A Chief Inspector Woodend Mystery

12 primary works • 15 total works

A Death Left Hanging

by Sally Spencer

Published 28 February 2003

Though it is thirty years since Margaret Dodds was tried and executed for the brutal murder of her second husband, many troubling questions raised during the trial are still left unanswered. Why would she choose to commit the crime in such a way that the finger of suspicion would almost inevitably point at her? Why did she insist, even when all hope of reprieve had gone, that she was not guilty? Her daughter, an influential lawyer, wants her name cleared. The investigating officer, now a powerful politician with a seat in the House of Lords, is determined to ensure that the verdict stands. And Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend, charged with stripping away three decades of lies and deceit, finds that - once again - his superiors have presented him with a poisoned chalice.

The Enemy within

by Sally Spencer

Published 29 August 2003

The tenth in the acclaimed Inspector Woodend series There had never been a murder in Whitebridge like this one. What kind of man would decide to slash the throat of 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, and then set it alight? 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, almost single-handedly, he comes to the reluctant conclusion that he is being forced to participate in the killer's game without even knowing the rules. Yet one thing, at least, is plain from the beginning. For the game to continue, there must be more deaths...

The Witch Maker

by Sally Spencer

Published 27 February 2004

To be Witch Makers in the mooland 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 lenght of twine wrapped tightly around his neck. Will DCI Charlie Woodend solve this mystery...

The Butcher Beyond

by Sally Spencer

Published 27 August 2004

Dying in the Dark

by Sally Spencer

Published 10 February 2005

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 Sergeant Monika Paniatowski, Inspector Bob Rutter's marriage is falling apart. As the investigation proceeds, Woodend finds himself beginning to understand the complex web of lies and deceits which Pamela Rainsford has spun around herself, but nothing he discovers could ever prepare him for a second death - this one much closer to home!

Stone Killer

by Sally Spencer

Published 26 August 2005

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? How can Woodend produce the evidence when there is none to find? As the hostage situation becomes tenser - the hostage-takers increasingly nervous; the army itching to intervene at whatever the cost - Woodend realizes that unless he can find an improbable rabbit to pull out of the hat, the only way the siege will end is in carnage!

A Long Time Dead

by Sally Spencer

Published 24 February 2006

This is the latest Detective Chief Inspector Woodend mystery. When Captain Robert Kineally went missing from Haverton American Army base in Devon in 1944, it was generally assumed he had lost his nerve and deserted. But now, twenty years after the War ended, a body found on the near-derelict base seems to tell an entirely different story. DCI Charlie Woodend has strong reasons for not wanting the case. As a sergeant on secondment to the Americans, he served at Haverton himself, left it only a few days before the murder, and he is personally involved. However, he is given the case, and it is soon plain that while the British Government expects one outcome, the American Government will be happy with nothing less than the opposite.

Sins of the Fathers

by Sally Spencer

Published 3 July 2006

The discovery of Bradley Pine's body in a lay-by off a busy road clearly signals the end of his bid to win the local bye-election. But what is even clearer - from the state in which the corpse is found - is that this is no ordinary murder. Why would the killer run the risk of dumping the body in such a public place, DCI Charlie Woodend asks himself? And, even more significantly, why should he - post mortem - decide not only to reduce his victim's mouth to a pulp but also to partly disembowel him? With the election looming - and Chief Constable Marlowe (Woodend's old enemy) taking over Pine's place as candidate - the pressure is on to come up with a result. Any result! But the more Woodend learns of the case, the more he comes to believe that not only is the motive behind the murder at least as bizarre the crime itself, but that the origins of the crime lie in a mountain-climbing tragedy which occurred three years earlier.

Dangerous Games

by Sally Spencer

Published 1 February 2007

Death Watch

by Sally Spencer

Published 6 August 2007

This is the new Charlie Woodend mystery...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 Monika Paniatowski, is rapidly developing a deep affection for Rutter's small daughter, Louisa. And, Woodend's old enemy, Chief Constable Marlowe, is hovering in the background like a malevolent bird of prey, just waiting for the chief inspector to make a mistake. The more the investigation proceeds, the less Woodend can see any signs of hope. And he knows - deep within himself - that he will fail in bringing Angela back alive.

A Dying Fall

by Sally Spencer

Published 1 February 2008

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 authority which is attempting to block him at every turn. And though he does not know it, worse is to follow, because Elizabeth Driver, Inspector Bob Rutter's lover, has almost finished the book which could destroy both his career and everything he has ever worked for.

Fatal Quest

by Sally Spencer

Published 6 August 2008

After the dramatic events in "Dying Fall", Woodend reminisces on his long career in a brand new story...'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 is law in Scotland Yard. Not even the dead girl's mother herself. But Woodend cares. Working alone - sifting through the rubble of bombed-out post-war London and building up a picture of a life cut short - he is assailed by a growing anger and a deepening sorrow. He will find the murderer, he promises himself, even if that means putting his career - and perhaps even his own life - on the line.

Murder At Swann's Lake

by Sally Spencer

Published 26 February 1999

The Dark Lady

by Sally Spencer

Published 29 September 2000

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 colleagues mentioned the legend of the Dark Lady? Did the workers at the BCI chemical factory-many of whom are known to hate the Germans-have anything to do with his death? How could Fred Foley, the tramp whose bloodstained overcoat was found close to the scene of the crime, have completely disappeared? And is this murder connected with one which occurred in Liverpool nearly twenty years earlier?

The Golden Mile to Murder

by Sally Spencer

Published 30 March 2001

In the latest Chief Inspector Woodend historical mystery, the policeman is landed with a difficult case . . . and a difficult new female colleague.

The investigation into the brutal murder of a Blackpool policeman in the middle of the holiday season was never going to easy, but the case itself is not Woodend's only problem. There is trouble at home: his new boss, DS Ainsworth, is just waiting for an opportunity to stick a knife in his back; his invaluable assistant, Bob Rutter, had been replaced by a new sergeant more intent on advancing her own career than helping him -- and the Blackpool police themselves seem to think it might be better if the killer were never found . . .