Chief Inspector Martineau Investigates – serie

'Maurice Procter's Chief Inspector Martineau is one of fiction's best policemen' New York Times The Plumber's men are swift workers, who take murder in their stride. But who is the Plumber himself - the brains behind the highly organized and disciplined gang terrorizing Granchester? And how, in a town where everyone is too scared to open their mouths for fear of being the next target, will Detective Inspector Martineau break up this tightly woven network?

An anonymous telephone call reports two murders and a bank robbery, and the following day an advertisement in the local paper reports that £10,000 in notes has been found in the street. Chief Inspector Martineau believes that local Granchester mobster boss Dixie Costello is mixed up in the affair - and a woman known to police as 'Annie the Acrobat' is attracting a lot of attention.

When Sergeant Devery is allotted a female police office to assist him on a plain-clothes prowl he is concerned it will cramp his style. He soon changes his tune when the woman in question turns out to be 'unusually beautiful'.The Devil Was Handsome is a fascinating portrait of drug-dealing, assault and murder against the backdrop of mid-twentieth-century CID methods, written by a serving police officer.

There was an extra body in the morgue - a body stripped of all identification and with its face badly battered. But when Inspector Martineau was called to the scene he had a pretty good idea whose it was. That was, however, just the beginning. A big payroll robbery, a group of out-of-town mobsters and some odd behaviour in a local night spot all attract Inspector Martineau's attention. While, at a funeral parlour, the quick are considerably more active and dangerous a problem than the dead.

The XXC mob is giving Scotland Yard a run for its money, but the police have no idea who they are. As the gang is London-based, Granchester's Chief Inspector Martineau is not overly concerned.Then London gets too hot even for this gang. Cain, one of its members, decides they'll slip out of London one by one, so that Scotland Yard will think they've been done for.Then Martineau gets a 999 call early one Sunday morning: a safe has been broken into during the night.Martineau and team start to investigate, but they haven't got very far when there's another Granchester robbery. Martineau realises he's got the XXC gang on his hands - and that things are going to get pretty tough.

Inspector Martineau has a nasty murder to solve: that of a blonde girl, aged just twelve. Martineau knows that child murder can be habit forming, that such cases encourage copycats. They have to move quickly.But they aren't quick enough, and two days later, the girl's death is followed by another. Granchester Police redouble their efforts, yet the killer escapes them. Feelings run high: for the parents, neighbours and the murderer ... Then the police close in on Cherub - young, plump, his mother's darling. But have they got the right man?

Actor turned thief Rafe Tyrrel knows where more than two and a half million pounds is hidden, the proceeds of a Royal Mail train robbery and a post office job, both the work of his Islington gang.Now Rafe is in a high-security prison in Granchester. Detective Chief Inspector Martineau knows that every gang in England will want a cut of that money, and will try to get to Rafe.One of Rafe's gang, Pilgrim, moves the rest of the men to industrial towns around Granchester - ready to spring Tyrrel and get their share. But will stylish Granchester 'businessman' Dixie Costello and his associates get there first?