The Oxford Detective Mysteries Books 1–4 (Doug Mullen #1-4)

An ex-army loner in his forties, Doug Mullen has reinvented himself as a private investigator in Oxford. Dry-witted, self-deprecating and forever short of money, he is the man people turn to when the police won’t take them seriously. He has a soldier’s instinct not to freeze in a crisis, a stubborn moral code and a compulsion to help the needy and rescue the lost.

The novels are set in Oxford, a modern city centred around its famous medieval university. It buzzes with tourists drawn to the dreaming spires and punts on the river. But it's also a city of contradictions: bookshops and food banks, libraries and drop-in centres, faith and atheism, all side by side. A city where anyone could be murdered. And anyone could be the murderer.

Book 1: Dead in the Water
On an early-morning run, Doug Mullen drags a body from the Thames. He is hired to find out how the man died. The deeper he digs, it becomes clear someone wants the truth to stay at the bottom of the river — even if that means putting Mullen there too . . .

Book 2: White Lies, Deadly Lies
Mullen pulls a mother and daughter from a motorway pile-up and within hours the crash is all over the news. But someone watching sees a face they were certain had vanished forever. Now a buried secret is fighting its way into the light, and the people who know it are starting to die.

Book 3: Dead in Oxford
When Mullen hears that someone from his past has died, he’s drawn into a complicated case that brings up questions he refuses to keep buried. Then he comes home to find his house ablaze and the woman he loves trapped inside. Someone has been watching him and wants him to suffer.

Book 4: The Oxford Murders
A young woman turns up dead in a ditch outside the city. Then another woman vanishes from a pub. Mullen had met them both just before they vanished. He must now hunt down the predator and prove his own innocence before the killer strikes again.