DS Alexandra Cupidi

3 total works

Salt Lane

by William Shaw

Published 3 May 2018

No-one knew their names, the bodies found in the water. There are people here, in plain sight, that no-one ever notices at all. DS Alexandra Cupidi has done it again. She should have learnt to keep her big mouth shut, after the scandal that sent her packing-- resentful teenager in tow-- from the London Met to the lonely Kent coastline. Even murder looks different in this landscape of fens, ditches and stark beaches, shadowed by the towers of Dungeness power station. Murder looks a lot less pretty. The man drowned in the slurry pit had been herded there like an animal. He was North African, like many of the fruit pickers that work the fields. The more Cupidi discovers, the more she wants to ask-- but these people are suspicious of questions. It will take an understanding of this strange place-- its old ways and new crimes-- to uncover the dark conspiracy behind the murder. Cupidi is not afraid to travel that road. But she should be. She should, by now, have learnt.

Grave's End

by William Shaw

Published 14 May 2020

'If you're not a fan yet, why not?' VAL MCDERMID

'A superb storyteller' PETER MAY

A BIZARRE DISCOVERY

An unidentified corpse is found in a freezer in the garage of an unoccupied house. DS Alexandra Cupidi is handed a case that is made even colder by no-one seeming to know or care whose body it is.

A HISTORIC CRIME

It becomes clear there is a connection between the crime and a skeleton uncovered underneath a housing development of Trevor Grey, a boy who went missing twenty five years earlier.

A BURIED LIFE

Digging deep into secrets that have long been concealed brings Cupidi to face a deadly conspiracy to hide these crimes. Her investigation is complicated by a secret liaison, a political cover-up and the underground life of Trevor Grey's only friend.

With meticulously realised characters and a brooding setting, Grave's End confronts the crisis in housing, environmentalism, historic cases of abuse and the protection given to badgers by the law. The third book in the DS Alexandra Cupidi series confirms William Shaw as one of our finest writers of crime fiction.

Deadland

by William Shaw

Published 2 May 2019

***The bestselling William Shaw returns with a thrilling investigation in the unmissable new series***

'One of the great rising talents of UK crime fiction' PETER JAMES

'If you're not a fan yet, why not?' VAL MCDERMID

'A superb storyteller' PETER MAY

YOU CAN RUN

The two boys never fitted in. Seventeen, the worst age, nothing to do but smoke weed; at least they have each other. The day they speed off on a moped with a stolen mobile, they're ready to celebrate their luck at last. Until their victim comes looking for what's his - and ready to kill for it.

YOU CAN HIDE

On the other side of Kent's wealth divide, DS Alexandra Cupidi faces the strangest murder investigation of her career. A severed limb, hidden inside a modern sculpture in Margate's Turner Contemporary. No one takes it seriously - not even the artwork's owners, celebrity dealers who act like they're above the law.

YOU CAN DIE

But as Cupidi's case becomes ever more sinister, as she wrangles with police politics and personal dilemmas, she can't help worrying about those runaway boys. Seventeen, the same age as her own headstrong daughter. Alone, on the marshes, they're pawns in someone else's game. Two worlds are about to collide.

Kent and its social divisions are brilliantly captured in Deadland, a crime thriller that's as ingeniously unguessable as it is moving and powerful.