Set in the medieval town of Shrewsbury, this is the third in the compelling '-Martha Gunn' series – When a woman arrives in A and E clutching a child in a pink blanket, Martha Gunn is not quite ready to make the discovery that the evening has in store for her. The baby is dead, and not only that, it has been mummified. Post mortem reveals the child to be a new born, deceased for over five years and, despite the mysterious woman's protestations that it is called '-poppy', most certainly a boy. As always coroner Martha Gunn reserves judgement until she is able to get to the bottom of the case.

Coroner Martha Gunn is baffled by the discovery of an unidentified body in the ruins of a local beauty spot.On a bright spring morning, John Hyde opens the gates to the grounds of Moreton Corbet Castle, a local medieval ruin, and discovers the body of a homeless man with his throat slashed.Detective Inspector Alex Randall and his team soon face some disturbing questions: was this a random attack, or does someone have a vendetta against the homeless? For coroner Martha Gunn, establishing the man's identity is essential, but there are no clues . . . Who is he? What was he doing in the grounds of a Shropshire beauty spot?As the mystery deepens, the need for answers becomes increasingly important. Can Martha and Alex solve the puzzle?

Dr Megan Banesto has returned to her childhood home in Llancloudy in the Welsh valleys. As the local GP, she feels she knows her patients well. So when the body of paranoid schizophrenic Bianca Rhys is dragged from a murky pool, Megan becomes suspicious. The official verdict is suicide but whey would someone afraid of water go near the pool?Investigating officer PC Alun Williams happens to be Megan’s old flame and, rather than take the young GP seriously, he sees Megans’ interest in the case as simply a ruse to keep in contact with him. But as Megan discovers more about Bianca she becomes intrigued by the outlandish claims she used to make. What if Bianca was the only one who knew what was really going on in Llancloudy?

In separate locations in Leek, Staffordshire, three separate tableaux are being performed. DI Joanna Piercy is writing to her lover Matthew to try and explain recent events; her sikekick Mike Korpanski is filling in his insurance form after his wife has had a minor accident in the car; and an unknown person is penning love letters to a local doctor. It seems that no one could lead a more mundane life than Beatrice Pennington, a woman who joins Joanna's cycling club, anxious to regain her figure by dieting and keeping fit. Unexciting; mid-forties; married; a part-time librarian; grown-up kids; her life appears unremarkable. But weeks later a drama unfolds around her. A month after Beatrice begins her quest for health and glamour her distraught husband arrives at the police station to report her missing. At first Joanna assumes Beatrice has decamped with another man. Evidence certainly seems to point this way. But as Joanna begins to peel back the layers of Beatrice's seemingly uneventful life she begins to realise: Beatrice was no ordinary woman.

A deadly fire reunites coroner Martha Gunn with Detective Inspector Alex Randall in the fourth book in this successful series.When firemen are called to an intense blaze at the Grange in Melverley, they find the bodies of Christie Barton, her daughter, Adelaide, and father-in-law, William, along with evidence that suggests the fire was started deliberately. Detective Inspector Alex Randall enlists the help of coroner Martha Gunn, but the puzzle deepens with a second house fire—the occupant, retired nurse Monica Deverill, is missing. Where is she, and what links the two fires? The answers lie in a secret buried in the past...

Jonathan Selkirk—make your will'. Hours after opening this letter, high-powered solicitor Jonathan Selkirk is in hospital recovering from a suspected heart attack. That night, he vanishes from his private room. Has he discharged himself? Or been abducted? In the same hospital, Detective Inspector Joanna Pierce finds herself coping with a murder investigation, a broken arm, and the arrival of the Regional Crime Squad. Superintendent Karen Pugh thinks there is a contracted killer at work—but who, in the small village of Leek, could have hired him?

Sharon Priest is on the moors in a flimsy red dress and spindly high-heels. It is cold, very cold, as a snowstorm sweeps the moors and Leek. But Sharon doesn't feel the cold...Neither does Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy, for she is at the annual Legal Ball fending off Randall Pelham who wants her to find his missing daughter Deborah. It is not Deborah but Sharon who soon concentrates Joanna's mind. The thaw sets in, and Sharon's frozen body and its horrific injury reveal that Joanna has a murder on her hands. And not just one, either...

The disappearance of two French girls in a Staffordshire beauty spot signals a tough new case for Detective Joanna Piercy. Cécile Bellange is a worried mother. Her eighteen-year-old daughter Annabelle and her friend Dorothée left Paris for a summer hitchhiking holiday in England, but it's now September and the only contact from them is a postcard sent from the picturesque setting of Rudyard Lake in Staffordshire three months ago. Meanwhile, in England, brothers Martin and James Stuart find a note from two French girls, inviting the finder to meet them at Rudyard Lake. Their enquiries lead them to Mandalay, an upmarket guesthouse where the girls stayed just before their disappearance, and its owner, the creepy peeping tom, Mr Barker. Arriving in England, Cécile Bellange meets Detective Joanna Piercy, who is looking into the girls' disappearance. Soon Joanna must answer two important questions: what is the anxious Mr Barker trying so desperately to hide, and...

Dave Shackleton could sense that all was not well at Hardacre farm when he arrived on his morning milking round. The cows had been let out of their field and were waiting impatiently at the milking parlour—yet there was no sign of the farmers.But when Shackleton enters the farmhouse he discovers the bodies of Aaron Summers and his son Jack, with their abandoned shotgun propped by the door. Was this a case of murder—then suicide?The forensic evidence suggests otherwise, leaving Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy with a far more serious case—murder by person or persons unknown. When she learns that Aaron also had a daughter, Ruthie, Piercy sets a massive police search in motion to find her—either alive or dead...