Past Simple: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/past-simple.html
Past Continuous: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/past-continuous.html
Past Perfect: https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/past-perfect-exercise-1.html
Reading Detective Story: https://englishforeveryone.org/PDFs/A_Mystery.pdf
It was raining heavily, and the wind was howling against the cliffs when Detective Aoife Byrne arrived. The tourists who had been hiking earlier were still waiting by the car park, shivering. Someone had gone missing — but by the time the guards got there, the footprints had already disappeared into the mud. Aoife realized she had seen this pattern before…
(Use past continuous to describe ongoing weather/actions, and past perfect for events before the detective arrived.)
The streets of Dublin were alive with music and laughter, but behind the pub on Fleet Street, two men were breaking into the jewelry shop. They had planned it for months, but something was going wrong — the alarm was already flashing before they had even opened the safe.
(Use past perfect for the planning; past continuous for the ongoing crime.)
The guards were searching the woods all night. They had found the stolen car near the lake, but the suspect was gone. When dawn came, they realized someone had been watching them from the trees the whole time.
(Use past continuous for the search; past perfect for the earlier discovery.)
While the storm was raging outside, Maeve was sitting by the fire, reading her grandmother’s old diary. She had always wondered why her grandmother never spoke about 1953 — the year the murder had taken place in that very house.
(Use past perfect to refer to the old murder; past continuous for the atmosphere and Maeve’s actions.)
The police were blocking the roads as the sirens echoed through the city. The robbers had escaped just minutes before, disappearing into the morning fog. No one realized they had left something behind — something that would expose them all.
(Use past perfect for the escape; past continuous for the chaos and police action.)