Chief Superintendent Wycliffe is not looking forward to Christmas. With his wife away in Kenya he rashly accepts an invitation from Penzance lawyer Ernest Bishop to spend a few days at the Bishops' c
Writer David Cleeve lived exactly the way a bestselling novelist should live - in an opulent house set in a beautiful corner of Cornwall. But beneath the successful facade was a private nightmare. Fo
When Edwin Garland dies of a heart attack, no one outside the expectant circle of his relatives is concerned, but the situation changes dramatically when, on the evening of the funeral, his son is sh
Wycliffe's home overlooks a peaceful, West Country estuary - but even here he can't get away from crime.One Sunday morning he is walking along the shore when he comes across a service revolver with o
There was no doubt at all that the girl was dead. The front of her skull and her facial bones had been splintered like the cracked shell of an egg. What made it even more shocking was the setting of
Cochran Wilder disappeared 15 years ago while on a walking holiday in Cornwall. Recently released from a psychiatric hospital after being convicted of indecent assault, he had been a serious embarras
The girl was young, her auburn hair arranged on the pillow. Wycliffe could almost believe she was asleep—that is, until he saw her face. She had been strangled, her face brutally smashed—
Caroline Bryce came from the top of the social register in the tranquil town of Treen. So it was quite a scandal when her body was dragged from the bottom of the river. As Superintendent Wycliffe inv
The peace of the village of Kergwyns has been shattered by a bizarre murder. A young woman has been shot. The only thing taken from a scene is the shoe and stocking from her left leg…exposing h
Two very different young women have been murdered within the same week. One was a nightclub singer, the other a nurse, but both were strangled in their own homes in strangely efficient, remarkably si
Simon Meagor is a lonely middle-aged man. With a broken marriage behind him, his life centers solely on his antiquarian bookshop. Still haunted by the memory of a suicide he feels responsible for, Si
The Kemps, a Cornish Catholic family, have held on to their hometown of Kellycoryk for almost 500 years,but it is beginning to look as though the present century will be their last. Roger, head
On the moor west of St. Ives, at the site of a disused mine, lies an artists’ colony. Known as the Guild of Nine, it was set up by Archer, who runs it according to astrological principles, and
When Matthew Glynn, a respectable bookseller, is found bludgeoned and strangled, Chief Superintendent Wycliffe is mystified. Why would anyone want to kill him, and in such a brutal manner?But a look a
On the peaceful and secluded Cornish estate of Lord and Lady Bottrell, the body of amateur flautist Tony Mills has been found, shot by his own gun. It appears to be suicide - but a closer inspection r
Each year, at Hallowe'en, high on the Cornish cliffs, a life-size effigy of a man is strapped to a blazing wheel and run into the sea - a re-enactment of a hideous, ancient legend where the figure ha
In a sprawling West Country port lies the insalubrious Stanley Street, a dubious cul-de-sac just off the busy main road. And when a prostitute is found naked and strangled in her bed there, Chief Sup
When Cedric Tremain is charged with murdering his father by boobytrapping his fishing boat, all the locals agree that he is an unlikely murderer. But the case against him is strong: he has the motive
A beautiful schoolgirl goes missing from a Cornish village on the day she has told her boyfriend and sister she is pregnant. The possibility that she has been raped or murdered - or both - grows with
A troubling disappearance. A puzzling mystery. A new investigation for Detective Wycliffe.Detective Superintendent Wycliffe is holidaying in Cornwall when he meets the intriguing Kemp family. The Kemp
