Parapsychologist Audrah Sidow is convinced that there is nothing on earth for which there is not a rational explanation. But she knows there is more to the collection of fractured people gathered at Lyndle Hall in the heart of Northumberland's National Park than is apparent.
When Robbie McLaughlan, a Flying Squad officer with London's Metropolitan Police, shoots and kills a robber during a bank raid, his private and professional life begin to fall apart. The family of the dead man discovers McLaughlan's identity, and abducts his young son with the intention of luring McLaughlan to his death. But McLaughlan is a man with a secret and, long estranged from his own father, he ultimately has no option but to turn to the man he despises, for only he can possibly help him.
Roly's Yard is an aviary tacked on to the back of a squat in Central Manchester and Roland Barnes is a killer. Or is he? Boy after boy has come to visit the finches he raises in his aviary, and two of them have disappeared. One of them has been found dead. Detective Superintendent Parker and psychological profiler Murray Hanson are closing in on Roly, but will it be in time to save Roly's latest visitor, Brogan Healey?
When divers discover a woman's corpse in a house that has long been submerged by a reservoir, the retired detective who first investigated the victim's disappearance has his worst suspicions confirmed: Helena Warner, an undergraduate at Somerville College, Oxford, was murdered, and three of her closest friends colluded to protect the identity of the killer. With Bill Driver back on his trail, the killer strikes again, and Driver must try to understand the strange, dark ties that bind Helena's three friends together in silence if he is to prevent further deaths.