When she comes too, in pain and with someone’s screams ringing in her ear, Claire DeWitt can’t remember where she is or how she got there. Opening her eyes, she sees an ambulance and knows she’s on a stretcher about to be taken to hospital. She also knows that, if she goes, she might not make it through the day alive. So she attacks a police officer, steals a car and heads out to figure out just who was trying to kill her and why.
It’s a journey that takes her from her base in San Francisco to Las Vegas as she tracks down a man with white hair she isn’t sure exists. Along the way she reflects on how she ended up as a private investigator, flashing back to her teenage years where she was obsessed with the Cynthia Silverton Detective series, as were her friends, who formed an unlikely trio of investigators through to how she got her private investigators license by figuring out who was dead and who wasn’t as part of a cold case.
Grieving for her father, a respected Detective whose footsteps she’s followed, DI Amy Winter returns to work to a letter she could never have expected to receive. It’s from a notorious serial killer, Lillian Grimes, who – along with her husband – was responsible for the death of numerous young girls offering to help her find the bodies of three victims whose graves are still unknown.
When Maya gets home from work on the night of her and her boyfriend Jamie’s second anniversary, she is almost bouncing off the walls, convinced that this is the night he’ll pop the question. Why else would he tell her he had a surprise for her before he left for work that morning? So, why hasn’t he come home?
Nick Dean loves his family. He has gorgeous wife and two beautiful young children. Life couldn’t be better – until it couldn’t get any worse. An acting coach who specialises in working with teenagers, one of his students has accused him of abuse. And everyone believes her, even – eventually – his wife. Nick swears he’s innocent but it seems that, despite there being no evidence, he is considered guilty until proved innocent.
A year after the death of his son, wealthy businessman Gregory Norwood is found dead in his study from what looks like a self-inflicted gunshot.
When Jessie wakes up to find her mom has died she isn’t surprised (they have spent the last few days in a hospital room and her mom has cancer), she is – however – devastated that she didn’t get to spend her mom’s last few moments with her.
On a dark night on a lonely road to the West of Edinburgh, a young woman crawls along the road, clinging to life and the hope she’ll be saved by a passing stranger. A chilling scene to open a chilling book, one that made me squirm more than once as I read about a series of young women brutually murdered while two of my favourite detectives, DI Luc Callanach and DCI Ava Turner, struggled to make sense of it all and find the killer.
Kirsty and Adrian need a break. He’s been suffering from severe depression and their whole family have been suffering as a result, walking on eggshells and watching him like a hawk.
1986. On a cliff top in Tenerife, a young mother stands wondering if she should jump. Everything is a mess and she doesn’t know how to fix things. Then there’s a noise behind her and she turns, “it’s you,” she says.