...

A teenage boy is beaten to death on Dimmock's derelict pier. Detective Jack Deacon is convinced they have the murderer; he just needs a positive identification to lock him up for good. But the only witness is astronomer Daniel Hood, in his own way a man as determined as Jack. Compelling as the circumstantial evidence is against the suspected killer, Daniel cannot be certain that this was the man he saw from his window. Nothing anybody says - or does...

When she called her business "Looking for Something?" Brodie Farrell hoped to receive challenging commissions from interesting clients. Even by her standards, though, demon rock musician Jared Fry is hard to please. Fortunately his manager, the charismatic Eric Chandos, is easier to like, and it's with him that Brodie works to find a new home for the rock star. An old coaching inn on the Downs seems the perfect choice. Though the locals are appalled---and...

Although she has been trying to put her work, running a one-woman detective agency, on hold while she cares for her new baby, Jonathan, Brodie soon learns that taking time off is not as easy as it sounds. Not only does Jonathan have a rare disease that may leave him blind, his father, Detective Superintendent Jack Deacon, is going after the nastiest crook in town, Joe Loomis, who quickly retaliates by threatening Brodie and little Jonathan. When...

Rachel Somers, running ... Something appalling happened in the wood. When Gabriel Ash and his dog come to her aid, she thinks she's safe. But this is Norbold, where things aren't always as they seem. Detective Chief Inspector Gorman thinks this is his worst nightmare: a predatory paedophile who's prepared to kill rather than be taken. Constable Hazel Best thinks she's helping both the Somers family and her friend Ash, but her tendency to follow her...

he three police officers who head up Castlemere's detecting team work together like the parts of a well-oiled machine. Detective Superintendent Frank Shapiro is a thirty-year man who has finally found a detective inspector with the instincts and discipline to complement his experience - Liz Graham. Liz, the first female detective on the force, is now one of its most respected senior officers. Her detective sergeant, the volatile Cal Donovan, possesses...

The town of Norbold, England is famous for its low crime rate, thanks to the zero-tolerance policy of Chief Superintendent John Fountain. And the newest police recruit, Hazel Best, is happy to help keep it that way. But numbers never tell the whole story, do they? Gabriel Ash receives a cryptic message from Jerome Hardy, who is then found dead. Gabriel is convinced that Jerome was murdered. When Hazel realizes that Gabriel might be right, she must...

Riding his motorcycle through the frosty back roads in the country is Detective Sergeant Donovan's idea of relaxation: Walking in on the armed robbery of a Castlemere gas station isn't. Donovan pursues the thief, but the chase ends in a horrible accident. The nineteen-year-old driver of the get-away van survives the crash, thanks largely to Donovan himself, who plunges into the burning wreckage and pulls the young man to safety. Unfortunately, it...