Detective Lola Harris returns from a miserable solo holiday – an effort to get over her useless ex – only to find herself in charge of a high-stakes investigation. She rushes to a crime scene in the historic Gallowgate neighbourhood. The smell in the basement is thick and sweet, even through Lola’s forensic mask. The old wooden chair and the rope hanging from its arms are stained red. The earth below is saturated with blood. Six candleholders, their lights burned out, lend the scene an air of a completed ritual. And yet there is no sign of a body.

Book 1 in the thrilling new crime series, by David J. Gatward, author of the DCI Harry Grimm crime series, and set in the hauntingly beautiful Somerset countryside.

Flower shop owner Ellie McEwan is driving home late one frosty November night when a shadowy figure leaps into the road out of nowhere. Ellie swerves to avoid him — and slams head-on into the crash barrier. Days later, Ellie wakes up in hospital — and notices there’s something different. Everyone she looks at — the doctor, the nurse, her friend Carole — is surrounded by a coloured aura. Her near-death experience seems to have given her a new ability. And now Ellie must use her new-found gift to catch a killer.

The Earl of Wrexford possesses a brilliant scientific mind, but boredom and pride lead him to reckless behavior. He does not suffer fools gladly. So when pompous, pious Reverend Josiah Holworthy publicly condemns him for debauchery, Wrexford unsheathes his rapier-sharp wit and strikes back. As their war of words escalates, London's most popular satirical cartoonist, A. J. Quill, skewers them both.

Archaeology professor Carla James is reeling following the death of her husband. Desperate for a change of scene, she takes a job at an elite New England college. On her first day, Carla is asked to represent the department at a murder site. She initially believes there is nothing notable about the scattered debris that surrounds the body, but there is more to the case than meets the eye. This victim is just the latest in a series of unsolved deaths. Nothing obvious links them but Carla is convinced - there is a methodical killer operating in the shadows.