Havers gets back to work after being shot and is assigned to a case in rural Suffolk, where a young woman has been murdered with a shot gun. Lynley is worried about the effect the case will have on Havers. Then a photograph of the murdered woman arguing with a man is sent to the police, and a mysterious word is painted on the wall of the crime scene - it seems as if someone is trying to give the team some clues. As a result, they uncover a dark secret that villagers have kept quiet for years. In a final confrontation, Havers has to face down her fear of being back in the line of fire.

Havers is on holiday in Cornwall, learning Akido, and Lynley is also in the county to visit his mother, when a local horse trainer is found hanged in a stable on the estate next to Lynley's. The dead man's money troubles suggest suicide, but then Lynley finds he had links with smuggling. Another lead suggests that the killer may be uncomfortably close to home. As the case develops, Lynley has to think out where his future lies - with the police, or managing his own property?

Lynley and Havers investigate the killing of a porter at the House of Lords. At first it looks as if the murder may be connected to the dead man's gambling debts, but then a senior clerk is also murdered, with evidence of a conspiracy involving stolen test reports on a new missile system. Havers traces the missing documents, but then she finds she and Lynley are both being followed...

The frozen body of a man is found on a meat truck in London's Smithfield Market, and on the body are a forged British passport and an Arabic manuscript on a page of vellum. The dead man appears to be an illegal immigrant - but was his death accidental? The manuscript turns out to be a page of an ancient Koran, hugely valuable. And Lynley finds himself locking horns with Inspector Brennan, of the Metropolitan Police's immigration department...

Since Lynley's arrest and suspension for threatening a suspect, Havers has been without a partner. She begins a new case in Kent alongside the heavily pregnant, no-nonsense Detective Inspector Fiona Knight. Together, they investigate the murder of Edie Covington, whose body has been discovered in a local lake.

When a key witness is murdered, Lynley and Havers find their case against violent criminal Michael Shand crumbling around them.

When aspiring lawyer Emily Proctor is found axed to death in Hyde Park, Lynley and Havers are drawn to the chambers of human rights lawyer Tony Wainwright and his clerk Hester Reed. Wainwright's passionate temper and a concealed affair with the victim seem to place him as the main suspect, but when Emily's double life is exposed, Lynley and Havers enter a world of internet porn and a family haunted by secrets.

When former war photographer Peter Rooker is shot, a murder trail from tabloid newspaper mogul Eddie Price and editor Melissa Booth is traced back to a family executed by the Serbian militia in Bosnia. When Lynley asks his wife Helen to assist him with unlocking the psychological history behind the killing, he sets in motion a tragic trail of events.

Old wounds are reopened when Lynley investigates the disturbing death of his godson more than a decade after the boy's disappearance. Lynley is drawn into the case, leading him first to Rome and then headlong into the middle of a new murder enquiry in which Lynley himself becomes the prime suspect. Will Havers be able to save his skin?

Lynley and Havers's friendship is pushed to its limits in a high profile and chilling investigation into the disappearance of two teenage girls. Can Lynley save the life of the second victim and pin a murder charge on his suspects?