'The best literary storyteller in Britain' (Crime Time) is back!

Umiko Wada has recently had quite enough excitement in her life. With her husband recently murdered and a mother who seems to want her married again before his body is cold, she just wants to keep her head down.

As a secretary to a private detective, her life is pleasingly uncomplicated, filled with coffee runs, diary management and paperwork.

That is, until her boss takes on a new case. A case which turns out to be dangerous enough to get him killed. A case which means Wada will have to leave Japan for the first time and travel to London.

Following the only lead she has, Wada quickly realises that being a detective isn't as easy as the television makes out. And that there's a reason why secrets stay buried for a long time: because people want them to stay secret, and they're prepared to do very bad things to keep them that way...

'A cracker, twisting, turning and exploding with real skill.' - Daily Mirror

Harry Barnett is a middle-aged failure. Leading a shabby existence in the shadow of a past disgrace, he is reduced to caretaking a friend's villa on the island of Rhodes and working in a bar to earn his keep. Then a guest at the villa - a young woman he had instantly and innocently warmed to - disappears on a mountain peak.

Under suspicion of her murder, Harry stumbles on a set of photographs taken in the weeks before her disappearance. Obsessed by the mystery that has changed his life and determined to clear his name, he begins to trace back the movements and encounters that led to the moment when she vanished into the blue. The trail leads him back to England, to a world he thought he had left for ever - and a past he has tried desperately to forget.

Some secrets are best kept hidden...

Nick Paleologus is summoned to resolve a dispute that threatens to tear his family apart. His father, Michael, is a retired archaeologist and supposed descendant of the last Emperors of Byzantium. Michael has received a hugely generous offer for the family home in Cornwall, but refuses to sell - and refuses to divulge why.

But soon the stalemate between Nick's siblings and their father is tragically broken. And only then do they discover why their father was bound to protect the house at all costs.

Their desperate efforts to conceal the truth drag them into a deadly conflict with an unseen and unknown enemy. Soon, Nick realises the only chance they have of escaping from their persecutor's trap is to hunt this ruthless adversary down. But the hunt involves excavating a terrible secret from their father's past. And once that secret is known, nothing will ever be the same again.

For actor Toby Flood, Brighton is the final week of a long tour. One night he is visited at the theatre by his estranged wife, Jenny, who, visibly scared, thinks she is being stalked. She asks Toby, for old times' sake, to find out what is going on.

Alarmingly he discovers a sinister connection with Jenny's new partner. Spurred on by a desire to win Jenny back, Toby begins to ask some difficult questions. Before he fully understands the risks he is running, he finds himself caught up in a mysterious - and dangerous - tangle of family rivalries and murderous intent. Suddenly the prospects for his survival start to look very far from good...

Harry Barnett thought he had left his military career behind, so he is startled when two figures from his past turn up on his doorstep after fifty years. An old friend has organised the reunion to end all reunions: a weekend in the Scottish castle where the ex-comrades took part in a psychological experiment many years before. They haven't seen each other since.

As they set off on their all-expenses-paid jaunt to Aberdeen, the old friends are in high spirits. But the cheerful atmosphere is quickly shattered by the apparent suicide of one of their party.

When a second death occurs, a sense of foreboding descends on the group. It appears that the past is coming back to haunt them, a past that none of them have ever spoken about. Their recollections are all frighteningly different. So what really happened?

Then when one of them uncovers an extraordinary secret, he becomes convinced that they will never leave the castle alive...

It is a hot summer's day in the tourist village of Avebury. A man sits outside the Red Lion pub, waiting. He sees a woman with three young children, two of them running ahead while their sister dawdles behind. A child's voice catches on the breeze.

For want of anything more interesting to do, the man watches. He sees nothing sinister or threatening. Even when another figure enters his field of vision, he does not react. The figure is ordinary - male, short-haired, stockily built.But he is moving fast, at a loping run.

And then it happens. In one swift movement, the running man grabs the youngest child and carries her away. Still the man outside the pub does not react. Suddenly, awhite transit van bursts into view, its engine racing, its rear door slamming shut. The child and her abductor are inside. The child's sister rushes forward. The man outside the pub jumps up...

The tragedy begins at Avebury. But it does not end there.

One fateful summer evening, businessman Robin Timariot meets a strikingly beautiful woman while out walking. They exchange only a few words, but those words prove to be unforgettable. A few days later, the newspapers are full of the rape and murder of Lady Louise Paxton - and to his horror, Timariot realises that this was the woman he met just hours before her death.

A man is swiftly charged and convicted of the crime, but a series of bizarre events begin to convince Timariot that all is not what it seems. Against his better judgement, he is soon sucked into the tortuous complexity of the dead woman's life. But the closer Timariot gets to the truth, the more hideous and uncertain it seems to be. And far too late, he realizes that anybody who uncovers it is unlikely to live...

Recovering from the tragic death of his wife, Tony Sheridan goes to stay with his sister-in-law, Lucy, and her husband.Their home is a bizarre moated house deep in the Rutland countryside, known as Otherways.

Disturbed by memories of his wife, and a growing attraction to Lucy, Sheridan is also troubled by weird and vivid dreams. Soon he learns that Otherways is a house steeped in a history of murder and wartime treason. And it seems that these crimes hold an eerie influence over the present inhabitants.

1882. When the creak of the garden gate one autumn afternoon sounds the arrival of an unexpected stranger, William Trenchard is puzzled, but not alarmed. He cannot possibly know the destruction this visitor will wreak on all he holds dear.

The stranger is James Norton, who claims to be the man William's wife Constance was once engaged to, and who was reported to have committed suicide eleven years ago. Trenchard fears the loss of his wife's affections, but he is forced to plumb the depths of his own despair before the dark secrets of the Davenall family can finally - shockingly - be revealed...

Harry Barnett is shocked to learn that he has a son - David Venning, a brilliant mathematician, now languishing in hospital in a diabetic coma. And this is only the first and smallest of the mysteries he is about to encounter.

It is not known whether David's condition is due to an accident or a suicide attempt. But Harry discovers that his mathematical notebooks are missing from the hotel room where he was found. And two other scientists employed by the same American forecasting institute have died in suspicious circumstances.

Driven on by the slim hope of saving the son he never knew he had, Harry goes in search of the truth and finds himself entangled in several different kinds of conspiracy - none of which he ought to stand the slightest chance of defeating.

1931. The new, luxurious transatlantic liner Empress of Britain is on her eastward passage. Among the first-class passengers on board are two English confidence tricksters, making a discreet exit from a scam they have left behind them in the United States. A chance meting on deck brings them a tempting new target in the shape of the beautiful and wealthy heiress, Diana Charnwood.

It's a trick they've pulled before, with some success. Charm the daughter into an engagement to marry, then get the father to buy you off. So confident are they of success, in fact, that they make a pact: whichever of them wins Diana Charnwood's love will share his fortune with the other.

But a violent death is to interrupt their neat little scheme. And they find themselves stumbling into something much darker than either had suspected...