Tim Pepper

Past midnight, a horribly mutilated body is found on a road in Portsmouth. The victim has been killed in a hit-and-run. On the evidence, DI Faraday's latest case seems cut and dried; the dead man had been responsible for the bullying and murder of a boy from his estate. But there's a world of deeper hurt that no-one expected, coming out of the darkness surrounding the investigation..

DI Joe Faraday, badly injured on holiday in the Middle East, is convalescing in the UK. Four deaths in a suspicious farmhouse fire drag him back to work before he's truly fit. His partner, meanwhile, wants to adopt a young Palestinian child. Both privately and professionally, Faraday is under threat. Bazza Mackenzie, Pompey drug-lord, is facing financial metdown as property markets collapse across the globe. Only a multi-million pound stash of cocaine, carefully hidden on a trusted friend's property, can keep his commercial empire afloat. But Bazza's lifeline has disappeared. Ex-cop Paul Winter is still Mackenzie's trusted lieutenant. But his growing doubts about his new life alongside Pompey's top criminal deepen further when Bazza orders him to retrieve the missing cocaine...whatever the cost.

Bazza Mackenzie, Pompey's top criminal, is now beyond reach of DI Joe Faraday. Hungry for power and profile, Bazza decides to stand for Portsmouth North in the general election. And his campaign is taking the city by storm. But politics is an expensive business and so Bazza turns to ex-cop Paul Winter to call in a multi-million pound drug debt.

Winter, though, is facing a nightmare of his own and knows his time with Bazza has to end. Enter DS Jimmy Suttle, the young Major Crimes detective once partnered with Winter himself. Bringing Bazza to his knees, he believes, might just be possible.

Three men. Three weeks of hard campaigning. And the darkest reckoning when the final votes are counted.

A teenager throws a party while her parents are away. More than a hundred kids descend on Rachel's house in the affluent suburb. The party turns into a riot and before the night is over, Rachel and her boyfriend are dead. With a massive crime scene and over a hundred suspects, DI Faraday is confronted with a nightmare investigation. But someone else wants to find the killer...

DI Faraday is involved in two high-profile murders, when he becomes aware of a web of circumstantial evidence with profound implications for DC Paul Winter, who has gone undercover in order to infiltrate a drug ring. The relationship between the two men has never been easy. But now the time has come to bury their differences...