Fans of Peter James and his bestselling Roy Grace series of crime novels know that his books draw on in-depth research into the lives of Brighton and Hove police and are set in a world every bit as gritty as the real thing. His friend Graham Bartlett was a long-serving detective in the city once described as Britain’s ‘crime capital’. Together, in Death Comes Knocking, they have written a gripping account of the city’s most challenging cases, taking the reader from crime scenes and incident rooms to the morgue, and introducing some of the real-life detectives who inspired Peter James’s characters.Whether it’s the murder of a dodgy nightclub owner and his family in Sussex’s worst non-terrorist mass murder or the race to find the abductor of a young girl, tracking down the antique trade’s most notorious ‘knocker boys’ or nailing an audacious ring of forgers, hunting for a cold-blooded killer who executed a surfer or catching a pair who kidnapped a businessman, leaving him severely beaten, to die on a hillside, the authors skilfully evoke the dangerous inside story of policing, the personal toll it takes and the dedication of those who risk their lives to keep the public safe.

The Lodge of the Golden Windhorse has provided the citizens of Compton Dando with splendid fodder for gossip, prompting speculation of arcane rituals and bizarre sexual practices. But with the murder of the commune's leaders, the rumor-mill goes into overdrive. It's the most exciting thing to happen in Compton Dando since three boys burned down the bus shelter. In trying to solve those murders, Chief Inspector Barnaby is less excited than exasperated. The residents of the Windhorse commune may have been seeking the simple life, but they're all concealing complicated pasts - or past lives.

Tallinn, March 1933.

Estonia, a small country trying to survive – caught between the jaws of Germany and Russia.

And political crisis looms when a senior policeman is found impaled on the roof of a kiosk.

Chief Inspector Jüri Hallmets, former schoolteacher and veteran of Estonia’s struggle for independence, builds a team to investigate the crime. His political masters demand a quick and easy resolution to the case. But Hallmets has principles.

Two journalists are looking into the case too, but their curiosity could prove their own worst enemy. Their fates become entwined with Hallmets’ investigation. And as Hallmets finds himself in a race against time, he uncovers a network of illegal activities.

After a bloody shoot-out, a plot unfolds which will threaten Estonia’s fragile democracy.

Recommended for fans of Alan Furst, Philip Kerr and Robert Harris.

Allan Martin is a former teacher and lecturer, who lives to the north of Glasgow. His first novel The Peat Dead was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Debut Award in 2019.

Damon Mee was last seen in a blurred security video on the dance floor of a Kirkaldy nightclub. It was a routine missing persons case and it wasn’t even on his patch, but inspector John Rebus said he’d look into it as a favour to the boy’s father, a friend from his school days.

The ripples of the investigation widen rapidly. They lead to the club’s greasy owner, to a slightly bent casino croupier, to a drop-dead blonde whose name nobody seems to know, to a Hibs striker with a talent for goals and a weakness for gambling and, finally, to the shadowy men who call the shots in Edinburgh’s underworld.

When it’s over, Rebus has repaid a long overdue debt and his boss has received an unexpected but very welcome birthday present.