DCI Craig Gillard Crime Thrillers 4 Books Set by Nick Louth (The Body on the Moor, The Bodies at Westgrave Hall, The Body on the Island, The Body in the Stairwell)
The Body on the Island
Late on midsummer's night there is a splash in the river Thames. A body is found on an island, asphyxiated and laced with strange markings. For DCI Craig Gillard it's a baffling case. The victim's identity is elusive, clues are scarce and every witness has something to hide.
Meanwhile one of Britain's deadliest serial killers is finally up for parole after a deal to reveal the location of two missing bodies. The felon has his own plans to get even with witnesses, accusers and the officer who caught him thirty years before. And who was that? A young trainee, by the name of Gillard.
The Bodies at Westgrave Hall
Russian oligarch Alexander Volkov has invited 1000 guests to a party at his palatial Surrey residence, Westgrave Hall. But while giving a private tour of the library, a gunman kills Volkov, wounding his ex-wife and slaying her new beau.
Nothing makes sense to DCI Craig Gillard. In the blood-spattered crime scene there are no forensic traces of anyone else involved, CCTV shows no one entered or left the library, and everyone seems to have an alibi.
Is it a crime of revenge, the squaring of a love triangle, or a Russian government operation? Could the victims have simply shot each other? Gillard's eventual discovery is shocking even to him.
The Body on the Moor
After the National Crime Agency cracks a major drug gang, junior barrister Julia McGann finds herself defending the violent enforcer Terrence Bonner. This high-profile case is a coup for her, but almost immediately things start to go wrong. Intruders break into her house and then a young girl turns up at her door with a horrifying story to tell.
Three months later, DCI Craig Gillard and his team struggle with the shocking murder of a much respected local headmaster, found dead in his own car. The baffling crime fills the newspapers but yields few clues. As Gillard sifts the evidence, a pair of blood-spattered gloves seems important.
The Body in the Stairwell
Jonathan Hale is terrified. The wealthy property lawyer and money launderer is back home in Surrey after a nightmare experience in a U.S. jail. The police have him under secret surveillance.
But Hales's fears lie elsewhere. His plea bargain has earned him the enmity of The Reptile, a notoriously cold-hearted gangster, now confined for life in a maximum-security jail in Arizona thanks to Hale. He's taken precautions, moved house, hidden his identity and installed security for his wife and family. But still... what if The Reptile escapes?
For DCI Gillard it should be just another week at work. But before long he is involved in a desperate manhunt that will test him to his very limits.
