Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 1
Description
Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend finds himself in a backwater village investigating a murder in this taut police procedural. 1950s Cheshire, England. When the strangled body of teenager Diane Thorburn is found buried in the salt store, Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend is pulled in from London to investigate. An outspoken Northerner, he does his policing the old-fashioned way, and he is convinced that Margie Poole, Diane's best friend,...
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 2
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Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend and his loyal sergeant tackle a murder with as many suspects as there are clues in this tight puzzler. Swann's Lake, 1960. When Robbie Peterson, a criminal-turned-club-owner, is found dead in his office, a six-inch nail driven deep into his skull, Chief Inspector Woodend and Sergeant Bob Rutter are brought up from London to investigate. Why was Robbie's office broken into twice on the day of his funeral? What caused...
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 3
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Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend enters the smoky dens of Liverpool to stop a killer stuck in a deadly groove. Liverpool, 1960s. When Eddie Barnes, lead guitarist of the rising group The Seagulls is electrocuted on stage at the Cellar Club in front of three hundred adoring fans, the Liverpool Police call in Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend. But Woodend doesn't understand why Eddie's mother says that Eddie had a girlfriend, while his...
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 4
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Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend will have to rely on his observational gifts to have a ghost of chance in solving his latest murder case. The night after the mysterious appearance of the legendary Dark Lady on the road outside Westbury Park, a German efficiency expert, Gerhard Schultz, is found battered to death in the woods and Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend is faced with his most puzzling case yet. Why did Schultz seem so frightened when on his...
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 5
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Ex-Scotland Yarder Charlie Woodend, banished to Whitebridge, Lancashire, gets a murder case his first day on the job. Someone has killed a bobby under a pier in the seaside resort of Blackpool, where Woodend's methodically unorthodox investigative procedures prove effective against a memorable mixture of side-show barkers, fortune tellers, petty thieves, narrow-minded police, and profit-motivated shopkeepers.
6) Dead on cue
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 6
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With the newspapers screaming for a quick solution, this is a case no one wants to touch -- so naturally it is Chief Inspector Woodend who finds himself left holding the baby. With his usual panache, Cloggin'-it Charlie quickly immerses himself of the world of television, meeting people he has previously only seen as characters on the screen, learning that while there may be honour among thieves there does not seem to be much on the set of Maddox...
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 7
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The discovery of the body of a young, red-haired school mistress, lying in a pig-pen with her face half-eaten away, is the beginning of a new investigation for Charlie Woodend. But it is to be an investigation he is soon ordered to abandon when Helen Dunn, the daughter of Wing Commander Dunn - and a pupil at the school where the dead woman taught - suddenly vanishes into thin air. While Woodend and Rutter race against time in the desperate hope of...
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 8
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A man and a young woman are found blasted away by a rifle in a remote farmhouse on the Yorkshire moors. But where is the farmer, why did he have such swanky furniture in his living room, and who on earth are the victims? Charlie Woodend isn't amused with the people who are getting under his feet as he starts to grapple with these questions, but his steps are abruptly halted when the Deputy Chief Constable decides that, this time, Woodend's high-handedness...
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 9
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A miscarriage of justice for DCI Woodend
10) Enemy Within
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 10
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There had never been a murder in Whitebridge like this one. What kind of man would slash the throat of a an inoffensive middle-aged widow who was already terminally ill? Why did he decide to place her lifeless body in the middle of a children's bonfire?It is the most difficult and complex case in Woodend's career, but the two people he most relies on - DI Rutter and DS Paniatowski - are being torn apart by their personal problems.As he struggles on,...
11) The Witch Maker
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To be Witch Makers in the moorland village of Hallerton is both a great honour and a heavy burden. But this Witch Maker never lives to witness his moment of triumph and is discovered tied to the Witching Post early one morning with a length of twine wrapped tightly around his neck. Will DCI Charlie Woodend solve this mystery...
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 12
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With the help of Paco Ruiz - a former policeman, living in disgrace since the Spanish Civil War - Woodend embarks on an unofficial investigation which provides more questions than answers. Why was the dead man travelling under a false passport? Who are the men he was seen to associate with, but now deny all knowledge of him? Why does the local police chief seem determined to lead him up a blind alley? And, who is responsible for the three more deaths...
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 13
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Pamela Rainsford, found on a lonely canal path in the middle of a dark night, has not only been raped and strangled, but her face has been hacked to pieces. At first it seems a random killing, but as the case progresses, Woodend begins to suspect that the death of the mild-mannered, respectable secretary may have been a result of her own secret life.And another secret life is having its consequences, too - as a result of his now-ended affair with...
14) Stone killer
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 14
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Never before has DCI Woodend had to work under such terrible and terrifying pressure. He has just a few days, at the most, to find a flaw in the weighty evidence which led to Judith Maitland's conviction as a stone-cold killer- a few days to produce the real murderer. But what if Judith really is guilty as charged? What if she did, in fact, brutally butcher her lover, Clive Burroughs, in his own office, as the facts seem to suggest.
15) A long time dead
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 15
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The latest DCI Woodend mystery. Captain Robert Kineally disappeared from Haverton American Army base in Devon in 1944. Twenty years later, a body is found. Woodend knew and liked Kineally. He knew, and heartily disliked, Douglas Coutes, the man accused of killing him. With the British determined Woodend should exonerate Coutes and the Americans set on proving his guilt, Woodend must face his past mistakes if he is to have a shot at the truth.
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Politician spills his guts - all over the road! The discovery of Bradley Pine's body off a busy road signals the end of his bid to win a local election. But why would the killer risk dumping the body so publicly? And why should he not only reduce the victim's mouth to pulp, but partly disembowel him? With the election looming, and Woodend's old enemy Marlowe replacing Pine as candidate, Woodend is required to produce a result. Any result!
17) Dangerous games
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 17
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When Terry Pugh's headless body is found floating in the canal, DCI Woodend at first believes that Pugh had merely miscalculated the amount of rope he needed to hang himself. But why would Pugh commit suicide when he had a loving wife who was expecting their first baby, and was just about to start an exciting new job? Other disturbing questions soon follow in the first body's wake. Who was the mysterious stranger Pugh was seen with, just before he...
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 18
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Angela Jackson, a young girl abducted from Whitebridge Corporation Park, has been missing for over twenty-four hours and, in the opinion of Dr Stevenson, the psychiatrist who Woodend turns to for advice, her kidnapper will first torture and then kill her. Woodend is aware of the damaging strains operating within his own team. Inspector Bob Rutter seems unable to control his infatuation with the unscrupulous journalist, Elizabeth Driver, while Sergeant...
19) Dying fall
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A charred body is discovered in an abandoned cotton mill, and the crime scene presents DCI Woodend and his team with many questions, but very few answers. Who would want to murder a harmless old tramp, a man with no friends - or enemies - in the world? And why, of all the methods he could have chosen, did the killer decide to cruelly burn his victim to death? As Woodend attempts to solve a murder with no clues, he must also battle against a police...
20) Fatal Quest
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Chief Inspector Woodend mysteries volume 20
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"You should have worked out by now that nobody wants this case solved!" These words, delivered by Eddie, a Liverpool thug brought down to London especially to put the frighteners on him, send a shiver down newly-promoted DS Charlie Woodend's spine. Because Eddie is right. Nobody does seem interested in bringing the killer of sixteen-year-old Pearl Jones to justice. Not DCI Bentley, Woodend's immediate boss. Not Deputy Commissioner Naylor, whose word...