Sarah Barron

This is a fact: Ryan Summers walked into Three Rivers College and killed thirteen women, then himself.

But no one can say why.

The question is one that cries out to be answered - by Ryan's mother, Moira; by Ishbel, the mother of Abigail, the first victim; and by DI Helen Birch, put in charge of the case on her first day at her new job. But as the tabloids and the media swarm, as the families' secrets come out, as the world searches for someone to blame... the truth seems to vanish.

Book 1 in the DI Helen Birch series.

Haunted by their past, the Skelf women are hoping for a quieter life. But running both a funeral directors’ and a private investigation business means trouble is never far away, and when a car crashes into the open grave at a funeral that matriarch Dorothy is conducting, she can’t help looking into the dead driver’s shadowy life.  While Dorothy uncovers a dark truth at the heart of Edinburgh society, her daughter, Jenny, and granddaughter Hannah have their own struggles. Jenny’s ex-husband, Craig, is making plans that could shatter the Skelf women’s lives, and the increasingly obsessive Hannah has formed a friendship with an elderly professor that is fast turning deadly.

Meet the Skelfs: well-known Edinburgh family, proprietors of a long-established funeral-home business, and private investigators....When patriarch Jim dies, it's left to his wife Dorothy, daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah to take charge of both businesses, kicking off an unexpected series of events. Dorothy discovers mysterious payments to another woman, suggesting that Jim wasn't the husband she thought he was. Hannah's best friend Mel has vanished from university, and the simple adultery case that Jenny takes on leads to something far darker than any of them could have imagined. As the women struggle to come to terms with their grief, and the demands of the business threaten to overwhelm them, secrets from the past emerge, which change everything....

Annabelle speeds along a deserted mountain road in the Scottish Highlands, suddenly forced to swerve. The next thing she remembers is waking up in a dark, damp room.

Scott is camping in the Scottish woodlands when he hears a scream. He starts to run. Scott is never seen again.

Meanwhile DI Monica Kennedy has been called to her first Serious Crimes case in six months - a dismembered body has been found, abandoned in a dam. When another victim surfaces, Monica knows she is on the hunt for a ruthless killer; but her own dark past isn't far behind.

Keeping on top of the family funeral directors' and private-investigation businesses is no easy task for the Skelf women, and when matriarch Dorothy discovers a human foot while walking the dog, a perplexing case presents itself...

Daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah have their hands full too: The mysterious circumstances of a dying woman lead them into an unexpected family drama, Hannah's new astrophysicist colleague claims he's receiving messages from outer space, and the Skelfs' teenaged lodger has yet another devastating experience.

Nothing is clear as the women are immersed ever deeper in their most challenging cases yet. When the daughter of Jenny's violent and fugitive ex-husband goes missing without trace, real danger presents itself, and all three Skelfs are in peril.

Teenagers Corey Alloway and Bree Dovemuir are best friends. They live on an island where people still pray to ancient Greek gods, and the Underworld is rumoured to be visible from the top of a certain hill. They're closer than sisters—until Bree betrays Corey, and steals her boyfriend, Ali. Corey is consumed by hatred. She goes so far as to vehemently wish Bree dead. At the annual Thesmophoria Festival, Corey kisses a stranger, a boy with golden lips, to show Bree and Ali she's over them both. And later that night, Bree is found floating in the lake—dead....

Flora is forced to move back to the tiny Scottish island of Mure from the bright lights of London. But even the beautiful landscapes and bright blue sea can't lift her spirits - she's too busy looking after her dad and her feckless brothers. Then she chances upon her mum's collection of recipes and begins to cook her way through it. As she she reconnects with her family, and the place she was born, might she also find herself?