Tania Carver books in order

One very different kind of serial killer.

A shocking double-murder scene greets Detective Inspector Philip Brennan when he is called to a flat in Colchester. Two women are viciously cut open and lying spread-eagled, one tied to the bed, one on the floor. 

The woman on the bed has had her stomach cut into and her unborn child is missing. But this is the third time Phil and his team have seen such an atrocity. Two other pregnant women have been killed in this way and their babies taken from them. No one can imagine what sort of person would want to commit such horrible crimes.

When psychologist Marina Esposito is brought in, Phil has to put aside his feelings about their shared past and g

Suzanne Perry is having a vivid nightmare. Someone is in her bedroom, touching her, and she can't move a muscle. She wakes, relieved to put the nightmare behind her, but when she opens the curtains, she sees a polaroid stuck to the window. 

A photo of her, sleeping, taken during the night. And underneath, the words: "I'm watching over you. "Her nightmare isn't over. In fact, it's just beginning. Detective Inspector Phil Brennan of the Major Incident Squad has a killer to hunt. 

A killer who stalks young women, insinuates himself into their lives, and ultimately tortures and murders them in the most shocking way possible. But the more Phil investigates, the more he delves into the twisted psychology of his query, Phil realizes that it isn't just a serial killer he's hunting but something - or someone - infinitely more calculating and horrific. And much closer to home than he realized.

An abandoned building. A dank cellar. And inside it, a cage of bones―with a shocking surprise lurking within.

Into the house. Down the stairs. Through the dripping dark of the cellar. Someone is there. Someone that shouldn’t be there. As a building awaits demolition, a horrifying discovery is made inside the basement: a cage made of human bones―with a terrified, feral child lurking within.

Unbeknownst to Detective Inspector Phil Brennan and psychologist Marina Esposito, they have disturbed a killer who has been operating undetected for thirty years. A killer who wants that boy back. But the cage of bones is also a box of secrets―secrets linking Brennan to the madman in their midst. 

With the death toll rising and the city reeling in terror, Brennan and Marina race to expose a predator more soullessly evil than any they’ve ever faced―and one who is hiding in plain sight.

Detective Inspector Phil Brennan and criminal psychologist Marina Esposito have just returned from their honeymoon and are spending the Easter weekend in Suffolk with their baby daughter Josephina and Phil's adoptive parents. But their rural idyll is cruelly destroyed.

After a devastating arson attack on the cottage, Josephina goes missing. With Phil in a coma, Marina is alone when she receives the first phone call. The kidnappers say that if Marina ever wants to see her daughter alive again, she has to do exactly what they say...

NB: This book is also known as The Black Road.

From the outside, the house was unremarkable. Just one of many on an ordinary, suburban estate. But inside was a different matter. With pink ribbons and pink walls, stuffed toy animals everywhere and a dining table laid out for a tea party, it was a doll's house. The doll was sitting at the table. 

Life size, with blonde, pigtailed hair and rosy red cheeks, dressed in her best pink party dress. Her finger and thumb curled round the handle of a fine china tea cup. An adult woman. Covered in blood. Eviscerated. Dead. In all his years on the force, Detective Inspector Phil Brennan of the Major Incident Squad has never encountered a scene like it. 

As he investigates he uncovers more bizarre revelations and knows that he must act fast; the next murder has already been planned and the victim is closer to home that he realizes...

Darren Richards opened his eyes to find himself duct-taped to a chair with a crossbow pointing at him. Behind the crossbow is a hooded figure wearing a black-faced, round-eyed gas mask. 

The figure tells him what Darren knows: that he stole a car, drove it recklessly while under the influence of drugs and killed a woman and her baby. His solicitor managed to get the case thrown out of court on a technicality so he has not paid for his crime. That, says the figure, cannot be allowed to happen.

Darren turns to his right. Next to him are his girlfriend and their baby daughter. Both similarly taped to a chair, gagged. It's very simple, explains the figure. Either you die or your girlfriend and child die. But someone has to pay. A life for a life. The choice is Darren's...

After years of abuse, Gemma Adderley has finally found the courage to leave her violent husband. She has taken one debilitating beating too many, endured one esteem-destroying insult too much. Taking her seven-year-old daughter Carly, she leaves the house, determined to salvage what she can of her life.

She phones Safe Harbour, a women's refuge, and they tell her which street corner to wait on and what the car that will pick her up will look like. They tell her the word the driver will use so she knows it's safe to get in.

And that's the last they hear from her.

Gemma Adderley's daughter Carly is found wandering the city streets on her own the next day. Her mother's mutilated corpse turns up by the canal several weeks later. Her heart has been removed.

Detective Inspector Phil Brennan takes on the case, and his wife, psychologist Marina Esposito, is brought in to try and help unlock Carly's memories of what happened that day. The race is on to solve the case before the Heartbreaker strikes again...

When three men are found hanged in locations around Colchester, Detective Inspector Phil Brennan gets the shock of his life. Not only are the victims dressed to look like him, but each carries a defaced tarot card in the pocket of their identical leather jackets, scrawled across with one name: Phil Brennan.

The bodies aren't found in random locations - they're all in places where DI Brennan has caught a murderer. Someone is sending him a message. And he thinks he knows who it is...