Susan Hill Books

A Savior Is Risen is a photo-rich 40-day invitation to shed your worries and let go of busyness as you focus your spirit on Jesus during the Lenten and Easter season.

A collection of short stories both in the contemporary and traditional style. The book includes suggestions for writing and aims to encourage pupils to consider alternative ways of looking at a play or story. It is intended for class use and for GCSE examinations and coursework.

Tom's mother helps him get rid of his bad dreams one night at a time.

From the outside, the cathedral town of Lafferton seems idyllic, but in many ways it just like any other place. It suffers from the same kinds of crime, is subject to the same pressures from a rapidly changing world, has the same hopes and fears as any number of towns up and down the land.When one day DC Simon Serrailler is called in by Lafferton's new Chief Constable, Kieran Bright, he is met by two plainclothes officers. He is asked to take the principal role in a difficult, potentially dangerous undercover operation and must leave town immediately, without telling anyone - not even his girlfriend Rachel, who has only just moved in with him. Meanwhile, Simon's sister Cat is facing difficult choices at work, as Lafferton's hospice closes its bedded units; and at home, as her daughter is presented with a glittering opportunity that they would struggle afford. And all is not well with Simon and Cat's step-mother, Judith, either. To complete his special op, Simon must inhabit the mind of the worst kind of criminal. This takes its toll on Simon and, as the op unfolds, also on the town and some of its most respected citizens.

'Serrailler, Hill's brilliant detective, is the central character in the great writer's crime fiction novels' CAMILLA, DUCHESS OF CORNWALL Simon Serrailler finds himself in devastating new territory as a sophisticated drugs network sets its sights on Lafferton and the surrounding villages DCS Simon Serrailler has long regarded drugs ops in the Lafferton area as a waste of time. Small-time dealers are picked up outside the local secondary school, they're given a fine or a suspended and away they go. And rinse and repeat. But when the body of a young drug addict is found in neighbouring Starly, the case pulls Simon into a whole new way of running drugs. The foot soldiers? Vulnerable local kids like Brookie and Olivia, who will give Simon a bitter taste of this new landscape... 'Hill's Serailler novels are as addictive as Rankin's' SCOTSMAN

World-changers. Rebels. Rejecters of the status quo. Throughout history, Christians were never meant to have a safe faith. Highlighting people throughout the millennia, Dangerous Faith is a compilation of faith, facts, and art that celebrates the faith lives of spiritual giants and inspires you to grow in your own personal faith.

A stunning gift edition collecting together Susan Hill's spinechilling stories of murder, magic and mayhem.

Simon Serrailler has just wrapped up a particularly exhausting and difficult case and is on sabbatical on a far-flung Scottish island when he is called back to Lafferton by the Chief Constable. Two local prostitutes have been found strangled. When the wife of the St. Michael's Cathedral Dean goes missing and then another respectable woman is taken on her way to work, the townspeople grow angry and afraid. Serrailler is in the greatest danger of his life.

In the peaceful cathedral city of Lafferton, a gunman is terrorising young women. What if anything links the attacks? Is the marksman with a rifle the same person as the killer with a handgun or do the police have two snipers on their hands?Detective

Looks at the scenic beauty of the Cotswold Hills, with their rolling hills, quaint villages, stone walls, and medieval churches

The seventh Simon Serrailler crime novel. How do you find a killer who doesn't exist? One snowy night, an old lady is murdered - dragged from her bed and strangled with a length of flex. DCS Simon Serrailler and his team are aware of bizarre circumstances surrounding her death - but they keep some of these details secret, while they desperately search for a match. All they know is that the killer will strike again, and will once more leave the same tell-tale signature.

In this, the tenth Simon Serrailler crime novel, Simon must engage with his own demons as Lafferton struggles to cope with a series of crimes that threaten the sanctity of hearth and home. On the face of it DCS Simon Serrailler has had time to recuperate after the violent incident that cost him his arm, and nearly his life. He is back in harness at Lafferton CID, but is spending his spare time high up in the cathedral roof, making drawings of some medieval angels which are being restored. Lafferton is apparently going through a quiet patch, so far as crime is concerned, until one night two local men open their front door to a distressing scene. Simon makes a serious error of judgment when handling the incident. The stress of this, combined with the fact that he refused all offers of counselling after the loss of his arm, takes its toll. In her new role as a private GP, Simon's sister Cat's medical and counselling skills are tested by terrible and unexpected events at the homes of two very different Lafferton women. Their unreliable father, Richard, has returned to live nearby, in a luxury apartment for the well-heeled over sixties. It's not long before he's up to his old tricks.

A little boy is snatched at the gate of his home while he waits for his lift to school. But with dead-ends mounting up and time running out, has he taken on a case so complex it threatens to defeat him?'Not all great novelists can write crime crime fiction but when one like Susan Hill does it the result is stunning.' Ruth Rendell

John Hilliard, a subaltern returning to the Western Front after a period of sick leave back in an England blind to the horrors of the trenches, finds his battalion tragically altered. His commanding officer finds escape in alcohol, there is a new adjutant and even Hilliard's batman has been killed.

"After nearly forty years the Rolling Stones have truly earned the title, they are the greatest rock and roll band in the world." "The whole story of the band is here illustrated with pictures from an extraordinary archive. All the raw power of their music, their high times, tragedies, triumphs and personal tribulations spanning decades of social change are shown, proving that rebels can be survivors too."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

An alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here and here.Thomas Hardy's short stories reveal a literary persona, a creative intelligence and an imaginative vision uniquely and unmistakably his own. Those contained within this volume are among his finest and most representative and include The Withered Arm, one of his best known and most gripping; Barbara of the House of Grebe, said by T. S. Eliot to portray 'a world of pure evil'; The Son's Veto, regarded by Hardy as his best story; and, of course, The Distracted Preacher, possibly the most flawless of all. Like the novels, the short stories reveal Hardy's preoccupation with affairs of the heart, with love requited and frustrated, fulfilled or doomed. They contain many of his most powerful portraits of women; they are streaked with the grotesque, the macabre and bizarre; and they are permeated by that atmosphere, narrative power, and vivid sense of place and its intimate relation to character which are the essentials of Hardy's genius.

This collection of modern women's short stories ranges from well-established writers such as Carson McCullers and Katherine Mansfield who provide stories of childhood, while contemporary talents such as Helen Dunmore and E. Annie Proulx give rare glimpses into distant worlds.

These are tales of love, accidentally momentous meetings and the tormented relationships between parents and children; stories about growing up and old age; about domesticity and slick city living. The contributors include Alice Munro, Angela Carter, Helen Simpson and Leonora Brito.

Still following up with a previous child abduction ("The pure in heart"), DCI Simon Serrailler now must deal with the crazy grief of a widowed husband, a derangement which turns to obsession and threats, violence and terror. Meanwhile, Simon finds his heart troubled by the newest recruit to the Cathedral staff: a feisty female Anglican priest with red hair. Some descriptions of violence and some strong language.

Over half of the short stories written during this century have been writen by women. This book is an anthology of British women's short stories and authors represented include Rebecca West, Jean Rhys, Elizabeth Bowen, Olivia Manning, Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Lessing and Rose Tremain.

Francis Croft, the greatest poet of his age, was mad. His world was a nightmare of internal furies and haunting poetic vision. Harvey Lawson watched and protected him until his final suicide. From his solitary old age Harvey writes this brief account of their twenty years together and then burns all the papers to shut out an inquisitive world.The tautness and control that characterize Susan Hill’s work are abundantly evident in The Bird of Night as she magnificently handles the heights and depths, the splendours and miseries of madness and friendship.

DC Simon Serrailler's last, devastating case was nearly the death of him and left him confronting a new reality Recovering on a remote Scottish island, his peace doesn't last long. In this gripping new Serrailler thriller, Simon's personal and professional lives intertwine in more complex and demanding ways than ever before.

When Susan Hill's first collection of stories, "The Albatross," (awarded the John Llywellyn Rhys Prize), appeared, the reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement compared her style to that of Tolstoy. With this collection, "A Bit of Singing and Dancing," she establishes herself as one of the very few novelists practising the art of the short story with total success. Whether she is relating the tragic series of events in the conservatory, or conjuring up the pathos of an unusual lodger, or portraying the ineffable Ossie in Venice, her powers of description are sharp, compassionate, and subtle. A French village, an English seaside town out of season, a hospital ward, these are some of her varied backgrounds. The eleven stories in this collection are a clear indication of Susan Hill's unique skill.

When we spend so much of our time immersed in books, who's to say where reading ends and living begins? The two are impossibly and gloriously wedded, as Hill shows in Jacob's Room Is Full of Books. Considering everything from Edith Wharton's novels through to Alan Bennett's diaries, Virginia Woolf and the writings of twelfth century monk Aelred of Rievaulx, Susan Hill charts a year of her life through the books she has read, reread or returned to the shelf. From beneath a shady tree in a hot French summer, or the warmth of a kitchen during an English winter, Hill reflects on what her reading throws up, from writing and writers to politics and religion, as well as the joy of dandies or the pleasure of watching a line of geese cross a meadow. Full of wry observations and warm humour, as well as strong opinions freely aired, this is a rare and wonderful insight into the rich world of reading from one of the nation's most accomplished authors.

Tommy Carr was a kind man; Eve had been able to tell that after half an hour of knowing him. There had never been a day when he had not shown her some small kindness. The birth of a daughter, Jeannie Eliza, crowns the young couple's happiness - just as her shockingly early death casts them low. But they do not need to talk about Jeannie because she remains with them, and their love does not change. In some ways it is no wonder that one of them falls ill, for grief takes its toll, and one Christmas even Eve's sister Miriam is remarking that Tommy looks unwell. But what happens next is entirely unexpected, not least for the kind man.

Freak weather and flash floods all over southern England. Half of Lafferton is afloat. A landslip on the Moor has closed the bypass and, as the rain slowly drains away, a shallow grave - and a skeleton - are exposed. The remains are identified as those of missing teenager, Harriet Lowther, last seen 16 years ago.

Faith Lavender's funeral and the arrival of a stranger upsets the balance of Haverstock. Undercurrents of fierce emotion reach the surface, while the tensions rise and the ladies of Haverstock find their actions motivated by mutual suspicion and fear. By the author of "Strange Meeting".

Arthur Kipps did not believe in ghosts. Few attend Mrs. Alice Drablow's funeral, and not one blood relative amongst them. There are undertakers with shovels, of course, a local official who would rather be anywhere else, and one Mr. Arthur Kipps, solicitor from London. He is to spend the night in Eel Marsh House, the place where the old recluse died amidst a sinking swamp, a blinding fog and a baleful mystery about which the townsfolk refuse to speak. Young Mr. Kipps expects a boring evening alone sorting out paperwork and searching for Mrs. Drablow's will. But when the high tide pens him in, what he finds -- or rather what finds him -- is something else entirely.

Susan Hill said of this book: ?The events and characters in the novel are wholly invented. The time is not the present and the death was very different. But the emotions were real. They were mine and I could never have written the book if I had not experienced them.It is set in an unspecified past ? but is probably somewhere between the end of the first World War, in 1918, and the beginning of the Second, in 1939.?

A lonely woman of fifty-three vanishes in fog; a fat twenty-two-year-old never returns from an early morning walk . . . Experienced policemen know that most missing persons either turn up or go missing on purpose. But fresh young D.S. Freya Graffham won’t drop it — until she discovers what links the people who disappear on “The Hill,” young and old, men and women, even a little dog. Susan Hill writes with compassion, humour and a unique understanding of the details of daily life.

In pursuit of an elusive book on her shelves, Hill encountered dozens of others that she had never read, or forgotten she owned, or wanted to read for a second time. The discovery inspired her to embark on a year-long voyage through her books, in order to get to know her own collection again.

In the fishing village of Heype they disapprove of Dafty-Duncan Pike. He and his sour, crippled mother have lived here for eighteen years. And they still don't belong. Duncan is good for nothing. And he knows it. He's afraid of everyone. His mother. The sea. Ted Flint the fisherman is the only person he admires, and Ted sometimes has a word for him. Until the night the lifeboat is launched in a storm. After that, inside his slow mind, Duncan begins to hate them all. In this distinguished collection of stories, Susan Hill writes about isolated people — the small boy facing the unspeakable terrors of a children's party; an old lady, longing for raffish excitement in a holiday resort.

Celibate, irreproachable and distinguished, Thomas Cavendish is in his mid- fifties and the obvious man to become Master of his college. It is an apocalyptic vision, one that alters Thomas's life irrevocably and tragically, but with the beauty and joy of a love never previously imagined.

'I didn't want you to come here.' So says the note that the boy Edmund Hooper passes to Charles Kingshaw upon his arrival at Warings. But young Kingshaw and his mother have come to live with Hooper and his father in the ugly, isolated Victorian house for good. To Hooper, Kingshaw is an intruder, a boy to be subtly persecuted, and Kingshaw finds that even the most ordinary object can be turned by Hooper into a source of terror. In Hang Wood their roles are briefly reversed, but Kingshaw knows Hooper will never let him be. Kingshaw cannot win, not in the last resort. He knows it, and so does Hooper. And the worst is still to come. This extraordinary, evocative novel boils over with the terrors of childhood and won the Somerset Maugham Award. 'Hill's exploration of a juvenile ghoul and his natural prey is a brilliant tour de force' Guardian

From the foggy streets of Victorian London to the eerie perfection of 1950s suburbia, the everyday is invaded by the otherworldly in this unforgettable collection of new ghost stories from the bestselling author of The Woman in Black. In the title story, on a murky evening in a club off St James, a paranormal detective recounts his most memorable case, one whose horrifying denouement took place in that very building. A lonely boy makes a friend in 'Boy Number 21', but years later is forced to question the very nature of that friendship. 'Alice Baker' tells the story of a mysterious new office worker who is accompanied by a lingering smell of decay. And in 'The Front Room', a devoutly Christian mother tries to protect her children from the evil influence of their grandmother, both when she is alive and afterwards. This paperback edition includes the chilling 'Printer's Devil Court' in which three medical students make an unholy pact whose consequences will pursue one of them to the grave - and perhaps beyond.This is Susan Hill at her best, telling characteristically creepy and surprising tales of thwarted ambition, terrifying revenge and supernatural stirrings that will leave you wide-awake long into the night.

The Cross Keys Inn provides Sir James Monmouth with shelter from the chill wind and rain, but it offers few comforts. The pale boy, the old woman, the mist in the mirror - do they have any reality beyond Monmouth's imagination? By the author of The Woman in Black and Mrs de Winter.

At Iyot Lock, a large decaying house, two young cousins, Leonora and Edward, are parked for the summer with their ageing spinster aunt and her cruel housekeeper. At first the unpleasantness appear simply spiteful. But when spoilt Leonora is not given her birthday present, affairs inexorably take a much darker turn...

Rebecca was Daphne du Maurier's most famous and best-loved novel. Countless readers wondered: what happened next? Out of fire-wracked ruins of Manderley, would love and renewal rise phoenix-like from the ashes of the embittered past? Married to the sophisticated, wordly-wise Maxim, the second Mrs de Winter's life should be happy and fulfilled. But the vengeful ghost of Rebecca, Maxim's first wife, continues to cast its long shadow over them. Back in England after an absence of over ten years, it seems as if happiness will at last be theirs. But the de Winters still have to reckon with two hate-consumed figures they once knew - both of whom have very long memories...

A young school boy visiting his aunt's country house finds company and friendship with the gentle beekeeper and begins teaching the man to read, so that it seems nothing can ever intrude upon their closeness.

One murky November evening after a satisfying meal in their Fleet Street lodgings, a conversation between four medical students takes a curious turn and Hugh is initiated into a dark secret. In the cellar of their narrow lodgings in Printer's Devil Court and a little used mortuary in a subterranean annex of the hospital, they have begun to interfere with death itself, in shadowy experiments beyond the realms of medical ethics. They call on Hugh to witness an event both extraordinary and terrifying. Years later, Hugh has occasion to return to his student digs and the familiar surroundings resurrect peculiar and unpleasant memories of these unnatural events, the true horror of which only slowly becomes apparent.

This book covers many of the delightful features of "Shakespeare country", the area lying within a radium of some fifteen miles around Stratford-Upon-Avon and one of the loveliest parts of Great Britain. It includes many photographs.

Recopilación de los tres cuentos más terroríficos de Susan Hill, la reina de las historias de fantasmas. Si por la noche escuchas ruidos extraños o tienes problemas para dormir, no temas: es el efecto secundario de los buenos relatos de miedo. En LA MUÑECA, Edward regresa a Iyot Lock, el caserón decadente en el que vivía su tía. Ahora que ella ha muerto, la casa está igual que hace cuarenta años: oscura, llena de premoniciones y de recuerdos; como el de aquel verano en que su prima Leonora, una niña maligna y consentida, enloqueció cuando nadie le regaló la muñeca que tanto ansiaba. LA MANO PEQUEÑA cuenta la aterradora historia de Adam Snow, un anticuario que después de visitar a unos clientes se desvía de la carretera y se adentra en un camino cada vez más estrecho que lleva a una casa... ¿Estará abandonada? Llevado por curiosidad, se adentra en su jardín, siente una fría mano de niño que se agarra a la suya, una mano que a partir de aquel momento jamás dejará de atormentarlo. EL HOMBRE DEL CUADRO cierra esta escalofriante trilogía de Susan Hill. Theo, un experto en arte, se siente extrañamente atraído por un óleo con una escena del carnaval veneciano que consigue comprar en una subasta; pronto se dará cuenta de que los personajes representados parecen tener vida propia…

Susan Hill, geboren 1942 in Scarborough, hat zahlreiche Romane, Jugendbücher, Hörspiele und Sachbücher veröffentlicht. Mit ihren Kriminalromanen erobert sie derzeit eine große Fangemeinde. Susan Hill lebt heute mit ihrem Mann und ihren beiden Töchtern in einem Landhaus in Gloucestershire.

«Je me trouvai dans le jardin faiblement éclairé d'une lueur verdâtre. Les oiseaux s'étaient tus. Aucune vibration ne troublait plus l'atmosphère. C'est alors que je sentis une petite main se glisser dans la mienne, comme si un enfant s'était matérialisé à côté de moi dans l'obscurité. Mais l'enfant était invisible.»Adam Snow, un marchand de livres anciens perdu dans la campagne anglaise, arrive dans le parc d'un manoir à l'abandon. Par curiosité, il se dirige vers la porte d'entrée, lorsqu'il ressent une mystérieuse présence. La petite main qui a saisi la sienne va désormais l'obséder. D'autant qu'elle semble lui vouloir du mal. Auteur de La Dame en noir (L'Archipel, 2012), Susan Hill, référence du roman gothique britannique, signe ici un conte fantastique d'une intensité saisissante.

Schwarze Gondeln auf dem Canal Grande, Feiernde und Maskenträger – ein mysteriöses Venedig-Gemälde vergiftet Jahrzehnte schon Professor Parmitters Dasein. An einem Winterabend enthüllt der alte Herr seinem Schüler Oliver die makabre Macht des Werkes: Menschen hat es verschlungen, Tote sichtbar gemacht. Oliver ahnt nicht, dass der Fluch auf einen Jüngeren übergehen will …

Il giovane avvocato londinese Arthur Kipps viene incaricato dal principale di recarsi in uno sperduto villaggio per presenziare ai funerali di un'anziana cliente e occuparsi della gestione dell'eredità. La signora Drablow, vedova da poco dopo le nozze, viveva da reclusa in una lugubre dimora circondata da nebbiose paludi. Per Arthur, in procinto di sposarsi, è l'occasione di dimostrare finalmente le sue capacità. Così, quando al suo arrivo s'imbatte in una strana reticenza riguardo alla casa e alla sua eccentrica abitante, non se ne cura più di tanto. Né lo turba la presenza, al funerale, di una donna misteriosa e di antica bellezza di cui nessun altro sembra accorgersi. Ansioso di svolgere il suo incarico con efficienza e rapidità, Kipps decide, contro il parere di tutti, di fermarsi a dormire nella casa disabitata. Saranno notti da incubo, perché il terrore è una nebbia avvolgente come un sudario, il gemito del vento, il gracchiare di orridi uccelli, il pianto di un bambino, uno scalpitio lontano, un fruscio di vesti... Una donna in nero.

Auf einem Hügel irgendwo im Norden Englands steht ein Haus, vom Wind umtost: der Beacon. Hier sind May, Frank, Colin und Berenice aufgewachsen. Das Leben auf dem Hof war hart, aber die Geschwister hatten es immer gut miteinander. So war es doch, oder? Nur zwei von ihnen ziehen in die Fremde, nach London. May kehrt schon nach ihrem ersten Studienjahr zurück und kümmert sich fortan um ihre Eltern und den Hof. Nur auf dem Beacon fühlt sie sich sicher und geborgen. Frank aber bleibt in der Großstadt, macht Karriere als Journalist und schaut nicht mehr zurück. Bis zu dem Tag, an dem er beschließt, ein Buch über einen Jungen zu schreiben, dessen Kindheit geprägt war von Leid und Gewalt. Und dieser unglückliche Junge war er selbst? Ein Buch über fragile Familienbande und die Brüchigkeit von Erinnerungen, über die unsichtbaren Verletzungen, die uns das Leben zufügt, und die wundersamen Wege, diese zu überwinden.

Es ist spät. Adam Snow, Antiquar, fährt von einem Kundenbesuch nach Hause, nimmt die falsche Abzweigung und findet sich vor einem alten verlassenen Haus wieder. Von Neugier gepackt, steigt er aus, läuft durch den verwilderten Garten, unwiderstehlich angezogen von dem seltsamen Anwesen, als plötzlich eine kleine kalte Hand nach seiner greift. Erst ist er bloß fasziniert, doch die Erinnerung an diese eigenartige Begegnung verfolgt ihn, Panikattacken suchen ihn heim, fürchterliche Albträume. Adam Snow stellt Nachforschungen an, mehr und mehr erfährt er über das verwunschene Haus. Und immer wieder fühlt er den Griff der kalten Hand, der stärker und stärker wird.

Charakterstudie eines alternden Wissenschaftlers, der ein ruhiges, geregeltes Leben führt, bis er sich plötzlich in ein 15jähriges Mädchen verliebt

Simon Serrailler hat seinen letzten Fall nur knapp überlebt. Wird er körperlich und psychisch je wieder in der Lagesein, als Detective Chief Inspector zu arbeiten? Er sucht Abstand von seinem Leben in der gemütlichen südenglischen Stadt Lafferton mit ihrer schönen Kathedrale, von seiner Schwester, der Ärztin Cat und ihren drei Kindern, die gerade seinen Vorgesetzten Kieron Bright geheiratet hat, und von seinem Vater Richard und dessen viel zu junger französischer Freundin. Gibt es einen besseren Ort, um sich zu erholen, als das Zuhause alter Freunde auf einer abgelegenen schottischen Insel? Mit der Ruhe ist es allerdings schnell vorbei, als eine Frau unter mysteriösen Umständen ermordet wird und Serrailler als einziger Polizist vor Ort die Ermittlungen auf Taransay übernehmen muss. Und auch ein alter Fall in Lafferton holt ihn ein. Ist die 24 Jahre alte Kimberley Still ein weiteres Opfer des Serienmörders Lee Russon?

Der neunjährige David wartet vor dem Haus seiner Eltern im englischen Städtchen Lafferton darauf, zur Schule abgeholt zu werden, doch dort kommt er nie an. Für Detective Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler entwickelt sich der Fall zum Albtraum: Die Ermittlungen scheinen im Sande zu verlaufen. Ist der Junge entführt worden? Ist er tot? Serrailler muss hilflos mit ansehen, wie Davids Familie an der Katastrophe zu zerbrechen droht. Dann verschwindet im Nachbarort ein weiteres Kind. Und auch privat kommt Serrailler nicht zur Ruhe: Der Tod seiner Kollegin Freya Graffham ist ihm nähergegangen als erwartet. Serrailler fährt nach Venedig, um auf andere Gedanken kommen, aber er muss die Reise abbrechen: Seine schwerbehinderte Schwester Martha liegt auf der Intensivstation und ringt mit dem Tod. Zu allem überfluss taucht dann auch noch eine Frau aus Serraillers Vergangenheit auf ...

Acht Monate ist es her, dass der kleine David Angus verschwunden ist, und die Polizei von Lafferton tappt noch immer im Dunkeln. Detective Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler, den der Fall schwer belastet, ist kurz davor, die Hoffnung aufzugeben – dann gibt es endlich einen Hinweis, eine Spur. Serrailler höchstpersönlich nimmt die Verfolgung auf. Und schließlich macht der Täter einen gewaltigen Fehler – und geht der Polizei ins Netz. Zur selben Zeit wird die junge Pastorin Jane von einem verwirrten Witwer als Geisel genommen. Ganz Lafferton ist in Aufruhr, die Nerven liegen blank! Und auch privat liegt bei Simon Serrailler einiges im Argen. Seine Ex-Freundin Diana scheint die Trennung noch nicht überwunden zu haben, Cat, die Zwillingsschwester des Detective Chief Inspector, will mit ihrer Familie nach Australien auswandern – und dann stirbt auch noch Serraillers Mutter.

Mensch und Tier, die sich vordem verfolgt und bekriegt haben, machen sich gemeinsam auf den Weg nach Bethlehem. (ab 5).

Další případ šéfinspektora Simona Seraillera z anglického městečka Lafferton. Pátrání po osobě, která unesla a pravděpodobně i zavraždila malého chlapce, se zastavilo na mrtvém bodě a začíná být jasné, že k vyřešení případu může napomoci snad jen náhoda. Lafferton žije na povrchu dál poklidným životem, ale napětí mezi lidmi postupně vzrůstá a rodiče žijí v permanentním strachu. Pak přijde zpráva, že v Yorkshiru bylo uneseno další dítě. Podaří se policii tentokrát zasáhnout včas?