Things can't get much worse for Detective Jane Tennison. Unceremoniously kicked off the adrenaline-fuelled Flying Squad, she now plies her trade in Gerald Road, a small and sleepy police station in the heart of London's affluent Knightsbridge. With only petty crime to sink her teeth into, Tennison can feel her career slowly flatlining. That is until the discovery of the most brutal murder Jane has ever seen: Charlie Foxley has been found viciously beaten to death with a cricket bat - his body dismembered and disembowelled.

Jack Warr is a young DC with the Metropolitan Police. Charming but aimless, Jack can't seem to find his place in the world - until he's drawn into an investigation that turns his life upside down. In the aftermath of a fire at a derelict cottage, a badly charred body is discovered, along with the burnt remnants of millions of stolen, untraceable bank notes - the hidden legacy of Dolly Rawlins and her gang of Widows. Jack's assignment to the case coincides with an investigation into his own past.

Lieutenant Lorraine Page once had everything - a devoted husband, two beautiful daughters and an impressive career with the Homicide Squad. It's impossible to believe that she could be thrown out of the police force and end up on Skid Row. Without Lorraine, her colleagues struggle on, as the hunt for a nightmare serial killer spirals into an all-out search for a missing witness: a victim who escaped. But Lorraine Page is about to be brought right back into that world again....

Detective Sergeant Chris Waters got the call at 05.29 that July morning. This is it, said DCI Reeve, you'll be first there, it's all yours, you're the crime scene manager. Suddenly, after months of waiting and wondering, Waters finds himself in at the deep end, and alone at the scene of a puzzling murder. As the investigation proceeds, the detectives at Kings Lake Central find themselves visiting familiar places and talking to some familiar faces, while old enmities reappear in the incident room. Before this is over, Chris Waters will need to make a career-changing decision.

Rookie detective Anna Travis has been assigned to her first murder case - a series of killings that has shocked even the most hardened on the force. Over the past eight years there have been six victims - all women from similar backgrounds, all killed in an identical way. Then a seventh body is found, but this one doesn't fit the pattern.