On a balmy June night, Kirsten, a young university student, is strolling home through a moonlit park when she is viciously attacked. When she awakens in the hospital, she has no recollection of that brutal night. But then details reveal themselves—dreams of two figures, one white and one black, hovering over her; snatches of a strange and haunting song; the unfamiliar texture of a rough and deadly hand. In another part of the country, Martha Browne arrives in a Yorkshire seaside town posing as an author doing research for a book. But her research is of a particularly macabre variety.

When a landslip on Pembrokeshire’s stunning coastal path reveals the harrowing remains of two bodies, ex-DCI Evan Warlow’s quiet retirement is shattered.

Shortlisted for the CWA Dagger in the Library. Ruth Galloway receives a phone call that bears shocking news. A friend of hers from college, Dan Golding, has been killed in a fire at his Lancashire home. Her shock turns to alarm when she gets a letter from Dan. He has made a discovery that will change archaeology forever but he needs Ruth's advice. Even more alarming, he sounds vulnerable and frightened. DCI Harry Nelson is also rediscovering his past. Up north for a holiday, he meets his former colleague Sandy MacLeod, now at Blackpool CID.

Flower shop owner Ellie McEwan is driving home late one frosty November night when a shadowy figure leaps into the road out of nowhere. Ellie swerves to avoid him — and slams head-on into the crash barrier. Days later, Ellie wakes up in hospital — and notices there’s something different. Everyone she looks at — the doctor, the nurse, her friend Carole — is surrounded by a coloured aura. Her near-death experience seems to have given her a new ability. And now Ellie must use her new-found gift to catch a killer.

Was the biggest case of his career the worst mistake he ever made? Ten years ago, DCI Jack Logan stopped the serial child-killer dubbed "Mister Whisper", earning himself a commendation, a drinking problem, and a broken marriage in the process...When another child disappears a hundred miles north in the Highlands, Jack is sent to lead the investigation and bring the boy home. But as similarities between the two cases grow, could it be that Jack caught the wrong man all those years ago?