Inspector Madden series – serie

The Reckoning is a stunning, atmospheric crime novel teeming with twists and moving between the 1940s, the First and Second World Wars.The Second World War has ended, leaving a bruised and fragile peace. But this tranquillity is threatened when a shocking murder takes place in the Sussex countryside. Before long, police experts discover a link to another, earlier, killing hundreds of miles away . . .While Scotland Yard detective Billy Styles struggles to find a link between these two murders, a strange twist of fate brings former Detective Inspector John Madden into the investigations.As the victim count rises it becomes clear that to catch this serial killer Madden, Styles and young policewoman Detective-Constable Lily Poole must act quickly. But Madden remains haunted by the mysteries at the heart of the case. Why was his name in a letter the second target had been penning, just before he died? Could the real clue to these perplexing murders lie within the victims' pasts? And within his own?Rennie Airth, the author of River of Darkness, The Blood-Dimmed Tide and The Dead of Winter presents his greatest and most compelling novel yet.

In Rennie Airth's The Blood Dimmed Tide it is 1932 and John Madden, former Scotland Yard Inspector, is now a farmer in the peaceful Surrey countryside. However his peace is about to be shattered, for when a young girl goes missing, it is he who discovers her disfigured body hidden in a wood. Disturbed by what he has seen he is convinced the killer has struck before . . .When a second body is found, Madden's instinct is proved right – there is a multiple killer at large. Allying himself with his old colleagues, and against the wishes of his anxious wife, he immerses himself in one more case, and his insights into the personality of the man they are seeking are soon borne out.But he will have to stay one step ahead of a killer who is a master of reinvention, and who has been covering his tracks for many years. And soon significant links are discovered in Germany, where the Nazis are on the brink of power . . .Enjoy more of this historical crime series with The Dead of Winter and The Reckoning.

Shortlisted for the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award, retired Inspector John Madden returns in Rennie Airth's The Dead of Winter.During a blackout on the streets of London on a freezing evening in late 1944, a young Polish land girl, Rosa Nowak, is suddenly and brutally killed. For the police, their resources already stretched by war regulations and the thriving black market, this is a shocking and seemingly random crime. No one can find any reason why someone would want to murder an innocent refugee.For the former police inspector John Madden, the crime hits close to home. Rosa was working on his farm and he feels personally responsible for not protecting her. His old colleagues Angus Sinclair and Billy Styles are still at the Yard, but struggle to make sense of their few clues.Their only lead points towards war-torn Europe – but as the fighting sweeps across the continent, will they find the killer before he strikes again?Enjoy more of this historical crime series with The Reckoning and The Death of Kings.

In Rennie Airth's River of Darkness it is 1921 and a terrible discovery has been made at a manor house in Surrey – the bloodied bodies of Colonel Fletcher, his wife and two of their staff. The victims have all been stabbed and the lack of disturbance in the house suggests that the attack was one of terrifying speed.The Surrey police force seem ready to put the murders down to robbery with violence, but Detective Inspector Madden from Scotland Yard sees things slightly differently. For he has experienced the horrors of World War I and has seen madness at first hand. And he is certain this crime has been perpetrated by a psychopath who will strike again . . . and soon.Enjoy more of this historical crime series with The Blood Dimmed Tide and The Dead of Winter.