Brokenwood Mysteries

When DC Breen and his rugby team show up for practice, they are shocked to see their coach dead, stripped, and tied to a goalpost. Shepherd and Sims try to find out who would want to do that to a beloved pillar of the community. When a second body is found, the detectives believe the deaths are related. Could a serial killer be on the loose?

Jared lands the title role in the Brokenwood Theatre Society’s production of Hamlet, but a young cast member, Ben Faulkner, falls dead at the end of a performance. At first the detectives think Ben died of natural causes, until Shepherd smells a lethal poison on the body. Then he and Sims dig deeper into the lives of the eccentric cast and crew.

When Jared discovers a severed human hand in a crayfish pot on Brokenwood Beach, Shepherd, Sims, and Breen set about finding who the hand belongs to and if he or she is still alive. Suspicion falls on the Keelys, who own the crayfish pot and fiercely protect their family’s fishing legacy and territories.

Shepherd and Jared attend a country concert by Shepherd’s favorite musician, Holly Collins, at which she announces that it will be her final show. When she is found the next morning electrocuted in her hotel bathtub, it appears to be a suicide—or perhaps a drunken accident. But Shepherd believes the cause of death to be more sinister, with only Holly’s dysfunctional band members and a note written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror as clues.