Lloyd and Hill Mysteries Series

Selected by The Times (London) as one of the twentieth century’s “100 Masters of Crime,” Jill McGown writes mystery-suspense novels with plots that defy second-guessing. In Unlucky for Some, her thirteenth book featuring Detective Chief Inspectors Lloyd and Hill, the quiet life of an English town scarcely conceals the deadly menace lurking around dark corners and within the human mind.

Michael Waterman is a self-made millionaire. His casinos and nightclubs ensure a constant flow of cash, and Waterman knows what he needs to do to keep it that way. So far, it seems, he has stayed on the right side of the law. Certainly, no one seriously suspects him of murdering bingo player Wilma Fenton, who was struck down while walking home with a purse crammed full of winnings. Her murder looks like an ordinary mugging except for one oddity: The killer had left Wilma’s money neatly fanned out across her body.

The motive behind the bafflingly violent act dogs Lloyd and Hill– now married and the harried parents of a two-year-old daughter. The stakes are raised with a second murder, modeled on the first . . . and then a third. A cold-blooded killer is challenging not only the police but the one witness to the first slaying: England’s premier expert on serial crime, well-known journalist and TV personality, Tony Baker. It has now become a twisted game of madness and logic–in which failure to outwit the murderer means more senseless deaths.

In this astonishing Lloyd and Hill novel, Jill McGown’s storytelling genius will captivate longtime fans as well as first-time readers. Unlucky for Some is lucky for all admirers of virtuoso suspense writing.

Real-life crime has engulfed the domestic life of the Riverside Theatre players. For starters, there’s the violent death of Estelle Bignall, the beautiful, neurotic wife of a well-to-do doctor (and aspiring resident playwright). In truth, suicide seemed more Estelle’s line—especially during the Christmas holidays—but a thief saved her the trouble, stealing all the presents and leaving her bound, gagged, and suffocated.

Instinct tells Detective Chief Inspectors Lloyd and Judy Hill that Estelle’s murder is far more complicated. At the crime scene there are too many footprints, too many fingerprints, too much conflicting evidence—and too many suspects: an elusive burglar, a sinister next-door neighbor, the victim’s secret lover, a scared kid with fresh bruises on his face. But which of them was desperate enough to commit murder?

Detective Inspector Judy Hill anxiously watched the trial of serial rapist Colin Arthur Drummond from the public gallery–never forgetting his chilling threat that she would be his next victim. The prosecution should have an open-and-shut case.

But sixteen months later Drummond is back on the streets, threatening Judy once more. And as Judy sets out to prove Drummond’s guilt for the second time, Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd is called to a horrifying scene. It appears Colin Drummond has struck again. . . .

"McGown’s style is uniquely hers, engrossing, poignant, with effectual characterization."
–Mystery News

When the body of fifteen-year-old Natalie Ouspensky is found strangled near a public park in Stansfield, England, Detective Inspector Judy Hill and Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd have their work cut out for them. For Natalie wasn’t quite the innocent her mother believes, and her classmates at Oakland School guard Natalie’s secrets–and their own–like life itself. Then a shred of evidence points Hill and Lloyd in the right–and decidedly deadly–direction. . . .

"[A ] compelling story . . . The characters are devious, cunning, charming–and truly, truly wicked. This small English town, overrun with malice, is well served by its finely delineated constabulary, with Lloyd and Hill at the top of their form."
–Publishers Weekly