The Detective Woodend Mysteries, Books 1–10 (Chief Inspector Woodend #1-10)

Ten mysteries set across North West England — from Cheshire’s salt villages and canal towpaths to Blackpool’s Golden Mile and the mill towns of Lancashire.

Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend is no polished Scotland Yard man. He’s a blunt Lancashire copper in a baggy sports coat, with Dickens in one pocket, a corned-beef butty in the other and no patience for clever theories that keep a detective off the streets.

Woodend believes murder is solved by clogging it round the houses, listening to gossip and digging into the lives people would rather keep hidden. Alongside ambitious young DS Bob Rutter, he follows death from the salt villages and canal towpaths of Cheshire to the rock’n’roll clubs of Liverpool, the bright lights of Blackpool’s Golden Mile and the soot-stained terraces of small-town Lancashire — tight-knit communities where everyone knows everyone, and old sins still breathe.

Beginning in the 1950s, these ten British police procedurals capture a changing country of steam trains, smoky bars, rock’n’roll, class tension, religion, fear — and killers hiding in plain sight.

Ten gripping mysteries in one brilliant box set.
A maverick detective with wit, grit and a deeply human eye.