There's a serial killer targeting the streets of Newcastle, seemingly picking his victims at random but subjecting them all to the same torturous end. When the Chief Inspector on the case goes missing, it falls on DCI Ryan to track down the man who is brutally murdering women and goading the police to 'catch me if you can'. As everyone becomes a suspect, Ryan and his team get drawn further and further into the case, but for Ryan the nightmare gets closer to home than he could ever have imagined. 

Deborah Jenkins pulls her coat around her as she sets out on her short walk home in the pouring rain. But she never makes it home that night. And she is never seen again.

Four years later, an abandoned baby girl is found wrapped in dirty rags on a doorstep. An anonymous phone call urges the police to run a DNA test on the baby. But nobody is prepared for the results. The newborn belongs to Deborah. She’s still alive.

DS Rakesh Siyal is an idealist. Frustrated as an Edinburgh human rights lawyer, he joins the police, determined to solve the problems he sees with the criminal justice system from the inside, rather than out. His first day as a cop sees him sent down to Galashiels in the Scottish Borders, where he’s given a simple task – return a suspect to Glasgow to face justice.

Elizabeth is Joe’s foster mother, but she loves him like her own. The five-year-old, who adores superheroes and watching the birds outside, is the child she has dreamed of. As she looks into the garden, where he was playing just moments ago, her heart feels like it has been ripped from her chest. She was meant to save Joe from his birth mother who almost harmed his chances at life. The woman who has been trying to desperately get him back. She was meant to protect Joe from her husband. The man who, right now, lies to the police, saying he was making breakfast when Joe disappeared.

Thomas Austin was once a prominent NYPD detective, known for locking up a psychopathic serial killer dubbed "The Holiday Baby Butcher". Now retired in a small beach town in the Pacific Northwest, Austin runs a little café, trying to overcome the loss of his wife, a DA who was gunned down only one year ago.

Kate Marshall was a promising young police detective when she caught the notorious Nine Elms serial killer. But her greatest victory suddenly became a nightmare. 15 years after those catastrophic, career-ending events, a copycat killer has taken up the Nine Elms mantle, continuing the ghastly work of his idol. Enlisting her brilliant research assistant, Tristan Harper, Kate draws on her prodigious and long-neglected skills as an investigator to catch a new monster. But there's much more than her reputation on the line: Kate was the original killer's intended fifth victim....

Liza Larkin, a recent med-school graduate on the cusp of her pathology internship, isn’t like most people. She would rather study the human brain or pound the heavy bag at the gym than spend time with others, and as an outsider she doesn’t let societal norms confine her. So when a stranger’s picture sends Liza’s schizophrenic mother deeper into psychosis, Liza does a reverse-image search to identify him. Upon discovering he is a trauma surgeon at a Massachusetts teaching hospital, she impulsively changes her pathology residency program of choice to his center.

Carter Mills was a successful and well-known investment broker. He and his wife Loretta had an ideal marriage with three kids, a beautiful home, and even a condo in the Dominican Republic. But their storybook life ended on the day that Loretta fell in the shower and died. Carter tried to save her, he'd even tried to do CPR, but it wasn't enough. His beautiful wife and the mother of his children was gone.

Fran finds her standing by the swings. A little girl, Esther, no older than seven years old, by herself in the dead of night, her pretty but old-fashioned yellow dress covered in grass stains and her hair dishevelled. She says she's waiting for Father, and that strikes Fran as particularly odd. After Esther is reunited with her family, Fran can't stop thinking about this pious child whose imaginary friend is God. Fran's instincts tell her something is very wrong. Why does Esther keep running away from home, and how did she get that bruise on her leg? 

Jen Shaw has climbed all her life. The riskier the ascent, the better. Until she went too far and hurt the people she cares about. So she's given it all up now and checked herself into a rehab centre to prove it. Yet, when Jen awakens drugged and dangling off the local lighthouse less than 24 hours after a 'family emergency' takes her home to Cornwall, she needs all her skill to battle her way to safety. Has Jen fallen back into her old ways, or is there a more sinister explanation?

The woman is dark-haired and young, judging by the short red dress. Any other signs of her identity have been erased during her long wait to be found, but it’s clear she was strangled: this was a passionate and personal murder. D.I. Bernadette Noel knows that every second counts if she is to catch this killer, but she has no leads - until the discovery that the dead woman’s rings match a stolen property report, and the rings’ owner mentions Rosa, her missing nanny.

Three severed hands. No clues. A race against time. Three embalmed hands are discovered in a disused Victorian house. Is it a gangland ritual? The work of a cult? Or just a prank played by Medical Students? And what happened to the bodies? Meanwhile the Coroner needs to issue a Presumption of Death certificate on a teenage girl who vanished eleven years ago in mysterious circumstances. As hints emerge the two cases are connected, DI Ridpath pushes himself to the limit to find out what really happened.

Alexa Chase, 34, a brilliant profiler in the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, was too good at her job. Haunted by all the serial killers she caught, she left a stunning career behind to join the US Marshals. As a Deputy Marshal, Alexa—fit, and as tough as she is brilliant—could immerse herself in a simple career of hunting down fugitives and bringing them to justice.

John Tyler finally built the life he wanted. But his past casts a long shadow. Eight years retired from the army, Tyler manages his PTSD and begins a job as a classic car mechanic. He's a single dad to Lexi, who's about to enter college. Life is looking up. Then, everything comes crashing down. Tyler's former commanding officer is out of prison and hellbent on revenge. Their mutual hatred has been simmering for years. When it finally boils over, everyone and everything in Tyler's life is threatened.

The first three crime thrillers in the Detective Sebastian Clifford series together in a single collection for the first time. This collection includes Web of Lies, Speak No Evil, and Never Too Late.