As disheveled and indomitable as ever, DCI Vera Stanhope leads her tightly knit team of Northumberland police through four more daunting cases. No one seems to know anything about the police officer whose body turns up in a slaughterhouse incinerator, the woman killed in a car crash meant to look like an accident, the suburban neighbor found dead in her back garden, and the teenager whose body floats to the surface of a reservoir. How will Vera break...

The central character is Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope, who is obsessive about her work and driven by her own demons. If she's lonely, she doesn't show it and faces the world with caustic wit, gile and courage. Her trusted and long suffering colleague is Sergeant Joe Ashworth. Together they approach each case with unparalleled gusto and professionalism.