Charlie Priest, early 50s, is a long-time Heckley Police (Yorkshire) murder squad DI. Temporarily named Acting DCI, he is called to the scene of the death of a retired storekeeper Alfred Armitage. It looks like a suicide, but soon a murder investigation is underway.This is the first Stuart Pawson...
When the beautiful Colinette Jones fails to return home for supper and a body turns up half a mile from her house, DI Charlie Priest knows he has got to make the house call that every mother dreads. Elsewhere, Laura Heeley is found dead in a country lane, a single stab wound the only sign of viol...
Charlie Priest of the East Pennine force is officially on sick leave, but this brief break from work comes to an abrupt end when Mrs Marina Norris's chauffeur is found dead from unnatural causes - namely a blast to the head from a Kalashnikov.
Detective Inspector Charlie Priest is the kind of officer who likes to get on with the job, though his unorthodox ways have held him at inspector level for a record-breaking length of time. Yet while few other modern detectives will chase a Rolls Royce down a country lane in an ancient Cortina, P...
Charlie Priest was a newly promoted sergeant on the Leeds force when he was called to the scene of a tragic fire, deliberately set. Now a DI in nearby Heckley, Charlie jumps on the chance to re-open the investigation when a message left by a suicide suggests a new lead. The cat is well and truly ...
When Dr Clive Jordan's dazzling career is brought to an abrupt end by a bullet, his colleagues are devastated -- especially the female ones. If the doctor hadn't been as discreet as an undertaker's cough, Detective Inspector Charlie Priest of the East Pennine force would suspect a jealous husband...
Detective Inspector Charlie Priest s day hasn t got off to a good start. Late for work for the first time in twenty years, thanks to a sloe gin hangover, he s faced with the rather grisly evidence of a crime in the local park before a call comes in to say that one of his new constables has discov...
He’d never get rich that way but he made four pounds – enough for a heroin wrap or a few tueys; or some bush, bute, bhang, boy, blow, Bolivian or B-bombs to see him through the day. I ticked the report and slid it into my You’ll be Lucky tray. I was reading the list of ove...
6 a.m. Thursday morning I strode into the nick and checked the night log and it said we had one prisoner in the cells. Prisoners are a bind. We try to avoid them at all costs. They have to be fed, dressed, watched over, taken to court and generally pandered to when we could be out doing more impo...
The case weighed a ton. Lugging it down the stairs, three people asked me if I was going on my holidays. I wished I’d told Maggie to meet me in the car park. I showed my ID to the gateman at the hospital and asked if he’d look after the case while I parked. It would save m...
That was my first reaction. It was impossible. She was vibrant and beautiful and bubbling with life. She always wore red, highlighting her silver hair, and pictures of her flashed up before me: Rosie the first time I saw her, sitting behind a desk at the grammar school; Rosie waving her geologist...
It wasn’t very helpful. Jonty Hargrave had passed it on to Threadneedle, he said, but we hadn’t found it when we searched Threadneedle’s house. It could have been stolen; borrowed and not returned; sold to someone else in the animal-killing business or simply lost. I decided to have a drive east ...
The big case was behind us and settling back into routine was difficult. A high-profile murder opens doors for you, gives you power to cut corners and bypass procedures. When you ask for something to be done, it gets done. You live and breathe the case for twenty-four hours per day, seven days a ...