Bernie Fazakerley Mysteries

A body in the river is all in a day's work for Detective Inspector Peter Johns and his sergeant, Paul Godwin. But things start to become more personal when Paul recognizes their key witness as a close childhood friend and Peter's son is detained for suspected child abduction. Peter and Paul discover they have more in common than they realized, and it becomes difficult to keep work and family life separated.

Seven friends decide to band together to campaign to save the environment. They call themselves the Martians, because, as everyone knows, Martians are green! Over the years, they go their separate ways, and some of them seem to have forgotten their early ideals. Then, out of the blue, one of their number is murdered: struck down by an unknown assailant. Another of the group comes under suspicion, and yet a third member is implicated. Did geology tutor Martin Riess kill his journalist friend, or was the murderer one of the victims of the reporter's caustic pen?

The police are reluctant to believe young Lucy Paige when she tells them that she saw two men chasing a woman across a field. They suspect her of inventing a mysterious stranger, who hit her, and then ran away, in order to protect her friend Martin, from accusations of child abuse and assault. But they have to reassess her story, when a woman's body is found a few days later, and Lucy recognizes it as her attacker. Who is the corpse in the graveyard? Why was she running away? And who were the men that Lucy saw chasing her?

When the bursar of Lichfield College is found strangled in an Oxford hotel, detective chief inspector Jonah Porter rapidly concludes that the killer is one of the nine college staff attending a meeting there, but who is the most likely suspect? Is it mathematics fellow, Tom Carrington, who found the body? Or was it the Master, who was the last to see him alive? Was the bursar blackmailing one of his colleagues? Or could it be a crime of passion committed by his former mistress?

What could be more pleasant than a short break on the Algarve with a group of friends? But, when the wheelchair on which he depends is damaged in flight, DCI Jonah Porter wishes that he had never come. Relationships are stretched to breaking point as his frustrations mount. Then a guest falls from the balcony of a neighboring apartment and foul play is suspected. With a puzzling case to solve, Jonah is back in his element.

Three young mothers take their infants to an Oxford park, but only two of the babies return home. When six-week-old Abigail goes missing from her pram, the race is on to find her before she comes to harm. Who would want to steal a baby girl? And why? Are other children in danger? Is Abigail's distraught mother as innocent as she appears? DCI Jonah Porter has a tough assignment to find little Abigail and reassure Oxford mothers that their families are safe.

Exiled Liverpudlian, Bernie Fazakerley, makes a sentimental journey back to her home city to visit relatives and to take her daughter, Lucy, back to their roots. Before long, events take a sinister turn when they are witnesses to a murder aboard the famous Mersey Ferry. Then the killer strikes again, and the race is on to make an arrest before more lives are lost. Who could have wanted to kill a young Roman Catholic priest? And is Bernie's own life under threat?

Bernie’s Aunty Dot is worried that her favorite member of staff at the care home where she lives is being unfairly suspected of murdering another resident. She calls on their good friend DCI Jonah Porter to investigate. He discovers that care assistant Jonathan Bates is by no means the only person with a motive for killing Olive Carter - or, for that matter, the only person with means and opportunity to do so.

Father Damien is worried that the renovation of the organ in St Cyprian's church may not be finished in time for the important Easter services. That's even before the organ builders discover a corpse concealed beneath it and the police halt the work while they investigate. Who is the young man whose remains have been lying hidden for more than 30 years? And who killed him and then secreted his body in the church?

Teenage “joy-riders” mow down a young man on his way home after a night out with his mates. As he fights for his life in hospital, the police struggle to find the culprits. Expert tracker dog PDQ follows a scent from the abandoned car, but it leads to a dead-end. Where is the driver of the stolen vehicle? Could this incident be the culmination of a sequence of escalating attacks on participants in Oxford’s Pride Parade? DCI Jonah Porter steps in to find out.

When Vanessa Wellesley is charged with murdering her violent and controlling husband, everyone feels sympathy for her desperate attempt to escape from a deeply abusive relationship. But why does she refuse to admit that she wielded the weapon that killed him? Lawyers, police, and family urge her to plead self-defense, but Vanessa is adamant that she was not there when the fatal blow was struck. A date has been set for her trial - can her friends discover the real murderer’s identity in time to save her from a life sentence?

Three young Muslim students are attacked in the street by an assailant on a motorbike who sprays them with acid. What is the motive for this unprovoked assault? Is it a religious hate crime or something more personal? Is the aggressor a lone wolf with a personality disorder or part of an extremist organisation? While doctors strive to save the women from death and disfigurement, the police mobilize to hunt down the perpetrator of this hideous crime. Will they succeed? And will the unknown villain strike again?

A man lies dead in the Fellows’ Garden at Lichfield College. He’s been seen working there, but he’s not on the payroll. What motivated him to weed the beds and mow the lawns? And who stabbed him in the back and left him to die? When Geology Fellow Martin Riess happens upon this grisly scene, it is only natural that he should call on his old colleague Bernie and her ex-police friends to help with disentangling this complex puzzle. And it’s not long before the official police inquiry is calling on their services too, when this case turns out to have its roots deep in the past.

Veteran Detective DCI Jonah Porter is frustrated at being sent home from work to sit out the COVID-19 lockdown at home. To occupy his mind - and give him some peace from his complaints - his friend, Bernie, suggests that he writes his memoirs. So Jonah delves deep into the past to revisit his very first murder investigation: a case from 1982, when Margaret Thatcher was still fighting the unions and the Greenham Common women were campaigning to stop cruise missiles being based on UK soil.