Bad Apples (The Beatrice Stubbs Series Book 6)

British crime fiction where characters become people and place is part of the story.

“Some people are just rotten to the core.”


Acting DCI Beatrice Stubbs is representing Scotland Yard at a police conference in Portugal. Her task is to investigate a rumour – a ghostwritten exposé of European intelligence agencies – and discover who is behind such a book.

Hardly a dangerous assignment, so she invites family and friends for a holiday. Days at the conference and evenings at the villa should be the perfect work-life balance.

Until one of her colleagues is murdered.


An eclectic alliance of international detectives forms to find the assassin. But are they really on the same side?

Meanwhile, tensions rise at the holiday villa. A clash of egos sours the atmosphere and when a five-year-old child disappears, their idyll turns hellish.


From Lisbon streets to the quays of Porto, Parisian cafés to the green mountains of Gerês, Beatrice realises trust can be a fatal mistake.


Beatrice Stubbs murder mysteries are contemporary crime novels with a timeless feel. The focus is on human interest and strong personalities.


Each book works as a stand-alone novel.


If you enjoy Donna Leon, Patricia Wentworth and Ann Cleeves, you'll love Bad Apples.

• Human Rites: An eye-opening mystery in a sensational place (The Beatrice Stubbs Series Book 5)
• Snow Angel: An eye-opening mystery in a sensational place (The Beatrice Stubbs Series Book 7)
• Cold Pressed: An eye-opening mystery in a sensational place (The Beatrice Stubbs Series Book 4)
• Tread Softly: An eye-opening mystery in a sensational place (The Beatrice Stubbs Series Book 3)
• Honey Trap: An eye-opening mystery in a sensational place (The Beatrice Stubbs Series Book 8)
• Raw Material: An eye-opening mystery in a sensational place (The Beatrice Stubbs Series Book 2)
• Behind Closed Doors: An eye-opening mystery in a sensational place (The Beatrice Stubbs Series Book 1)
• An Empty Vessel: The post-war British classic by Vaughan Mason
• The Beatrice Stubbs Boxset One: Eye-opening mysteries in sensational places
• Borderlands: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 14)