When Special Forces veteran Jake Harlow returns to the hamlet of Lorne on the Victorian south-west coast for his younger brother Tom's funeral, he finds a sinister series of notes that suggest Tom's death was no accident. With Tom's best friend Stocky, and ex-girlfriend Lucy, Jake starts to dig into secrets old and new. Who might be targeting the Harlow family, and why? As they get closer to the truth, the danger becomes very real. But can Jake, burdened by scars both physical and mental, still protect anyone - including himself?

'Jesus Christ. I found one.' These words are blurted over the phone to Constable Snowy Lane, who is preoccupied with no more than a ham sandwich and getting a game with the East Fremantle league side on Saturday. They signal the beginning of a series of events that are to shake Perth to its foundations. It is 1979, and Perth is jumping with pub bands and overnight millionaires. 'Mr Gruesome' has just taken another victim. Snowy's life and career are to be forever changed by the grim deeds of a serial killer and the dark bloom spreading across the City of Light.

Fran hates Ash Mountain, and she thought she’d escaped. But her father is ill and needs care. Her relationship is over and she hates her dead-end job in the city, anyway. She returns to her hometown to nurse her dying father, her distant teenage daughter in tow for the weekends. There, in the sleepy town of Ash Mountain, childhood memories prick at her fragile self-esteem, she falls in love for the first time and her demanding dad tests her patience, all in the unbearable heat of an Australian summer.

Mary Shields is a moody, acerbic probation officer dealing with some of Glasgow’s worst cases, and her job is on the line. Liam Macdowall was imprisoned for murdering his wife, and he’s published a series of letters to the dead woman, in a book that makes him an unlikely hero - and a poster boy for Men’s Rights activists. Liam is released on licence into Mary’s care, but things are far from simple. Mary develops a poisonous obsession with Liam and his world, and when her son and Liam’s daughter form a relationship, Mary will stop at nothing to impose her own brand of justice.

Even though 16 years have passed, Billie will never recover from the murder of her daughter, Jess, and clings to her memory—and the site of her death—like a life raft. Daniel, who was a toddler when his mother was killed, can recall little of what happened but knows if he’s to have any chance of a better future he needs to move on from that defining event—if only his grandmother would let him. Meanwhile Daniel’s stepmother, Carla, also feels trapped by Jess’s legacy but has a plan that she believes will help everyone to escape from the long shadow of the past.