The Secrets of Pain

In Herefordshire's hop-growing country, a converted kiln is the scene of a savage murder. When the local vicar refuses to help its new owners cope with the aftermath, Merrily Watkins is sent in by the Bishop of Hereford to defuse the situation. Merrily, however, is already contending with a woman's claim that her daughter is possessed by evil. In both cases Merrily remains unconvinced, but nothing is ever quite what it seems.

When Maiden is revived in hospital after dying in a hit and run incident, his memories are not the familiar ones of bright lights and angelic music, only of a cold, harsh place he has no wish to revisit...ever. But his experience means that Bobby Maiden may be the only person who can reach The Green Man, a serial murderer who returns to stone circles and burial mounds in the belief that he is defending Britain’s sacred heritage.

Leo Defford doesn't believe in ghosts. But as the head of an independent production company, he does believe in high-impact TV. Defford hires journalist Grayle Underhill to research the history of Knap Hall, a one-time Tudor farmhouse that became the ultimate luxury guest house...until tragedy put it back on the market. Its recent history isn't conducive to a quick sale, but Defford isn't interested in keeping Knap Hall for longer than it takes to make a reality TV show that will run night after night....

In the ruins of a haunted medieval abbey, four musicians hope to tap into the site's dark history. The experience almost destroys them.

Shadowed by the Malvern Hills, the village of Wychehill is no rural paradise but an uneasy mix of embittered farmers, escapees from the city, and a pub with a reputation for drug dealing. Called in to investigate an unsettling series of road accidents, Merrily Watkins stumbles into a barbed tangle of alienation, murder...and the fatal pursuit of an archaic secret.