When Sir John Fairbrother, head of one of the world’s biggest private banks, burns to death, along with his nurse, in a catastrophic fire at his Somerset manor house, Detective Inspector David Vogel finds himself dealing with a complex and mystifying sequence of events. If arson was involved, as Vogel believes, the obvious suspect is Sir John’s chauffeur/gardener, George Grey... but is he guilty? Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery and bring those responsible for the fire and two further suspicious deaths to justice, Vogel uncovers a tangled web of intrigue which exceeds anything he at first imagined.

The discovery of the partially-clothed body of a teenage girl in the heart of Bristol’s red light district indicates a tragic yet familiar scenario. But this marks the start of a baffling murder investigation where nothing is as it first appears. Fourteen-year-old Melanie Cooke told her mother she was visiting a school friend. Who was she really going to meet? Detective Inspector David Vogel is led towards three very different principal protagonists, each of whom grows increasingly chilling. But are they what they seem? And is any one of them capable of murder? A darkly complex secret lies behind Melanie’s death — and its ultimate revelation will shock Vogel and his team to the core.

Dorothy Martin and her husband Alan head to the Canadian city of Victoria to investigate a series of petty crimes. But when a woman goes missing and a body is discovered, it would appear that the petty crimes have turned deadly — and Dorothy and Alan have embarked on a trip that will become far more dangerous than they ever envisaged...