Bøger af Jill McGown

Four seemingly unrelated characters are murdered at the hands of the same killer - can PI Harry Lambert find the link between them all that will lead him to the murderer?

The first three books in Jill McGown's classic crime series, featuring Detective Inspector Lloyd and Sergeant Judy HillA Perfect Match The news that a woman's body has been found in a boathouse rocks the town of Stansfield. The case appears simple: her last known companion, and the prime suspect, is currently missing, presumed fled. But Detective Inspector Lloyd, teamed up with former colleague Sergeant Judy Hill, isn't so quick to jump to conclusions . . . in a murder inquiry, you can't rule anyone out.Redemption: Deepening snow slowly isolates the village of Byford from the outside world, but the calm of the festive period is destroyed by what appears to be a domestic murder at the vicarage. As Lloyd struggles to keep control of his relationship with Hill, he finds more than he bargained for in this complex and perplexing mystery.Death of a Dancer: Lloyd and Hill find themselves caught up once again in a harrowing murder investigation. The victim is the wife of a deputy headmaster of a boys' public school, but they rapidly discover that she was not the upstanding teacher's wife that appearances suggest. As the mystery thickens, the list of suspects for her murder grows appallingly long . . .

February 13th: what seemed like Wilma Fenton's lucky night, when she scooped her biggest-ever win at bingo, turned out to be the night she died at the hands of someone lurking in the dimly lit alleyway leading to her flat.An eyewitness to the incident gives Detective Chief Inspectors Lloyd and Hill some hope. But the witness is Tony Baker, an ambitious TV journalist and TV personality, who, almost twenty years ago, single-handedly tracked down a serial killer. Did Baker see more than he claims? Does he want to beat the police to the punch again?This complication triggers a deadly chain of events when the man the media will come to call the Anonymous Assassin publicly challenges Baker to catch him before he strikes again. In the full glare of the national media, Lloyd and Hill must spearhead a force-wide hunt for a relentless killer . . .

"e;The smile froze on Judy's lips as she heard the scream. It seemed to come from the direction in which she had just walked; she retraced her steps, and saw the girl she had seen earlier, standing by the willow tree, by the pram, her hands to her mouth.'She's gone!' the girl said. 'The baby's gone.'"e;In an isolated cottage a woman has been bludgeoned to death; outside, a man has been crushed by a car, uttering the word 'intruder' before losing consciousness. That, and a row overheard earlier that morning, is all Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd has to go on.Who is the dead woman? Where's her handbag? If it was a burglary, why the extreme violence? A house-removal is in progress, but were the couple moving in or moving out? Were they a couple? Who was having the argument? If it was a domestic, why is the handbag missing? Who was the intruder? Was there an intruder? Who rang 999? Was it a love triangle? Who was driving the car found abandoned a mile away?Questions without answers, and Lloyd is short-handed; a baby has disappeared from Malworth, and DS Tom Finch has joined the team urgently searching for leads.Lloyd doesn't yet know how deeply involved in that enquiry Judy Hill, still on maternity leave, has become, nor how profoundly it will affect both her and his own murder investigation . . .

It's three days before Christmas, and the Malworth Amateur Dramatic Society's rehearsal of Cinderella, scripted by GP Carl Bignall, is struggling thanks to a flu epidemic that has hit the production.But as rehearsals finally get under way at the Riverside Theatre, the police across town are entering Carl's house - and discovering the body of his wife, Estelle . . .Why was Carl so late for rehearsal? Why is Dr Bignall's neighbour so reluctant to tell the truth about what he witnessed? And why is Dr Denis Leeward, Carl's partner, sitting in his car, slightly bruised and in a state of guilty panic?All Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd knows for sure, as he takes charge of the investigation, is that one of them is a murderer . . .

'I shot someone dead.' He watched for her reaction, and there was more than just surprise in those dark blue eyes; there was something very like respect. 'I got out just over eight years ago.' 'What was it like?''Prison?'She shook her head, smiling slightly. 'Killing someone,' she said.Andrew and Kathy Cope, the proprietors of a debt-ridden detective agency on the verge of losing their home, are found dead in their fume-filled car. Few doubt that it was suicide.But Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd does. He knew Kathy, and doesn't believe she was a quitter. And why, he asks DI Judy Hill, were groceries put away on the wrong shelves? Why is Andy Cope's wheelchair still in the boot? Even Kathy's last case is a puzzle. Why, of all the detectives she might have employed, did a member of the super-wealthy Esterbrook family choose to hire the Copes?That night, the murder of matriarch Angela Esterbrook appears to vindicate Lloyd's doubts, but even he doesn't realize that the Copes' apparent suicide is just the curtain-raiser on a tragedy of almost Shakespearean proportions . . .

More than half of Bartonshire, it seemed, had entertained murderous thoughts at some time or another about bullying farmer Bernard Bailey. Which might have explained why his property was protected by more security devices and surveillance cameras than Fort Knox.All, sadly, to no avail.After six months of highly publicised death threats, linked to a stubborn refusal to sell land for a new road, Bernard's bloodied corpse is discovered in his isolated farmhouse by his wife Rachel. A gruesome beginning to the working week which launches DCI Lloyd and DI Judy Hill into the most unusual murder enquiry of their careers.For as the initial evidence is sifted, the question for once isn't 'Who stood to gain from the death?' but 'Why didn't they do it sooner?'With the ever-present eye of the camera recording events, Lloyd and Hill have more evidence than they ever thought possible. But is it enough to stop a killer walking free . . . ?

"e;He'd waited for her outside her flat that night, but Lloyd had come home with her, and he'd had to let it go. But he'd get her. One day. He'd get her."e;Four young women. Four horrific rapes. Committed by a man who called himself the 'Stealth Bomber'.Colin Arthur Drummond - a privileged young man from Malworth - now stands accused of these crimes. And, watching his trial from the public gallery, Detective Inspector Judy Hill cannot forget his chilling description of a fifth unreported rape.Or his threat that she was to be his sixth.In court Drummond denies all charges, his lawyer 'Hotshot' Harper claiming police corruption and brutality. But the prosecution has an open-and-shut case; he had been caught in the act by two independent witnesses, and they have a DNA profile which proves he is the rapist. What could go wrong?Something does. For sixteen months later, Colin Drummond is threatening Judy again. And as Judy sets out to prove his guilt for the second time - and save her own job - Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd is called to a horrifying scene. It appears Colin Drummond has picked his next victim . . .

"e;She had been in school uniform the first and last time Judy had seen her alive, and she had wondered what it would be like to be her mother. Now, she thanked God she wasn't."e;Detective Inspector Judy Hill had seen the girl that evening, talking and laughing with friends on the bus home. Now she lay dead in the glaring arc-light of a scene-of-crime investigation; beaten, strangled, and possibly raped.Oakland School is Stansfield come sunder a no less glaring spotlight as Judy and Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd begin their investigation into the murder of Natalia Ouspensky, aged fifteen, on a piece of open parkland in the centre of town.It is an enquiry which will uncover the secrets of staff and pupil alike, not least Natalia herself; and enquiry which will produce suspects and motives but to no witnesses; an enquiry which will deeply affect the lives of the innocent, but might well fail to convict the guilty. An enquiry, it seems, which is not going to yield a single shred of evidence . . .

Victor Holyoak made his millions by selling state-of-the-art security systems. In the end, even the most sophisticated devices were no protection against the intruder who murdered him in his own factory.The millionnaire's death shocked the townsfolk of Stansfield. But was there something they didn't know about their deceased benefactor?Chief Inspector Lloyd was convinced he had seen Victor somewhere before. Was his memory playing tricks again? Or did the murky past hold the clues to a murder that seemed to come under the heading of unfinished business?

When the celebrity football match was abandoned just before half-time, Bartonshire police had no way of knowing that the swirling, choking fog had concealed much, much more than the striker's fancy footwork.But by the end of the evening Chief Inspector Lloyd and Inspector Judy Hill were looking for a rapist - and a killer.And, somewhere in Stansfield, Melissa Whitworth was just beginning to discover the truth about her husband . . .

Which is the odd one out:An ex-call girl wife of a wealthy crook, who has kept one step ahead of the law, a struggling artist married to Stansfield's prospective Conservative party candidate, or the telephone line which links them?Answer: the telephone line. It isn't dead.A double murder investigation brings Chief Inspector Lloyd and the newly promoted Inspector Judy Hill together again as colleagues. But the case is a severe test of both Judy's professionalism and Lloyd's ego, and soon threatens their more private relationship . . .

The murder of a deputy headmaster's wife on the night of the Sesquicentennial Ball at a minor-league boys' public school brings together the team of Inspector Lloyd and Judy Hill. Diana Hamlyn's body has been found on the school's playing field. Death had been caused by the traditional blunt instrument, her clothing was disarrayed, her underclothes missing. It was a particularly disturbing killing.As Lloyd and Hill begin the harrowing routine of a murder investigation they rapidly learn that the woman had been a nymphomaniac - her conquests many, her fidelities few, the list of suspects for her killing appallingly long. That list includes her husband, her lovers and her colleagues, none with perfect alibis, some ostentatiously lying.It is an old-fashioned puzzle peopled with very contemporary characters. Once again Jill McGown presents a true novel of detection.

A Lloyd and Hill novel

The news rocked the town. A woman's body found in a boathouse. And the woman's last known companion Missing Presumed Fled. To the people of Stansfield it's an open and shut case.But Detective Inspector Lloyd - teamed up once more with Sergeant Judy Hill - isn't so quick to jump to conclusions. To begin with he's certain of only two things. First, that nothing can stop the reawakening of his tender feelings towards his colleague.And second: in a murder enquiry you don't rule out . . .