Jo Bannister Books In Order

The Fifth Cataract

Bad dreams stop when you wake up…
One time doctor turned writer Clio Marsh joins a survival training course based on the Norfolk Broads as part of the research into a new novel ? strictly as an observer, she thinks. But course directors Hollis and Chase have other ideas, and Clio is soon immersed in a punishing boot camp regime for which she is sorely unprepared. Most of her fellow trainees fare little better, and within days more than one has succumbed to a mysterious illness whose symptoms closely resemble the ?marsh fever? talked of in ominous tones by the locals of Graveleigh, an isolated village at the water’s edge. Graveleigh’s nearest neighbour is Growth Industries, a chemical plant with a sinister reputation. When Clio and her companions seek refuge at G.I.’s headquarters after a training exercise goes badly wrong, they are treated to a less than warm welcome ? and what started as a bad dream soon turns into a nightmare…

Shards

They’ve been inseparable partners ever since the day Gil Todd, a renowned British reporter, hauled a drunken Mickey Flynn out of a New York City bar and helped him become one of the world’s most respected photojournalists. But their odd couple relationship as well as Flynn’s life is threatened when he gets shot covering a demonstration and a shard of bone lodges itself in his spine. Flynn faces a life of immobilising, excruciating pain. Refusing to accept his career is over, Flynn agrees to do what may be his final shoot photographing a terrorist training camp run by the PLA. But is he being used as a pawn by the terrorists, or by Israeli intelligence? And who is the mysterious Sinbad, known only by the terrifying, ingenious bombs he leaves behind? It’s a good thing for Mickey Flynn he’s got grit, determination and Gil Todd on his side. Or is it?

A Bleeding of Innocents

Female inspector Liz Graham and Irish Sergeant Cal Donovan both endure the bigotry of the Castlemere police force, but during a search for a serial killer, their position as misfits becomes useful. By the author of Striving with Gods.

Burning Desires / A Taste for Burning

A pyromaniac hands the police force of Castlemere a case that becomes more personal and more devastating than any other. It falls to Inspector Liz Graham and Sergeant Cal Donovan to probe the recent fires that have turned Castlemere into a hot zone. As the fire bug draws closer to creating his ultimate masterpiece, Shapiro’s son becomes a suspect. The investigators must probe the dark side of parental love–and the desperate lengths one will go to protect one’s own.

No Birds Sing

The three police officers who head up Castlemere’s detecting team work together like the parts of a well oiled machine. Detective Superintendent Frank Shapiro is a thirty year man who has finally found a detective inspector with the instincts and discipline to complement his experience Liz Graham. Liz, the first female detective on the force, is now one of its most respected senior officers. Her detective sergeant, the volatile Cal Donovan, possesses a reckless courage that is his greatest strength and his most dangerous weakness and something Liz finds as indispensable as it is infuriating. A vicious gang of thieves has hit the city, and the easiest way to snag them is to infiltrate their organization. Can Donovan pull off the assignment without losing his cover or his life? Liz goes undercover in a different way when she decides to act as bait for a baffling serial rape case, but is the department and her marriage strong enough to handle the results?

Broken Lines

Riding his motorcycle through the frosty back roads in the country is Detective Sergeant Donovan’s idea of relaxation: Walking in on the armed robbery of a Castlemere gas station isn’t. Donovan pursues the thief, but the chase ends in a horrible accident.

The nineteen-year-old driver of the getaway van survives the crash, thanks largely to Donovan himself, who plunges into the burning wreckage and pulls the young man to safety. Case closed, or so it seems.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the accused robber is none other than Mikey Dickens, youngest son of a local crime family, and the Dickens family solicitor knows some good tricks for getting clients released.

Donovan, supported by Detective Superintendent Frank Shapiro and Detective Inspector Liz Graham, is determined to prove Mikey’s guilt. But has he finally met his match? For as he goes after Mikey for a second time events escalate out of his control, leaving him fighting for his reputation, his career–and even his life.

Changelings

A town gripped by fear. It begins with contaminated yogurt in a supermarket. Next, the tampering of showers in a girls’ locker room. Caustic soda in baby powder. Cholera in cough medicine. An anonymous note promises much more unless the town of Casltemere pays a ransom of one million pounds. Superintendent Frank Shapiro, recovering from a bullet wound, has been cleared for desk duty. But with Sergeant Cal Donovan on holiday cruising the Castlemere Canal, he must rely on Inspector Liz Graham as hysteria rises and the fine line between savagery and civility grows narrower by the day. The situation worsens when the detectives learn Donovan’s abandoned boat has been found near the tiny village of East Beckham and that the volatile sergeant is believed dead by the hand of the blackmailer. Yet stranger twists are still to come, for guilt and innocence wear ever changing faces, as does evil.

The Primrose Convention

The author of ‘No Birds Sing’ introduces a charming new series starring Birmingham, England, advice columnist Rosie Holland.

The Primrose Switchback

Shad couldn’t be guilty…
could he? Agony aunt Rosie Holland’s gardener is discovered, unconscious and bleeding, near a dead body. When he is put under hypnosis, he confesses to the murder. But Rosie finds it impossible to believe that Shad could have been involved, and vows to discover the truth.

Echoes of Lies

Brodie Farrell finds things for a living, and when she’s asked to locate the whereabouts of Daniel Hood, she sees nothing suspicious in the request. She finds the young man, pas*ses the details on to her client, and commends herself on a job well done. But when the young man is found brutally tortured and left for dead, Brodie is overcome with guilt. Still blaming herself when Daniel asks for help, Brodie finds it impossible to do the sensible thing and walk away. He needs to understand what happened: Until the attack, he’d never known an enemy in the world. The men who hurt him were looking for someone named Sophie, and Daniel knows no one by that name. Finding the authors of Daniel’s misfortune, in the end, resolves nothing. It only leads them both into a deeper, more complex tragedy than either imagined possible.

True Witness

A teenage boy is beaten to death on Dimmock’s derelict pier. Detective Jack Deacon is convinced they have the murderer; he just needs a positive identification to lock him up for good. But the only witness is astronomer Daniel Hood, in his own way a man as determined as Jack. Compelling as the circumstantial evidence is against the suspected killer, Daniel cannot be certain that this was the man he saw from his window. Nothing anybody says or does can convince him to take the easy way out and implicate a man without satisfying his own conscience first. With the whole town baying for blood, the only person who understands is Brodie Farrell, who steps in to defend her friend. Using her uncanny knack for ‘finding things,’ perhaps she can unravel part of this mystery and ease Daniel’s burden…
A taut, compelling exploration of love and honor, True Witness is the exciting new crime novel featuring Brodie Farrell and Daniel Hood.

The Depths of Solitude

Brodie Farrell’s life, on the surface, is unremarkable. A single mother to one daughter, five year old Paddy, in a small seaside town, she spends her days running a ‘finding agency’ helping clients locate items that have proved elusive by more conventional methods. She has a healthy relationship with Jack Deacon, a detective superintendent in the local police force, and a solid network of friends except for one. Her most important ally, Daniel Hood, has been ignoring her since a bitter disagreement ripped their friendship apart at the seams. Now his house is up for sale, and Daniel has disappeared. At first Brodie is just angry angry that he would leave without telling her, without trying to sort things out. But when Daniel’s family seems unconcerned that he has vanished into thin air, Brodie starts to get worried. Perhaps she was the only person to care about Daniel, and she cut him off. What if he does something stupid? Or what if he already has? Unfortunately, even her advanced tracking skills can’t locate her friend. Brodie’s worrying intensifies when she seems to become the victim of a sustained hate campaign. First her car windshield is smashed, then the vehicle itself is set on fire. Her handbag is stolen, and she is terrorized in the local library after a call from Daniel imploring her to meet him there alone. The conclusion is obvious, but Brodie refuses to believe it. Until, that is, she is attacked again…
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Flawed

You can waste a lot of time looking…
or you can pay me to find it for you. So goes the slogan of Brodie Farrell’s one woman detective agency. Although Brodie has made some surprising and dangerous discoveries while working as a modern day treasure hunter, none of them has turned her life upside down in quite the way that her unexpected pregnancy does.
The timing is particularly awkward because Brodie has recently separated from her partner, the prickly Detective Superintendent Jack Deacon. To complicate matters further, Detective Inspector Alix Hyde has set her sights on Deacon while simultaneously trailing a mysterious criminal and one time friend of Deacon s Terry Walsh, who has a habit of springing surprises of his own.
As ever, Brodie s best friend, Daniel Hood, will do anything to help her even taking a leave from his beloved teaching job so that he can look after her business while she takes care of the baby. But soon Daniel is preoccupied with the well being of young Noah Selkirk, who seems to be collecting more bruises than is reasonable even for a twelve year old boy, and is strangely linked to the Walsh case as well…
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As their entanglements weave together in complex patterns, all of the parties have to face the consequences of their own mistakes. But it s the flaws that make all of us human and perhaps that ultimately make us stronger.

Closer Still

Bannister is one of the undersung treasures of the mystery genre. Chicago Tribune

Although she has been trying to put her work, running a one woman detective agency, on hold while she cares for her new baby, Jonathan, Brodie soon learns that taking time off is not as easy as it sounds. Not only does Jonathan have a rare disease that may leave him blind, his father, Detective Superintendent Jack Deacon, is going after the nastiest crook in town, Joe Loomis, who quickly retaliates by threatening Brodie and little Jonathan.

When Loomis bleeds to death while trying to utter a name that begins with the letter D, Brodie isn t quite sure it is just a coincidence and worries Deacon may have become entangled in yet another crime. But Loomis had plenty of enemies and Deacon isn’t the only one who had reason to do him harm. When Dev Stretton, another suspect, turns out to be linked to Brodie’s best friend, Daniel Hood, she has no choice but to take up the search for the killer. As events spiral out of control and entanglements weave together in complex patterns, Brodie must learn to keep her friends close, and her enemies Closer Still.

Liars All

Brodie Farrell has been asked to find some strange things in the course of her business, but this time it’s personal. She’s searching desperately for a cure for her baby’s cancer. Attempting to keep the business afloat in her absence, Brodie’s devoted friend and assistant, Daniel Hood, undertakes the hunt for a necklace stolen in a murderous robbery. Typically, his sense of fair play keeps him looking for the jewellery when a wiser man would have given up. After the first attack on him. Certainly after the second. Brodie’s partner, Detective Superintendent Jack Deacon, investigates partly as a distraction from his son’s illness, partly because he begins to suspect that the hand behind these events belongs to his old adversary, Terry Walsh. But Walsh has his own agenda, and his first priority requires something that only Deacon can give him. What he offers in return presents Deacon with an agonising dilemma.

The Lazarus Hotel

Six Londoners who do not know one another check into a posh hotel for an intense group therapy session on overcoming tragedy, but when the session starts and they start to learn they are all tied together by a single incident, they must learn who is manipulating them.’

The Tinderbox

The haunting new novel from an acclaimed crime writer Laurence Schofield’s world was torn apart when his teenage daughter vanished. No trace was ever found. But six years later, a TV crew filming in London records a few seconds’ footage of a girl who just could be her. Schofield heads for the capital. But this isn’t the London of the tourist brochures: it’s The Tinderbox, an area of dangerous dereliction where the homeless have created an alternative society with its own rules…

Fathers and Sins

A new mystery from a popular author When Robin Firths son Mouse is blamed for a fatal car crash, Robins fury stuns both the boy and Agnes, his new wife. Then the village church burns down, and suspicion falls on Mouse. And then theres the interest of a band of New Age travellers in the improbable survival of the churchs relic. Its supposed to be a Crusader banner, but that just doesnt make any sense…