BARRY MAITLAND SERIES:

The Promised Land

The Promised Land

Barry Maitland

Mystery & Thrillers

Newly promoted Detective Chief Inspector Kathy Kolla investigates a series of brutal murders on Hampstead Heath. Under intense pressure to find answers, she arrests the unlikely figure of John Pettigrew, a failing London publisher who lives alone on the edge of the Heath.Pettigrew's lawyer calls on recently retired David Brock for advice, and soon, unable to resist the pull of investigation, the old colleagues, Brock and Kolla, are at loggerheads.At the heart of the gripping mystery of the Hampstead murders lies a manuscript of an unknown novel by one of the greatest literary figures of the twentieth century. Brock believes that its story will unlock the puzzle, but how?
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The Marx Sisters

The Marx Sisters

Barry Maitland

Mystery & Thrillers

Detective Kathy Kolla's first case is one for the books. Meredith Winterbottom, a resident of Jerusalem Lane--a quaint section of London inhabited by Eastern European immigrants--and a great-granddaughter of Karl Marx, is found dead. Was she the victim of greedy real-estate developers, or was she killed for the politics of another age? When a second Marx sister is killed, David Brock, Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard, is brought in to help. As Kathy and Brock delve into the Lane's eccentric melting pot, they find unpublished letters from Marx to Engels; a possible fourth volume of Das Kapital; an endless list of shady suspects; and a plot to end Kathy's investigating days for good. Can they unravel the mystery before Kathy's first case is her last? The Marx Sisters is a classic British whodunit, one that adds an unforgettable team to the ranks of great fictional detectives. "Cleverly devious, sagaciously cunning ... Maitland's first mystery is a pleasure to read." --Los Angeles Times "Intelligently devised and subtly plotted ... A traditional crime novel with memorable and enjoyable detectives, suspects and victims.".--The Dallas Morning News "A fine morsel ... There is no lack of suspense and no lack of skill in their presentation. More please, Mr. Maitland." --The Washington Times
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The Russian Wife

The Russian Wife

Barry Maitland

Mystery & Thrillers

Maitland stacks his characters in interesting piles, and lets his mystery burn busily and bright.' - Courier-MailWhen the Russian wife of the owner of one of the most valuable private collections of modern art in the UK is found dead, Detective Chief Inspector David Brock is drawn into a world of high-end art, a world very different to his own. From the dealers and galleries in London's West End, his investigations take him to Miami and New York on the trail of international forgery and fraud.At the same time, his ex-partner Detective Chief Inspector Kathy Kolla, who now leads one of the Metropolitan Police Murder Investigation teams, finds herself at the wrong end of a corruption charge. With her whole career in the balance, she will do almost anything to clear her name.'No one drops so many wonderful threads to a story or ties them so satisfyingly together at the end.' - The Australian'Maitland is right up there with Ruth Rendell in my book.' -...
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The Marx Sisters: A Kathy Kolla and David Brock Mystery

The Marx Sisters: A Kathy Kolla and David Brock Mystery

Barry Maitland

Mystery & Thrillers

SUMMARY: Kathy Kolla's first case is one for the books. Something isn't quite right about the death of Meredith Winterbottom, an elderly woman who was living with her two sisters. The sisters—who happen to be the great-granddaughters of Karl Marx—reside in a charming Dickensian section of London called Jerusalem Lane, surrounded by a collection of old books and odd neighbors—mainly refugees who fled war-torn Central Europe during the tumultuous 1930s.The case initially appears to be routine. While her superiors see it as merely a test of her relatively green investigative skills, Kathy senses an opportunity to prove her mettle. She's surprised when Detective Chief Inspector David Brock unexpectedly joins her examination of what had been an unexciting "suspicious death." But the motives for murder proliferate. Was the septuagenarian Winterbottom "liquidated" by a property developer hoping to gentrify the area? Or have some of the ghosts of the World War I remained unexorcised, leaving neighbors who aren't so neighborly? Would a scholar of Marxiania kill for Meredith's collection of unpublished Marx correspondence? Or did her unhappily married son wish to receive his inheritance sooner rather than later? And what exactly is Brock investigating: Winterbottom's death or Kathy herself?When a second Marx sister is found slain, Kathy and Brock delve even deeper into the Lane's eccentric melting pot and hidden past. They uncover clues pointing to an unsuspected fourth volume of Das Kapital, a laundry list of suspects, and a plan to make Kathy history. Tightly plotted, The Marx Sisters bristles with the intelligence and nuance of a modem British who-dun-it and adds an unforgettable team to the ranks of great fictional detectives—Kathy Kolla and Detective Chief Inspector David Brock.
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Silvermeadow

Silvermeadow

Barry Maitland

Mystery & Thrillers

Silvermeadow is a brand-new mega-shopping mall - 'more like a small city than a department store'. Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla and Detective Chief Inspector David Brock investigate the reappearance of one of the most violent criminals Brock has ever come across.Silvermeadow's calculated, manipulative and dressed up to deceive. If this glossy, huge new shopping mall on the outskirts of London had been a suspect rather than a place, Kathy Kolla would have said its manner was guilty as hell. Dark secrets fester in its depths. A young woman is found dead, gruesomely crushed in the rubbish compactor; the most vicious bank robber known in England has been seen there; and a homeless boy is discovered dead in bizarre circumstances.Too many dead, too many secrets, and for Detective Chief Inspector David Brock and Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla there are too many loose ends in this, their most frustrating and dangerous investigation yet.'Comparable to the psychological crime...
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Spider Trap

Spider Trap

Barry Maitland

Mystery & Thrillers

Old skeletons, new deaths, crime families, torture and intimidation; David Brock and Kathy Kolla are challenged like never before.. . . Brock and Kolla, a pair of crime fiction's finest.' - The AgeSkeletons are discovered in Cockpit Lane, a poor black area of inner south London, and DCI David Brock and DS Kathy Kolla of Scotland Yard's Serious Crimes Branch are called in to investigate.The discovery that the victims died on the day of the Brixton riots, over twenty years before, lead Brock and Kolla on a dark and dangerous journey into the heart of the West Indian community in London - a journey in which past and present come together in an intricate web of deception and intrigue, as Brock re-discovers the hand of a formidable old antagonist, Spider Roach. In a desperate search to find a crucial piece of missing evidence, Brock and Kathy unwittingly set in train a series of events that end in a shocking, violent conclusion.Written with Maitland's...
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The Raven's Eye

The Raven's Eye

Barry Maitland

Mystery & Thrillers

It's one of Brock and Kolla's bloodiest investigations. On the trail of a brutal killer with a meat cleaver and a grudge they're also watching their backs as new technologies threaten their jobs. A throat-stopping, heart-thumping mystery from one of Australia's most acclaimed crime writers.Riveting, intelligent crime writing from one of Australia's best.' Weekend WestA woman dies in her sleep in a houseboat on the Thames; the apparent cause of death, an unflued gas heater. It all seems straightforward, but DI Kathy Kolla isn't convinced. Both Kathy and DCI Brock run up against opposition in their investigation. An aggressive new Commander seems to have a different agenda, focusing on the new realities of economic constraints, and favouring emerging technologies over the traditional policing methods. Old-fashioned coppers like Brock and Kolla are being squeezed out. To make matters worse, there's a new Task Force moving in on their patch, and a brutal killer, Butcher Jack...
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Crucifixion Creek

Crucifixion Creek

Barry Maitland

Mystery & Thrillers

Homicide detective Harry Belltree wouldn't usually be looking too hard at an elderly couple's suicide pact. Especially now, when his brother-in-law Greg has just been stabbed to death. But it seems Greg and the old couple had ties to the same man, a bent moneylender with friends in high places - and low.Harry can't get officially involved in Greg's murder, but he suspects a link with two other mysterious deaths: his parents'. And when he goes off-grid to investigate, that's when things start to get dangerousSet in Sydney, this dark, morally ambiguous and adrenaline-charged new series is a triumphant change of direction for Barry Maitland.Barry Maitland was born in Scotland, studied architecture at Cambridge University and went on to work as an architect and urban design expert. In 1984 he moved to Australia to head the architecture school at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales. In 1994 The Marx Sisters, the first in his Brock and...
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Slaughter Park

Slaughter Park

Barry Maitland

Mystery & Thrillers

The final book in the critically acclaimed Belltree TrilogyHarry Belltree’s obsessive pursuit of justice has cost him everything—his job in homicide, his marriage and his newborn child. He has nothing left to lose, or so he thinks. Then his estranged wife disappears, leaving their baby daughter behind.The police think Jenny has murdered a man.Harry thinks she’s in danger.When severed limbs are found dangling from the branches of trees in a suburban park, Harry’s former colleagues are pulled off Jenny’s case. It’s up to Harry to track his missing wife down on his own.And to lay bare, at last, the extraordinary conspiracy that led to his parents’ murder.Barry Maitland was born in Scotland and in 1984 moved to Australia to head the architecture school at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales. The Marx Sisters, the first in his Brock and Kolla crime series, was published in 1994. Barry now writes full time and...
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No Trace

No Trace

Barry Maitland

Mystery & Thrillers

An edge-of-your-seat Brock and Kolla mystery set within a radical artists' community in London where three children have been abducted in a matter of weeks. Within an unconventional artists' neighbourhood in London, Detective Chief Inspector David Brock and Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla are embroiled in their most compelling case yet - three young children have been abducted in as many weeks. The most recent of these, six-year-old Tracey Rudd, is the daughter of the infamous contemporary artist Gabriel Rudd. Unbelievably, he begins almost immediately to exploit Tracey's abduction as inspiration for a major and controversial new artwork, in the full glare of media attention. As Tracey's grandparents step in to blame Gabriel for Tracey's disappearance, Brock and Kolla conduct an intensive hunt for the missing children and their kidnappers, who appear to be connected to an eccentric and suspicious community of artists, dealers and collectors. Kathy tries to decipher the motives of this world where art and reputation might be more highly prized than life while Brock's attention is diverted not only by a personal crisis but also by finding himself in the unwelcome spotlight of a police inquiry.
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All My Enemies

All My Enemies

Barry Maitland

Mystery & Thrillers

In one of the finest and most pivotal books in this critically acclaimed series, never before published in the U.S., D.S. Kathy Kolla reports to New Scotland Yard and to D.C.I. David Brock's Serious Crime Division. Just before Kolla is to start her new job, a young woman is found viscously murdered in a leafy, well-heeled suburb, and the grotesque details of the slaughter appear to be well-rehearsed, even theatrical. Assigned to the case, Kolla's only improbable lead draws her to a local amateur drama group. Once in their orbit, she is lured into a piece of theatre over which, increasingly, she has little control. In All My Enemies, Brock and Kolla find themselves in a tangled web of deceptions in a case wherein a corpus of plays becomes a template for murder.
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