Showing results by author "Phillip Strang" in All Categories

Reverend Charles Hepworth walks into the police station and places a blood-soaked knife on Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook's desk. "I killed the man," he says calmly. The vicar is a good Samaritan, friend to the downtrodden, almost a saint to those who know him. The dead man, Andreas Maybury, was not a man to mourn—but why would a self-professed pacifist commit such a brutal murder? Cook knows something doesn't add up. The confession is too neat, too willing. A man of God doesn't just suddenly kill someone, especially not with a knife. What drove a peaceful man to violence? Before ...

Perfect for fans of Brad Thor, Kyle Mills, and Tom Clancy It started in the Appalachian Mountains thirty years ago. It ends there now. FBI profiler Alex Harlan arrives in Seattle hunting Westfield, a Trust Council member whose quantum computing facility is days from implementing the Ascension Protocol—total control of global financial systems. But the investigation uncovers something Alex never expected: connections to his mother's murder three decades ago. Caroline Harlan's research partner, William Hayes, didn't just steal her environmental methodology—he used it to build the Trust's ...

Three cases. Three corners of Sydney. One detective who won't let go. Sergeant Natalie Campbell is new to Homicide, paired with veteran Detective Gary Haddock — a man who's seen everything and trusts nothing. Together they work the cases Sydney would rather forget: the bodies that surface where wealth meets water, where the city's bright facade hides something rotten underneath. Dark Streets (Book 1) A homeless man dies on Darlinghurst Road — no surprise, until the autopsy says murder. Then a socialite is found with her throat cut in the exclusive Point Piper. Then another body. And ...

A naked man spreadeagled on a bare floor. Pagan symbols. Human sacrifice in suburban London. 'I thought they used virgins,' Sergeant Wendy Gladstone says. She's seen plenty in her career, but this is a first—middle-class affluence meeting ancient ritual murder. 'He might have been,' DI Larry Hill replies flippantly. He's seen worse, but even he's unsettled. When Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook arrives at the suburban house, he takes one look at the body and walks outside. 'It's a murder, that's all we need to know,' he tells his team. But this killing has roots that go deeper than ...

Angus Simmons had it made—until he fell from a London skyscraper. The television host and celebrated mountaineer was admired for his daring climbs and loved for his charisma. When he fell while scaling a building, it initially seemed like a tragic accident. Simmons was a meticulous planner who measured every risk. This climb wasn't even difficult for him. Then the autopsy revealed the bullet. Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook and his team at Challis Street become interested immediately. This wasn't an accident—someone shot Simmons mid-climb. But who could shoot a man scaling a ...

No one challenged Joe Foster in life—not if they valued theirs. Now the gangster is dead, and his empire is up for grabs. A power vacuum opens across London. The Foster family fights for control while rival gangs move to poach the lucrative drug trade and carve up the criminal empire Joe built over decades. Terry Foster, the eldest son who should take control, lacks his father's temperament and wisdom. His solution is slash-and-burn—and it's not going to work. People are going to get hurt. Many are going to die. Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook faces a war on London's streets that ...

Perfect for fans of Brad Thor, Kyle Mills, and Mark Greaney THREE BOOKS. SEVEN COUNCIL MEMBERS. A GLOBAL CONSPIRACY THAT SPANS CONTINENTS. After dismantling the Ridge Line Trust's Appalachian operations, FBI profiler Alex Harlan discovers the truth: the organization he's been hunting is just the operational arm of something far more dangerous. The Trust Council—seven members controlling a global criminal empire—has been operating in the shadows for decades. Their endgame: the Ascension Protocol, a plan to dominate the world's financial systems through technology, corruption, and terror....

Two young lovers take a shortcut through a cemetery. They witness a murder. No struggle. Just a knife to the heart—all the hallmarks of an assassination. But who is the woman standing beside the grave at night, and why was she killed? Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook and his team face a case that appears straightforward until other deaths follow—seemingly unconnected, but tied to the family of one of the young witnesses. What started as a chance encounter in a graveyard becomes something far more sinister. The victim wasn't a random target. The location wasn't coincidental. And the ...

For readers of Don Winslow, Roberto Bolaño, and James Ellroy In the lawless borderlands between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, the heroin trade corrupts everyone it touches—and Malika Khalova will make them all pay. Malika survives as a drug-addicted prostitute in a smuggler's village, serving men who see her as less than human. When Russian gangster Oleg Yezhov nearly beats her to death, she has nothing left but rage and the hunger for revenge. But in the world of Afghan heroin, no story stands alone. Russian mafia battle Tajik drug lords for control of the routes north. Taliban commanders...

Two boys exploring an abandoned house find a body. It's been there for six years. Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook faces the questions immediately: Why was Marcus Matthews in that room? And why did he share a bottle of wine with his killer? Matthews hadn't amounted to much in life—except he was the son-in-law of Hamish McIntyre, one of London's most feared gangsters. McIntyre valued family above everything, especially his daughter Samantha, though he never cared for her husband Marcus. When Marcus disappeared six years ago, everyone assumed he'd run. Now they know he was murdered—...

The death of Old Joe, a homeless man on Darlinghurst Road, seemed inevitable—until the autopsy revealed it was murder. Darlinghurst Road, once the beating heart of Sydney's red-light district, is where the past lingers in the shadows. However, the city's Eastern Suburbs are not known for bloodshed. When a second victim, an affluent woman from exclusive Point Piper, is found with her throat cut, the divide between Sydney's elite and its outcasts grows more sinister. Detective Gary Haddock has seen it all in Homicide, but even he is baffled by the lack of connection between the murders. ...

In the rugged gorges of the Kimberley, where blackened spinifex and red earth tell stories to those who can read them, Special Investigator Odysseus "Odie" Kalaris is called to investigate a body staged to resemble an animal attack. A wildlife photographer's death in a remote country quickly reveals darker motives. What begins as a suspicious death evolves into something far more sinister, revealing connections between rare goanna breeding grounds, vandalised rock art sites, and powerful interests opposing a new sanctuary. When Odie discovers hidden SD cards documenting systematic wildlife ...

Perfect for fans of Jane Harper, Chris Hammer, and Garry Disher In the shadow of Queensland's Glasshouse Mountains, Detective Jack Mercer discovers a body hidden for seven years. The victim: Dr. Marcus Webb, a disgraced astronomer who disappeared after making claims about classified satellite activity above Australian territory. Webb's death was ruled a hiking accident. But Mercer finds evidence the body was moved—and someone has been maintaining the cover-up for nearly a decade. When investigative journalist Sarah Chen dies in a car crash hours before meeting Mercer with "proof of ...

Perfect for fans of Jane Harper, Ann Cleeves, and Chris Hammer When volunteer firefighter Nathan Caldwell's body is discovered in an area that should have been cleared before a controlled burn, Detective Jodi Brennan's routine observation transforms into murder investigation. Nathan was alive when the fire reached him. Desperately trying to escape. And evidence shows he was deliberately left to burn. The investigation leads to respected brigade member Gavin Pierce, whose specialized fire training and quiet competence provided the perfect cover for murder. Gavin's expertise in fire behavior ...

Perfect for fans of Ann Cleeves, Peter Robinson, and Elly Griffiths A body preserved in a burning barn using Iron Age bog burial techniques. A second victim smoke-cured inside a hollow oak. And a killer recreating a controversial art exhibition from twenty years ago—one victim at a time. When DI Tobias Stone is called to a barn fire near Coniston Water, he discovers something the flames couldn't destroy: the preserved body of environmental activist Miles Cartwright, with a copper-bound shepherd's crook placed beside him. The preservation method—ancient bog burial—matches one element ...

Perfect for fans of CJ Box, Brad Thor, and Kyle Mills The Ridge Line Trust isn't finished. After exposing the trafficking network in his hometown, FBI profiler Alex Harlan joins a federal task force targeting the organization's regional operations—but the Trust has survived for decades by staying one step ahead of law enforcement. When intelligence identifies three facilities holding victims across the Appalachian corridor, Alex and Sheriff Maggie Blackburn coordinate simultaneous raids with federal agents. But as teams move in, the Trust begins systematically destroying evidence and ...

A drought-exposed creek bed. A bullet in the skull. A detective confronting the past she fled. When skeletal remains surface at Billabong Station, Detective Maya Thorne is dragged back to Warragulla — the rural hometown she swore never to revisit. The bones belong to Cameron Lockhart, a local landowner buried where bushfires would erase the evidence. Someone wanted him forgotten. Partnered with Senior Constable Luke Carver, Maya's investigation quickly spirals beyond a single murder. Hidden records reveal contamination data that was buried as deliberately as the body — and connections ...

He poured their drinks. He heard their secrets. He wrote them all down. Albert Whitcombe had run the Warragulla pub for thirty years. He knew which marriages were failing, which deals were dirty, and which families had blood on their hands. He was weeks away from publishing a memoir that would expose it all. Then someone poisoned him. Detective Maya Thorne finds a manuscript with chapters missing and a town full of people with reason to want Albert silent. But one secret stands out — a hit-and-run fifteen years ago that killed a teenage boy. The driver was never found. Albert knew who it ...

In Broome's tourist-perfect marina, where million-dollar boats promise wilderness adventures to wealthy visitors, Special Investigator Odysseus "Odie" Kalaris is called to examine what appears to be a robbery gone wrong. What begins as a straightforward marina murder evolves into something far more sinister, revealing connections between luxury tourism and a sophisticated fraud network targeting elderly investors. When Odie's tracking skills expose crime scene staging, he must navigate both the predatory undercurrents of seasonal tourism and the complex relationships that bind Broome's ...

Perfect for fans of Jane Harper, Chris Hammer, and Garry Disher In the underground town of Coober Pedy, where eight hundred people live in dugout homes carved from red earth, water means survival. When the town's only water supply is contaminated, Detective Senior Constable Alex Reilly is called to investigate. What appears to be a routine water quality complaint becomes murder when Harold Finch, the town's water expert, is found dead in his underground laboratory. Toxicology results reveal deliberate poisoning. And someone has sabotaged the water supply that keeps the entire community ...