Art. Obsession. Murder.
Three bodies found in Central London. All arranged in bizarre poses. The Metropolitan Police at a loss.
The senior investigating officer asks his former superior, retired DCI Amber Fearns, for help.
Amber refuses, wants nothing to do anymore with violence and murder. But one glance at the crime scene photos and she’s drawn in against her will… because she sees something none of the investigators could see.
As soon as she starts working the case, her instinct tells her the killer will strike again. It’s just a matter of when.
Can Amber help stop him before he kills again?
In Their Likeness is the first book in the Amber Fearns London thriller series by Denise Yoko Berndt, combining psychological suspense with police procedural. All novels in this series can be read as a standalone.
Secrets. Pain. Redemption.
Everyone thought he was asleep. He wasn’t. He was dead.
Ex-DCI Amber Fearns wanted to enjoy a night out with a friend. The night ends with her and a team of London’s Metropolitan Police standing over a dead body in a church. A homeless man, stabbed in the heart.
After much persuasion, Amber agrees to once again work as an external consultant for the Met. She thinks this bizarre case will be solved quickly.
But then, another body is found. Another homeless man, stabbed in the heart, again in a church.
Are they dealing with a serial killer?
If yes, what is his motive?
Betrayal. Hate. Revenge.
TV starlet Lavinia Johnstone has 9,000 followers on Instagram. One of them hates her. And that person now has her daughter.
When ex-DCI Amber Fearns hears about the kidnapping of little Nica, she offers her services as an external consultant to London’s Metropolitan Police.
Both Amber and her colleagues know only too well that in child abductions the first 24 hours are crucial. A desperate race against the clock begins.
Time ticks by and there is no trace of Nica. Until a dubious ransom note turns up.
Join Amber Fearns on her most difficult case to date.
A suicide.
A murder.
Truth is a killer.
Two of the most iconic London skyscrapers, situated almost exactly opposite each other across the river Thames: the Walkie-Talkie and the Shard. One the scene of a spectacular suicide, the other the scene of a murder.
Journalist Ronan Howell jumps to his death on the same day businessman Michael Glynn is killed.
Strange coincidence, or are the two deaths connected?
Ex-DCI Amber Fearns is asked to assist the Metropolitan Police Service as an outside consultant. Several lines of enquiry come to nothing, but Amber and her colleagues do everything to unravel the events of that cold January day.
Glynn had just taken over as CEO of an international corporation… why did he have to die?
Howell had a successful career, a wife and two children… why did he kill himself?
Denise Yoko Berndt got her first library card aged two and wrote her first short story aged eight. The plot? A female bank director robs her own bank. It took a while until she released her first novel (The Poriomaniacs – Dead in Dornbirn in 2006) but she stuck to a life of crime (in books that is!).
Four cosy crime novels featuring all-girl rock band The Poriomaniacs as reluctant sleuths were followed by four thrillers set in the quaint German university town of Tubingen, a standalone thriller based on the ancient myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and since 2020 several volumes of her London thriller series with ex-DCI Amber Fearns as the protagonist.
She studied screenwriting at UCLA Extension where she developed the story that became her novel Flammenmund.
When she’s not busy travelling the world, researching new book ideas, her favourite place to be is London.