Time Detectives

Today we think statistics are the enemy, numbers used to mislead and confuse us. That’s a mistake, Tim Harford says in The Data Detective. We shouldn’t be suspicious of statistics - we need to understand what they mean and how they can improve our lives: they are, at heart, human behavior seen through the prism of numbers and are often “the only way of grasping much of what is going on around us”.

Change is afoot at Kings Lake Central police station. A most unexpected new detective inspector takes up his post this Monday morning, and the oldest detective in the place takes a momentous decision. Around them, other officers are considering their own situations, and even the building itself seems to be facing an uncertain future. But life and death go on, nevertheless, and by lunchtime someone will make a grim discovery on the Norfolk saltmarshes. A stranger seems to have suffered a slow and agonizing death out there.

Mark Randall lay dead in a field near Lowacre long before Smith had done what he had to do in Belfast. By the time he went back to work, the investigation was well underway. "It's not my case," he says more than once, and he really doesn't need it to be; he has enough to think about as it is. But going around the Norfolk countryside dotting the i's and crossing the t's, speaking to the local farmers and the Brothers of St. Francis from Abbeyfields, Smith begins to suspect that the investigation might be heading in entirely the wrong direction.

When Agatha begins to receive death threats and narrowly avoids being abducted by kidnappers, she takes advantage of a previously arranged trip to Mallorca to lie low for a while. There she meets her partner, former police officer John Glass, who is now working as a dance instructor on a cruise liner. Their relationship founders over John’s apparent closeness to his stage dance partner, Louise. Putting her love life on hold, Agatha heads home, having worked out who has been threatening her life.

When she asks her dependable husband, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, to fix her tiny white van, Precious Ramotswe fears he might just sell the vehicle and buy her something more modern. And so he does. But this will not do. So Precious tries to track her beloved van down - and learns it has already been stolen from its new owner.

DI Sheridan Holler is used to solving crimes on Liverpool’s streets, but after a decayed corpse turns up in a cemetery, she finds herself reopening not one but two cold cases. Seven years earlier, two women were gunned down and the only suspect, small-time drug dealer John Lively, was never seen again. Case closed. Until the body in the cemetery is identified as his.

When Kendra Donovan is approached by Mrs. Gavenston with an unusual request - to find her business manager, Jeremy Pascoe, who recently vanished - the FBI agent is eager to accept the challenge. To Kendra's way of thinking, spending her time locating a missing person suits her more than perfecting her embroidery, painting watercolors, practicing on the pianoforte, or any of the other activities that are socially acceptable for young ladies in the early 19th century. Unfortunately, the missing person's case turns into a murder investigation after Kendra finds the man stabbed to death.

Small-time stoolie Jake "The Spinner" Jablon made a lot of new enemies when he switched careers from informer to blackmailer. And the more "clients," he figured, the more money - and the more people eager to see him dead. So he's greedy but scared, and he turns to his old acquaintance Matthew Scudder, who used to pay him for information back in Scudder's days as a cop. Scudder's his insurance policy - if anything happens to "The Spinner," Scudder can check up on the people who wanted him dead. No one is too surprised when the pigeon is found floating in the East River....

London, 1850: A young Charles Lenox struggles to make a name for himself as a detective...without a single case. Scotland Yard refuses to take him seriously and his friends deride him for attempting a profession at all. But when an anonymous writer sends a letter to the paper claiming to have committed the perfect crime - and promising to kill again - Lenox is convinced that this is his chance to prove himself. The writer's first victim is a young woman whose body is found in a naval trunk, caught up in the rushes of a small islets in the middle of the Thames.

Charles Todd brings his classic mystery series to a new level of intensity and intrigue. The year is 1919, and Ian Rutledge is a fragile yet courageous former soldier searching for his place in a post-war world. Now a Scotland Yard detective, Rutledge is called upon to probe a murder in the small Norfolk town of Osterley - but he soon discovers that the crime may be connected to one of the greatest disasters of all time…

The winds blew across South Padre, digging, pushing mountains of sand. Uncovering murder. Sheriff Dave Trask is on his first vacation in years, returning to South Padre Island, his first visit since a spring break trip twenty-five years ago. This time Trask is with his girlfriend, medical examiner Linda James, and just as Trask is beginning to relax, the police on South Padre interrupt their trip. A body has been found, a woman’s skeleton, and the police need the help of James to look at the body for any clue as to who it may be. But Trask does not need to see the body. He is certain he ...

When Kate Rosetti returns from a rare week of vacation in Hawaii, she finds herself immediately immersed in a case more complicated than any she’s faced before. A man’s body has been stuffed into the back of an ice-cream truck, and it seems like everyone—including his three girlfriends—had a reason to kill him. But when the case blows up into a bigger sensation than Kate could ever have anticipated, she finds herself forced to work side by side with her ex-boyfriend, FBI Agent Jack Russo…and his very new, very attractive female partner.

A professional pickpocket and accomplished thief ignores his wife's warnings and embarks on an adventure that will change his life - perhaps for the better. A technological marvel of a sports car kills a pedestrian, but no one was at the wheel. A local lunatic admits to murder, but is he crazy - or crazy smart? The life of a researcher with ties to a British spy agency is thrown into chaos when his research goes missing. Injury Time delivers captivating tales of intrigue wrapped in Catherine Aird's tightly woven logic, sealed with the bow of enigma.

COVID-19: The Greatest Cover-up in History - from Wuhan to the White House delivers the unfettered truth about what is undoubtedly the biggest political scandal of our time. It shows in unprecedented detail how governments in China, the UK, and the US not only failed to protect their citizens from the threat of the disease but actively conspired to put their own political and economic ideologies above the lives of ordinary people.

Detective Sergeant of Miami PD was thrust violently out of 1999. Held in a life sustaining coma, a subject of experiments and bold attempts for hundreds of years, her brain remained alive. Alive yes, but not aware through it all. Two centuries later, though the medical community was demanding she be unplugged, a very specialized Doctor of Cybernetics, a relatively new field in the late twenty second century, made a daring decision. Valerie Harper endured some terrifying times, some dreadful therapy, and eventually, she walked out of the Grogain Institute of Cybenetics, a new woman… inside...

In her best-selling Amelia Peabody mysteries, author Elizabeth Peters has created an award-winning mixture of vivid archeological detail, finely-tuned suspense, and witty romance. This, the 12th Amelia Peabody mystery, opens in 1914. As the tides of war rise, Egypt is threatened by attacks. Espionage abounds, pulling in several members of the Peabody Emerson household even as they embark on a new archeological season.

Through the eyes of a distinctly non-athletic protagonist - a fat high school journalist named Mitch - veteran sports novelist Deuker reveals the surprising truth behind a mysterious football player named Angel. When Angel shows up at Lincoln High, he seems to have no past - or at least not one he is willing to discuss. Though Mitch gets a glimpse of Angel's incredible talent off the field, Angel rarely allows himself to shine on the field. Is he an undercover cop, wonders Mitch? Or an ineligible player? In pursuit of a killer story, Mitch decides to find out just who this player is.

Have you ever wondered how peas, kale, asparagus, beans, squash, and corn have ended up on our plates? Well, Adam Alexander has. In The Seed Detective, Adam shares his own stories of seed hunting, with the origin stories behind many of our everyday food heroes. Taking us on a journey that began when we left the life of the hunter-gatherer to become farmers, he tells tales of globalization, political intrigue, colonization, and serendipity—describing how these vegetables and their travels have become embedded in our food cultures.

JIM MATHESON DOESN'T REMEMBER HIS PAST... BUT HE KNOWS SOMETHING BAD HAPPENED. SOMETHING VERY, VERY BAD. Jim Matheson is a homeless man living on the streets of Seattle. He's also deranged and broken in more ways than one. He's seen horrors that few could imagine and experienced hunger few will ever know, but that doesn't stop him from loving God, his dog, and even the strangers who can be so cruel to him. But all that changes one night when he finds the body in the park. The body with the missing tooth. That's when Jim's awakening begins, as his former life filters through the crazy fog. ...

A congressman's daughter who has to be perfect. A star quarterback with a secret. A guy who's tired of being ignored. A clarinet player who's done trying to fit in. An orphaned rebel who wants to teach someone a lesson. A guy who wants people to see him, not his religion. They couldn't be more different, but before the morning's over, they'll all be trapped in a school that's been rocked by a bombing. When they hear that someone inside is the bomber, they'll also be looking to one another for answers. Told from multiple perspectives, Time Bomb will keep listeners guessing about who the bomber could be - and what motivated such drastic action.