An Anderson and Costello Mystery
6 primary works • 10 total works
Book 2
'Brilliant in twisting the tension tauter with each page' Guardian
Bitter betrayal. Sweet revenge.
Two seven-year-old boys have been abducted from the streets of Glasgow. Both had already endured years of neglect and betrayal - but for Detective Inspector Colin Anderson the case is especially disturbing, because the boys look so much like his own son Peter...
Then, with police resources stretched to breaking point, a simple house fire turns into a full-scale murder hunt. An invisible killer is picking off victims at random and, if DS Costello's hunch is correct, committing an ingenious deception.
As his squad struggles to work both cases, DI Anderson learns that deception and betrayal come in many guises. For while the boys' abductor is still out there no child is safe - as young Peter Anderson is about to find out...
Singing to the Dead is a stunning masterpiece of Scottish crime fiction that will stay with you long after the last page is turned.
'Ramsay handles her characters with aplomb, the dialogue crackles and the search for the killer has surprising twists and turns' Observer
'Many shivers in store for readers, followed by a shattering climax' The Times
Caro Ramsay was born in Glasgow and now lives in a village on the West Coast of Scotland. This is her second novel, following the critically acclaimed Absolution. Dark Water is the third Anderson and Costello thriller. The fourth, The Blood of Crows, publishes this summer.
Book 5
Elvie McCulloch's sister Sophie has been missing for 57 days. She went out for a run - and never came home. Several young woman in the area have disappeared in similar circumstances, and Elvie's family fears the worst.
As Elvie is driving to her new job late at night, the naked, emaciated body of a young woman crashes from high above onto an oncoming car. Elvie recognises her as Lorna Lennox, who has been missing for weeks. But why was she up there? Where had she been all this time? And why was she running for her life?
Teaming up with retired detective Billy Hopkirk, who has been retained by the mother of one of the missing girls to find her daughter, Elvie determines to find out the truth. But as the pair alternately collaborate with and infuriate investigating police detectives Anderson and Costello, they find themselves up against a terrifying enemy. Someone who has killed before. Someone who will kill again, for pure enjoyment. Someone they call The Night Hunter.
Book 6
A few days before the summer solstice a 92-year-old woman is found burned to death in her home. On the same day, a man's mutilated corpse is discovered in a field, his arms ripped from their sockets, a Tarot card depicting The Fool inserted in his mouth.
When the victim is identified as someone for whom the police have been looking for almost a year, detectives Anderson and Costello find themselves caught up in a case where nothing is as it seems. Was the dead man really responsible for three child murders? And what is the connection with the death of the elderly woman?
The investigation leads to the tranquil shores of Loch Lomond where Anderson and Costello will finally uncover the shocking truth.
Book 7
Book 8
Book 11
"An attention-grabbing procedural with unsettling surprises inside every snowbank" - Kirkus Reviews Starred Review
Called to investigate the bloodstained aftermath of an eventful Christmas party, detectives Anderson & Costello discover that the holiday season can be anything but merry.
A family man is stabbed to death at a crowded Christmas Ice Show. Murdered in plain sight. No clues, no witnesses, no known motive.
A week later, two bodies are discovered at a holiday cottage in a remote highland glen: one in the kitchen; the other sprawled outside on the icy lawn. The killer would appear to have arrived and left without leaving a trace, not even a footprint in the snow.
What secrets are lurking within this isolated, superstitious community? As the snow piles higher, detectives Anderson and Costello put their wits to solving a seemingly impossible crime, and gradually uncover a twisted tale of greed, obsession - and cold-blooded murder.
When a six-week-old baby is stolen from outside a village shop, Detective Inspector Costello quickly surmises there's more to this case than meets the eye. As she questions those involved, she uncovers evidence that this was no impulsive act as the police initially assumed, but something cold, logical, meticulously planned. Who has taken Baby Sholto - and why?
Colin Anderson meanwhile is on the Cold Case Unit, reviewing the unsolved rape of a young mother back in 1996. Convinced this wasn't the first - or last - time the attacker struck, Anderson looks for a pattern. But when he does find a connection, it reaches back into his own past . . .
Two murders, forty years apart. What links them? Detectives Anderson & Costello undertake their most baffling investigation to date.
The body is found in the early hours of the morning, drifting lifelessly on the outgoing tide. Twenty-three-year-old medical student Aasha Ariti had been enjoying a night out to celebrate the end of lockdown. Anthony Poole, the last person to have seen her alive, is the prime suspect.
Before detectives Anderson and Costello can make further headway, they are pulled off the case to investigate the murder of a pensioner in his own home. The body of eighty-one-year-old Jimmy Pearcey reveals evidence of prolonged, excruciating torture in the hours before he died. Of one thing DCI Anderson is certain: this killing was very close and very personal. But the victim was a loner, without friends or relatives.
As they dig deeper however, the two detectives uncover a number of secrets in the dead man's past. Secrets that link to another murder more than forty years before. What really happened on 21st June 1978? Someone is determined to ensure that Anderson and Costello never find out. Whatever it takes .
When DNA evidence links a present-day murder to the disappearance of a young boy four years earlier, detectives Anderson & Costello are plunged into a baffling mystery.
It's been four years since four-year-old Johnny Clearwater disappeared without trace one hot summer afternoon. Now, a new TV documentary series is revisiting the case, dredging up memories perhaps best left forgotten.
On the night the TV show is broadcast, detectives Anderson and Costello are called out to investigate the murder of a female police officer. On arriving at the scene, they discover that nothing about this death is as straightforward as it would appear. What was the victim doing in the garden of the exclusive gated residence where she was found? How did she die? Why is the key witness so reluctant to speak to them? Even the off-duty police officer who was first on the scene isn't telling them everything.
The pressure intensifies when a link is discovered between the dead woman and the disappearance of Johnny Clearwater four years earlier. What secrets are lurking behind the closed doors of this small, exclusive community . . . and what really happened to Johnny Clearwater?