Clare Donoghue

Investigating an increasingly bold killer who has murdered three young women, South London Detective Inspector Mike Lockyer, assisted by DS Jane Bennett, struggles to maintain a relationship with his daughter, who matches the profile of the victims. A first novel. 20,000 first printing.

Never Look Back

The Cradle Will Fall is a short story written by Clare Donoghue, the author of Never Look Back, No Place to Die and Trust No One. It is a prequel to her crime series, featuring Jane Bennett and DI Lockyer. You never forget your first case . . . Police Constable Jane Bennett is back on the beat after a spell away from the force. Working with the Serious Case Team, she's witnessed some of the worst crimes and endured them all. With her eye on promotion, Jane attends each call-out without complaint, determined to show her superiors her dedication. However, nothing could prepare her for this next case. Behind the ordinary façade of someone's home, she discovers a truly chilling scene. While her male colleagues flake beside her, Jane shows she is made of sterner stuff and manages to impress DI Lockyer. It is an incident that will change both of their careers, as an indomitable partnership is formed . . .

The Cradle Will Fall

"Jane Bennett, senior Detective Sergeant for the murder squad at her London police precinct, is having a terrible day. Her boss, Detective Inspector Mike Lockyer, has just returned to work after two weeks on 'leave,' though Jane knows it was really more like a suspension ... But neither of them has the luxury of time to dwell on past grievances. Jane has just received a phone call from a good friend saying that her husband, Mark Leech, a retired policeman, has disappeared. When Jane finds dramatic blood splatters in the laundry room, she knows Mark is seriously injured at best, and they don't have any time to waste"--

No place to die

A marriage is what you make it, isn't it? It's what you put into it. It's not just about love, it's about understanding another person's point of view. Sometimes there are things you find out about yourself and each other which means the marriage has to end. Sad, particularly when kids are involved - but all pretty normal. Normal that is, until there's a murder. DS Jane Bennett and DI Mike Lockyer are called in to investigate one of the South London murder squad's most difficult and distressing cases yet - where family and friends come under scrutiny in the hardest of circumstances.

Trust no one

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In Never Look Back, three young women have been found brutally murdered in south London, their bodies discarded in plain view, the victims only yards away from help during each attack. And each time, the murderer gets a little bit bolder. Detective Inspector Mike Lockyer is the head of homicide on the South London police force, and with three bodies on his watch and a killer growing in confidence, he and DS Jane Bennett are frantically trying to find the link between these seemingly isolated incidents. Slowly, the case is also invading Lockyer's life outside the office, and the fact that his daughter matches the victim profile is putting a painful strain on their already fragile relationship. Meanwhile, Sarah Grainger has a shadowy stalker following her every move. Once an outgoing London photographer, Sarah has begun locking herself away, almost too afraid to leave the house. Now her stalker's actions are escalating. He's desperate to tell Sarah a secret...a secret that Lockyer needs to know. In her compelling and tautly-written debut, Clare Donoghue traces the paths of these captivating, three-dimensional characters as their lives become dangerously and inextricably entwined.

The Night Stalker

'This is just my kind of book' - Ann Cleeves. The Night Stalker is a compelling crime thriller from Clare Donoghue. Dead Woman's Ditch. The site of a grisly two-hundred-year-old murder – and a recent hit and run. When a young woman's body is found at the macabre landmark in Somerset's Quantock Hills, DI Mike Lockyer and Sergeant Jane Bennett are called in to investigate. They find a community gripped by fear and superstition. The locals won't venture out at night, believing there's a man stalking the hills; a phantom cloaked in folklore and legend, keeping the sinister legacy of Dead Woman's Ditch alive. Confronted by a hostile CID team and a murder victim with close ties to their own squad, Lockyer and Bennett will have to accept what they can't see before they can find what's really there . . . The Night Stalker follows Trust No One in this compelling crime series.

DS Jane Bennett takes charge of South London's Lewisham murder squad following the temporary suspension of her boss, DI Mike Lockyer. His involvement with a female witness resulted in her murder. Mike returns to work but he's a shadow of the detective he was a few months before. Bennett gets a desperate call from an old friend to say that her husband, retired colleague Mark Leech, has gone missing. Blood spatters found in the home suggest that she doesn't have long to find him. When Jane is sent to a site in Elmstead Woods she stumbles upon a sinister murder scene. A tomb has been created, and the body she finds is not Mark's - as she dreaded and suspected - but that of missing university student, Maggie Hungerford. Her killer recorded her last moments, even providing an air supply which was only cut off when the game lost its thrill. Two men admit to having had a sexual relationship with Maggie. Both deny murder. Someone is lying. And Mark is still missing. When another tomb is discovered, an anonymous tip and mounting evidence suggest a disturbing link which threatens to derail both cases and let a murderer walk free. Lockyer is shocked into supporting Bennett in a case which becomes ever more ominous and dangerous as the investigation deepens. They know that their hunt is for a killer with a mind so twisted that he, or she, is likely to stop at nothing.

No Place to Die

The Night Stalker is a compelling crime thriller from Clare Donoghue. Dead Woman's Ditch. The site of a grisly two-hundred-year-old murder - and a recent hit and run. When a young woman's body is found at the macabre landmark in Somerset's Quantock Hills, DI Mike Lockyer and Sergeant Jane Bennett are called in to investigate. They find a community gripped by fear and superstition. The locals won't venture out at night - believing there's a man stalking the hills; a phantom cloaked in folklore and legend, keeping the sinister legacy of Dead Woman's Ditch alive. Confronted by a hostile CID team and a murder victim with close ties to their own squad, Lockyer and Bennett will have to accept what they can't see before they can find what's really there . . .

Clare Donoghue

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