After his wife's murder, Scotland Yard's Thomas Lynley retreats to Cornwell and his grief. While hiking along the coast, he discovers the body of a young man who appears to have fallen to his death. It soon becomes apparent, however, that a killer is at work, and Lynley finds himself both a witness and a suspect.

Put off by his father-in-law's boasts about his literary successes and distasteful fondness for young girls, detective inspector Charlie Peace nevertheless works to clear the man's reputation, as well as the good name of Charlie's wife, Felicity, when both are implicated in a murder.

As the manhunt for the Red River Killer intensifies, Detective Inspector Will Turner finds himself fighting to stay involved in the investigation.

Anita Margolis, young, beautiful, carefree, has vanished into thin air. She left her home to attend a party one wet evening, but has not been seen since. She is reported missing soon after by her brother, whom she shared a flat with, the acclaimed but eccentric artist Rupert Margolis. Inspector Burden quickly forms an impression of a wanton young girl simply gone off somewhere with a boyfriend having neglected to let anyone know. After all, she was...

The town of Norbold, England is famous for its low crime rate, thanks to the zero-tolerance policy of Chief Superintendent John Fountain. And the newest police recruit, Hazel Best, is happy to help keep it that way. But numbers never tell the whole story, do they? Gabriel Ash receives a cryptic message from Jerome Hardy, who is then found dead. Gabriel is convinced that Jerome was murdered. When Hazel realizes that Gabriel might be right, she must...

Detective Chief Inspector Harriet Martens has had to make it in a man's world. After all, it was this toughness that inspired her successful Stop the Rot campaign, that has so provoked local criminals. But now two of her officers have died within hours of each other and Harriet believes both have been murdered.

Perce Spender, a working-class Londoner, is unexpectedly transformed into the twelfth Earl of Ellesmere when a distant relative dies. But he would rather be warming a bar stool in his local pub, and he's taken up residence at Chetton Hall only until arrangements can be made to sell it. Getting rid of the family estate displeases at least one of Perce's greedy offspring, however, and on the morning after a family party, the new Earl is found dead.

Before she can even begin to track down the killer of the old woman dumped by the lonely canal, Monika Paniatowski needs to find out who she is, and no one seems to know. Even when her daughter Louisa provides the vital clue, it only makes life more difficult, because the Chief Constable, intent on making Paniatowskis life difficult, refused to let her follow the obvious trail. And it is not until there is a second, even more brutal murder, that Paniatowski...

Shortly after Kipp Brown and his teenage son, Mungo, arrive at the stadium for their team's biggest-ever football game, Mungo disappears. A short while later Kipp receives a text with a ransom demand and a warning not to go to the police if he and his wife want to see their son alive again. But as a massive, covert manhunt for the boy and his kidnappers begins, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace starts to realize that not all is what it seems -- from...