Lawrence Sanders’s first novel in the Deadly Sins series became a New York Times bestseller and was made into an acclaimed film starring Frank Sinatra as hard-bitten New York City homicide detective Edward X. Delaney. The Edgar Award–winning Sanders would follow up with three more Deadly Sins novels—each one a New York Times bestseller—proving himself again and again to be “a master” (The New Yorker).

The First Deadly Sin: New York Police Department captain Edward Delaney is called to the scene of a brutal murder. A Brooklyn councilman was struck from behind, the back of his skull punctured and crushed with an unknown weapon. No robbery, no known motive. The commissioner appoints Delaney to head up a secret investigation. As more young men are murdered in the same way, Delaney starts putting the pieces together, even as he’s distracted by the serious illness of his wife. Soon, he’s faced with a cop’s dilemma: He knows who the killer is, but the person is untouchable. That’s when Delaney lays a trap to bring a monster to justice . . .

A jewelry heist, a kidnapping, and a choice. When Fitz’s sister disappears, he’ll do anything to get her back, even if it means betraying the woman he’s come to love.
Private investigator Fitz McCaffrey went to Belize on a case, bringing his teenage sister Shelby along with him. They lost their parents years ago, he lost his job as a cop, and they both need time to heal. When Fitz meets the beautiful and charming Tabitha Eaton, he falls hard.

But minutes after Tabby’s flight leaves, Fitz is summoned by a mobster who believes Tabby broke into the hotel safe the night before and made off with half a million dollars’ worth of jewels—and he has the video evidence to prove it. As Shelby’s guardian, Fitz has to focus on caring for his sister, whether Tabby is innocent or guilty. He refuses to help the man—until he learns the mobster has taken his sister.

The story of the Swedish detective’s beginnings, told in five gripping short mysteries: “An indispensable chapter to the saga” (Booklist Online).

Here are the stories that trace, chronologically, Kurt Wallander’s growth from a rookie cop into a young father and then a middle-aged divorcé, illuminating how he became a first-rate detective and highlighting new facets of the character who “remains one of the most impressive and credible creations of crime fiction today” (The Guardian).

“Wallander’s First Case” introduces us to the twenty-one-year-old patrolman on his first homicide case: his next-door neighbor, seemingly dead by his own hand. In “The Man with the Mask”, Wallander is a young father confronting an unexpected threat on Christmas Eve. On the brink of middle age, he is troubled by a distant wife as he unravels the poisoning of a lonely vacationer in “The Man on the Beach.” Newly separated in “The Death of the Photographer,” Wallander investigates the brutal murder—and the well-concealed secrets—of the local studio photographer. In the title story, he is a veteran detective uncovering unexpected connections between a downed mystery plane and the assassination of a pair of elderly sisters.