Worldwide Library Mysteries

2 primary works • 3 total works

A Bleeding of Innocents

by Jo Bannister

Published 23 April 1993

When Detective Chief Inspector Frank Shapiro of Castlemere CID loses his right-hand man to a hit-and-run driver he has two major problems. One is his sergeant, who won't accept it was an accident: Donovan is convinced it was ordered by local crime baron Jack Carney, and he isn't the kind of policeman to be put off by lack of evidence. The other is that someone has chosen this moment, with CID already stretched, to launch a career as a serial killer.

But Shapiro finds a useful ally in the inspector sent as a temporary replacement - Liz Graham, who worked under him once before and is eager to prove herself as a senior CID officer. She's intelligent, intuitive, and ambitious; she knows she'll have to fight for acceptance in the overwhelmingly male-oriented world of criminal investigation and she won't let an angry young sergeant who resents her very presence stand in her way.

With the body-count rising and no indication that the murderer will be satisfied, Castlemere CID tries desperately to unravel the strands. As Liz delves into the professional and private lives of the victims she finds a link. But the connection is so ordinary, so innocent, that she struggles to make sense of it. Will someone else die before Liz realizes that, in the desperate mind of the killer, innocence is hiding a terrible guilt? And the person whose malevolent shadow has hung over them since this began remains to be faced in a closing act of startling violence.

The Hireling's Tale

by Jo Bannister

Published 26 March 1999

When the naked body of a young prostitute is found on a narrowboat on the Castlemere Canal, police enquiries focus on the nearby Barbican Hotel. For with a sales conference in progress there's no shortage of men who could have met the girl there. But soon Superintendent Shapiro and his team have a great deal more to contend with. For the dead woman was not the only person to have hired herself out that night: a paid assassin is at large - and he is gunning for the conference organizer Philip Kendall. Jo Bannister's Castlemere novels are tough and very realistic - in the tradition of Lynda La Plante's Prime Suspect.

No Birds Sing

by Jo Bannister

Published 22 March 1996

Jo Bannister’s gritty police novels featuring DI Liz Graham have been likened to Lynda La Plante’s Prime Suspect.

‘The whole bloody town’s gone mad!’ exclaimed Superintendent Shapiro as Castlemere reels after a forty-eight-hour crime-fest including a ram-raid, a hostage crisis, a shocking rape and more . . .

Making no progress by conventional means, Detective Inspector Liz Graham and Detective Sergeant Cal Donovan go undercover in the search for leads.

But neither could have imagined the frightening ordeals they are both about to endure. Ordeals that will test their courage, strength and commitment to the absolute, terrifying limit . . .

‘The novel throbs with energy and the reader is absorbed from page one.’ Yorkshire Evening Press

‘Bannister keeps the suspense tight as a drum.’ Publishers Weekly

’An example of what can be made of a traditional police investigation by a first-class writer.’ Birmingham Post