THE STRANGER DIARIES

BLEEDING HEART YARD

DS Caitlin Fitzgerald has a secret - but it's one she's deleted from her memory. In the 1990s when she was at school, she and her friends killed a fellow pupil. Thirty years later, Caitlin is happily married and loves her job as a police officer. One day her husband persuades her to go to a school reunion and another ex-pupil, Garfield Rice, is found dead, supposedly from a drug overdose. As Garfield was an eminent Labour MP and the investigation is high profile, it's headed by Caitlin's new boss, DI Harbinder Kaur. The trouble is, Caitlin can't shake the feeling that one of her old friends has killed again.Is Caitlin right, or was Garfield murdered by one of his political cronies? It's in Caitlin's interest to skew the investigation so that it looks like the latter and she seems to be succeeding. Until someone else is killed...

THE BLOOD CARD

On the eve of Elizabeth II's coronation, DI Stephens and Max Mephisto uncover an anarchist plot and a ticking bomb at the same time as solving the murder of a man close to them. Book 3

THE CHALK PIT

Boiled human bones have been found in Norwich's web of underground tunnels. When Dr Ruth Galloway discovers they were recently buried, DCI Nelson has a murder inquiry on his hands. Ruth and Nelson must unravel the gruesome secrets of the underground before it claims another victim. Book 9.

THE CROSSING PLACES

Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway becomes involved in the case of Lucy Downey, a little girl who has been missing for ten years. Remains are found on a desolate beach but these turn out to be two thousand years old. Then Ruth starts to receive strange letters referring to ritual and sacrifice. Book 1.

THE DARK ANGEL

Dr Ruth Galloway is flattered when she receives a letter from Italian archaeologist Dr Angelo Morelli, asking for her help. He's discovered a group of bones in a tiny hilltop village near Rome but doesn't know what to make of them. It's years since Ruth has had a holiday, and even a working holiday to Italy is very welcome! So Ruth travels to Castello degli Angeli, accompanied by her daughter Kate and friend Shona. In the town she finds a baffling Roman mystery and a dark secret involving the war years and the Resistance. To her amazement she also soon finds Harry Nelson, with Cathbad in tow. But there is no time to overcome their mutual shock - the ancient bones spark a modern murder, and Ruth must discover what secrets there are in Castello degli Angeli that someone would kill to protect. Book 10

DYING FALL

Ruth Galloway’s latest case will push her to the edge…her old friend Dan thinks he has made a discovery that will change archaeology forever; but he is killed in a fire. DCI Nelson discovers mysterious circumstances surrounding Dan's death. Ruth is drawn into the mystery, but this time, it's not just Ruth's life at risk. Book 5.

THE GHOST FIELDS

In Norfolk a construction crew unearths a buried WWII plane with the pilot still inside. He is identified as a local aristocrat who had been reported dead at sea. Events are further complicated by a TV company that wants to make a film about Norfolk's deserted air force bases, the so-called Ghost Fields, which have been partially converted into a pig farm. Then human bones are found on the pig farm. Book 7.

A GIRL CALLED JUSTICE: THE SPY AT THE WINDOW

It's 1939, and war has broken out. Everything has changed at Highbury House school. There are no servants, for one thing, and the pupils have to help with domestic tasks. Then a boys' school is evacuated to the Romney Marsh, billeted in the same building although, of course, contact with the boys is strictly forbidden. Despite this, Justice soon strikes up a friendship with Henry, a boy who shares her dislike of games lessons. Then Justice's father suddenly goes missing.... Could he be a real-life spy? Can Justice and her friends find her father—before any secrets leak? Book four in the series.

THE HOUSE AT SEA'S END

Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway has just returned from maternity leave and is struggling to juggle work and motherhood. When a team from the University of North Norfolk, investigating coastal erosion, finds six bodies at the foot of the cliff, she is immediately put on the case. Book 3.

THE JANUS STONE

When builders demolish an old house in Norwich they discover the bones of a child, minus the skull, beneath a doorway. DCI Harry Nelson would like to find out if it is ritual sacrifice or straightforward murder and calls in Ruth Galloway, forensic archaeologist, to investigate. Book 2.

THE LANTERN MEN

Everything has changed for Dr Ruth Galloway. She has a new job, home and partner and is no longer North Norfolk police's resident forensic archaeologist. That is, until convicted murderer Amyas March offers to make DCI Nelson a deal. Nelson was always sure that March killed more women than he was charged with. Now March confirms this and offers to show Nelson where the other bodies are buried - but only if Ruth will do the digging. Curious, but wary, Ruth agrees. March tells Ruth that he killed four more women and that their bodies are buried near a village bordering the fens, said to be haunted by the Lantern Men, mysterious figures holding lights that lure travellers to their deaths. Is Amyas March himself a lantern man, luring Ruth back to Norfolk? What is his plan, and why is she so crucial to it? And are the killings really over? Book 12

THE LAST REMAINS

When builders renovating a café in King's Lynn find a human skeleton behind a wall, they call for DCI Harry Nelson and Dr Ruth Galloway, Head of Archaeology at the nearby University of North Norfolk. Ruth sees at once that the bones are modern. They are identified as the remains of Emily Pickering, a young archaeology student who went missing in the 1990s. Emily attended a course run by her Cambridge tutor. Suspicion falls on him and also on another course member - Ruth's friend Cathbad, who is still frail following his near death from Covid. As they investigate, Nelson and his team uncover a tangled web of relationships within the student group and the adults leading them. What was the link between the group and the King's Lynn café here Emily's bones were found

THE LOCKED ROOM

Ruth is in London clearing out her mother's belongings when she makes a surprising discovery: a photograph of her Norfolk cottage taken before Ruth lived there. Her mother always hated the cottage, so why does she have a picture of the place? The only clue is written on the back of the photo: dawn, 1963. Ruth returns to Norfolk determined to solve the mystery, but then COVID rears its ugly head. Ruth and her daughter are locked down in their cottage, attempting to continue with work and home-schooling. Happily, the house next door is rented by a nice woman called Zoe, who they become friendly with while standing on their doorsteps clapping for carers. Nelson, meanwhile, is investigating a series of deaths of women that may or may not be suicide. When he links the deaths to an archaeological discovery, he breaks curfew to visit the cottage where he finds Ruth chatting to her neighbour whom he remembers as a carer who was once tried for murdering her employer. Only then her name wasn't Zoe it was Dawn. Book 14

THE NIGHT HAWKS

The Night Hawks, a group of metal detectorists, are searching for buried treasure when they find a body on the beach in North Norfolk. At first Nelson thinks that the dead man might be an asylum seeker, but he turns out to be a local boy, Jem Taylor, recently released from prison. Ruth is more interested in the treasure, a hoard of Bronze Age weapons. Nelson at first thinks that Taylor's death is accidental drowning, but a second death suggests murder. Nelson is called to an apparent murder-suicide of a couple at the isolated Black Dog Farm. Local legend talks of the Black Shuck, a spectral hound that appears to people before they die. Nelson ignores this, even when the owner's suicide note includes the line, 'He's buried in the garden'. Ruth excavates and finds the body of a giant dog.All roads lead back to this farm in the middle of nowhere, but the place spells serious danger for anyone who goes near. Ruth doesn't scare easily. Not until she finds herself at Black Dog Farm....Book 13

THE OUTCAST DEAD

Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway has excavated a body from the grounds of Norwich Castle; it’s believed to be that of infamous Victorian, Jemima Green, who murdered five children in her care. DCI Harry Nelson is immersed in the case of three infants found dead in their King's Lynn home. But then a child goes missing. Could the abduction be linked to the long-dead Mother Hook? Book 6.

THE POSTSCRIPT MURDERS

The death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should absolutely not be suspicious. DS Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing to concern her in carer Natalka's account of Peggy Smith's death. But when Natalka reveals that Peggy lied about her heart condition and that she had been sure someone was following her...And that Peggy Smith had been a 'murder consultant' who plotted deaths for authors, and knew more about murder than anyone has any right to...And when clearing out Peggy's flat ends in Natalka being held at gunpoint by a masked figure...Well then DS Harbinder Kaur thinks that maybe there is no such thing as an unsuspicious death after all.

A ROOM FULL OF BONES

It is Halloween, and a museum is preparing for an unusual event: the opening of a coffin containing the bones of a medieval bishop. But when Ruth Galloway arrives to supervise, she finds the museum's curator lying dead beside the coffin. It is only a matter of time before she and DI Nelson cross paths once more. Book 4.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Brighton, 1951. Pantomime season is in full swing. When two children mysteriously disappear, DI Edgar Stephens has plenty of leads to investigate. Does the clue lie in the missing girl’s unfinished and disturbing last script? Or with the eccentric theatricals who have assembled for the pantomime? Book 2

THE STONE CIRCLE

DCI Nelson has been receiving threatening letters telling him to 'go to the stone circle and rescue the innocent who is buried there'. He is shaken, not only because children are very much on his mind, with Michelle's baby due to be born, but because although the letters are anonymous, they are somehow familiar. They read like the letters that first drew him into the case of The Crossing Places, and to Ruth. But the author of those letters is dead. Or are they? Meanwhile, Ruth is working on a dig in the Saltmarsh - another henge, known by the archaeologists as the stone circle - trying not to think about the baby. Then bones are found on the site and identified as those of Margaret Lacey, a 12-year-old girl who disappeared 30 years ago. As the Margaret Lacey case progresses, more and more aspects of it begin to hark back to that first case of The Crossing Places, and to Scarlett Henderson, the girl Nelson couldn't save. The past is reaching out for Ruth and Nelson, and its grip is deadly. Book 11

THE VANISHING BOX

Christmas 1953. The magician Max Mephisto and his daughter Ruby are headlining Brighton Hippodrome. This might appear to have nothing in common with DI Edgar Stephens' investigation into the death of a quiet flower seller, but if there's one thing the old comrades have learned it's that, in Brighton, the line between art and life - and death - is all too easily blurred...Book 4

THE WOMAN IN BLUE

The murder of two women priests in Norfolk's spooky shrine town of Walsingham draws forensic archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway into an unholy investigation. As Walsingham prepares for its annual Easter re-enactment of the Crucifixion, the race is on to unmask the killer before they strike again... Book 8.

THE ZIG ZAG GIRL

When the body of a girl is found, cut into three, Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens is reminded of a magic trick: the Zig Zag Girl. The inventor of the trick is an old friend of Edgar's. They served together in the war as part of a shadowy unit called the Magic Men. When Edgar receives a letter warning of another 'trick', the Wolf Trap, he knows that they are all in danger...Book 1