Real-life crime has engulfed the domestic life of the Riverside Theatre players. For starters, there's the violent death of Estelle Bignall, the beautiful, neurotic wife of a well-to-do doctor (and aspiring resident playwright). In truth, suicide seemed more Estelle's line--especially during the Christmas holidays--but a thief saved her the trouble, stealing all the presents and leaving her bound, gagged, and suffocated.Instinct tells Detective Chief Inspectors Lloyd and Judy Hill that Estelle's murder is far more complicated. At the crime scene there are too many footprints, too many fingerprints, too much conflicting evidence--and too many suspects: an elusive burglar, a sinister next-door neighbor, the victim's secret lover, a scared kid with fresh bruises on his face. But which of them was desperate enough to commit murder?From the Paperback edition.

With a plot that defies the most inspired second-guessing and with menace ticking quietly away on every page, Jill McGown's Death in the Family firmly establishes her as a master of mystery and psychological suspense. This gritty, sophisticated novel is the twelfth in the author's internationally acclaimed series starring Chief Detective Inspector Lloyd and his colleague and lover, Chief Detective Inspector Judy Hill.Dean Fletcher had spent virtually all his twenty-four years doing things practically guaranteed to land him in trouble. But not until he fell for a blonde nymphet named Kayleigh Scott did he manage to totally ruin his life. Kayleigh had told him she was eighteen. In truth, she was not quite thirteen, and poor Dean was soon off to prison, a convicted sex offender, still smitten with his adolescent lover.Now he's finally free again, only to be ensnared by two crimes that have Lloyd pulling out what's left of his hair. One is an infant...

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 . . .

From the bestselling author of The Inspector Lloyd and Sergeant Hill Series...No one was more stunned than Annie Maddox when they found the body of Gerald Culver MP. Because Annie, the manager of the Wellington Hotel, Amblesea, was Culver's mistress. Enter Harry Lambert, ex-policeman-turned-reluctant-private-eye, who's hired by Culver's wife to find her husband's killer. Annie's world is now filled with menace, because somewhere out there, along the edge of a wintry sea, a killer stalks...

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 . . .

A white Christmas. Deepening snow isolated the village from the outside world. By the time the body in the vicarage was discovered, Byford was cut off altogether . . .A domestic murder - Chief Inspector Lloyd thought it would be an open and shut case. But it turned out to be as complex and perplexing as his relationship with Sergeant Judy Hill.And both of them seemed to be slipping from his grasp . . .From Publishers WeeklyThis finely crafted whodunit pays homage to Agatha Christie. But what differentiates McGown's work from the grande dame's classic tale bearing almost the same title is the interesting relationship she establishes between her two protagonists, Acting Chief Inspector Lloyd, known only by his surname, and Det. Sgt. Judy Hill. The duo, who debuted in A Perfect Match , work together and are lovers who have a problem: she is married and Lloyd wants to change the status quo. It's Christmas and they are assigned to investigate a murder in the English village of Byford at the home of vicar George Wheeler. His wife, Marian, has discovered the body of Graham Elstow, the estranged husband of their daughter, Joanna, after returning from the midnight service. To escape Elstow's physical abuse, Joanna has been living with her parents. Seeking a reconciliation, Elstow had visited her earlier in the day, and she is the last person to have seen him alive. Though it appears to be an open-and-shut case, numerous undercurrents bear investigation, including the vicar's sexual attraction to one of his parishioners. McGown's complex plot is masterful and her sleuths and their predicament are enthralling. Christie couldn't have done it better. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review Impeccable plotting, alibi- and clue-weaving Mail on Sunday Jill McGown is a crisp writer and a spellbinding storyteller Financial Times Superior mystery fiction Publishers Weekly 

From the bestselling author of The Inspector Lloyd and Sergeant Hill Series...Sixteen years ago, Bill Holt was jailed for the murder of two people: Alison, his lifelong friend whom once people had assumed he'd marry, and a private detective. He knew he was innocent, but jury, judge and all his friends declared him guilty.Now he's out on parole, and his first journey is back to the scene of the crime, the town where he worked and lived and where he had shares in Greystone, his grandfather's firm.He finds that fashion has changed, the currency has changed, even the railway station is different. But the people are all still there;Alison's husband, Bryant, Jeff and Thelma Spencer, his cousin Cassie Stone, smooth Charles Cartwright and Holt's ex-wife, Wendy.One of them is a manipulative killer – one of them framed him, and he's spent sixteen years behind bars while the murderer grew fat and sleek on the profits of his company.

Introducing the pairing of Detective Inspector Lloyd and Sergeant Judy Hill, A Trio of Murders contains three classic mysteries in one volume.A PERFECT MATCH: The news of a woman's body found in a boathouse rocks the town of Stansfield. The case appears simple: her last known companion, and 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 enquiry, you don't rule anyone out.REDEMPTION: As deepening snow slowly isolates the village of Byford from the outside world, not all is as peaceful as it seems. A murder at the vicarage destroys the calm of the festive period . . . a domestic murder . . or so it appears. Chief Inspector Lloyd finds more than he bargained for in this complex and perplexing mystery, not least keeping control of his relationship with Sergeant Judy Hill.DEATH OF A DANCER: Lloyd and Hill find...

Detective Inspector Judy Hill anxiously watched the trial of serial rapist Colin Arthur Drummond from the public gallery--never forgetting his chilling threat that she would be his next victim. The prosecution should have an open-and-shut case. But sixteen months later Drummond is back on the streets, threatening Judy once more. And as Judy sets out to prove Drummond's guilt for the second time, Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd is called to a horrifying scene. It appears Colin Drummond has struck again. . . .From the Paperback edition.

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...

When Andrew Cope and his ex-policewoman wife Kathy, proprietors of an unsuccessful detective agency, up to their necks in debt and on the verge of losing their home, are found dead in their fume-filled car, there are few who doubt that they have simply taken the easy way out.But DCI Lloyd knew Kathy Cope, and doesn't believe she was a quitter, and when DI Judy Hill is called out to the murder of matriarch Angela Esterbrook, Lloyd's doubts appears to be vindicated; and the Copes' apparent suicide turns out to be just the curtain-raiser on a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions . . .              

"McGown's style is uniquely hers, engrossing, poignant, with effectual characterization."--Mystery NewsWhen the body of fifteen-year-old Natalie Ouspensky is found strangled near a public park in Stansfield, England, Detective Inspector Judy Hill and Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd have their work cut out for them. For Natalie wasn't quite the innocent her mother believes, and her classmates at Oakland School guard Natalie's secrets--and their own--like life itself. Then a shred of evidence points Hill and Lloyd in the right--and decidedly deadly--direction. . . . "[A ] compelling story . . . The characters are devious, cunning, charming--and truly, truly wicked. This small English town, overrun with malice, is well served by its finely delineated constabulary, with Lloyd and Hill at the top of their form."--Publishers WeeklyFrom the Paperback edition.

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?