Sally Spencer

A killer who can't be classified - a killer who can't be profiled . . .
When a young girl, Jill Harris, is murdered, the case soon becomes personal for Monika Paniatowski. She saw the victim looking distressed only hours before she was killed, and Jill was the same age as her own daughter, Louisa. Driven by guilt and pity, Monika throws herself into the investigation, but both the chief constable, who is away, and Colin Beresford...

"Jordan Gough is an important man. He's the town's biggest benefactor. He is the proprietor of the Whitebridge Evening Telegraph. He owns the local football team. He is also, DCI Monika Paniatowski thinks, as bent as a corkscrew - and if she had any evidence, she'd put him away like a shot. A single encounter with him as a young detective sergeant left an impression she's never forgotten. And neither, she is certain, has he. So when Jordan calls and...

The discovery of the body of a young, red-haired school mistress, lying in a pig-pen with her face half-eaten away, is the beginning of a new investigation for Charlie Woodend. But it is to be an investigation he is soon ordered to abandon when Helen Dunn, the daughter of Wing Commander Dunn - and a pupil at the school where the dead woman taught - suddenly vanishes into thin air. While Woodend and Rutter race against time in the desperate hope of...

Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend will have to rely on his observational gifts to have a ghost of chance in solving his latest murder case. The night after the mysterious appearance of the legendary Dark Lady on the road outside Westbury Park, a German efficiency expert, Gerhard Schultz, is found battered to death in the woods and Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend is faced with his most puzzling case yet. Why did Schultz seem so frightened when on his...

Politician spills his guts - all over the road! The discovery of Bradley Pine's body off a busy road signals the end of his bid to win a local election. But why would the killer risk dumping the body so publicly? And why should he not only reduce the victim's mouth to pulp, but partly disembowel him? With the election looming, and Woodend's old enemy Marlowe replacing Pine as candidate, Woodend is required to produce a result. Any result!

DCI Monika Paniatowski investigates a case that could be the making - or, more likely, breaking - of her career DCI Monika Paniatowski has only been back from maternity leave for three days when she is called in to investigate a nightmare of a case. Not only is the murder victim a mother of three small children, but her husband is a wealthy politician. Monika knows that if she can't make a quick arrest her career is on the line. It's lucky, then,...

A miscarriage of justice for DCI Woodend

When the body of an American woman is found in the Prince Alfred suite at the Royal Victoria Hotel, DCI Monika Paniatowski is faced with one fo the most baffling cases of her career. The owman who called herself Mary Edwards had been a guest at the hotel for the past two weeks, having paid cash in advance. But who was she really - and what was she doing in a small town like Whitebridge? If Monika could discover why the dead woman had come to Lancashire,...

"On the day of her official retirement from the Force, DCI Monika Paniatowski looks at the two men and one woman who are no longer her team and thinks: Whatever the future holds, I will always be proud of you. She raises a toast. And just like that, her career as a homicide detective is over. Then, fifteen years later, Monika's former sergeant, Kate Meadows, makes a terrible mistake. Monika doesn't hesitate when Kate turns to her for help. She owes...