When Dr. Edwin Lorrimer, a forensic scientist working at a private laboratory is found killed, Detective Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh is sent to investigate. Dalgliesh had been in the area a few months previously investigating the murder of a young woman found in an abandoned car. There are several suspects: Lorrimer's subordinate, Clifford Bradley, who despises him; the new head of the laboratory, Maxim Howarth, who is jealous of his sister's relationship with him; a colleague, Paul Middlemass, who had a fight with Lorrimer. There is also a gruff and likely unethical policeman who was on the grounds of the laboratory at the time of the killing and a local pathologist who is raising his two young children after his wife leaves him for another man. When one of the suspects is also murdered, Dalgliesh learns a key piece of information.

When a student nurse with a penchant for petty blackmail is lethally poisoned during a routine procedure, Commander Dalgliesh and Inspector Massingham have to discover which, of the many guilty secrets held by the staff and students at Nightingale House, was a strong enough motive for murder.

Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh investigates the death of Alice Liddell who ran a home for unwed mothers. One of those residents is Sally Jupp who was a witness in a drugs smuggling and murder investigation in London. Sally works at the local manor house for the Maxies and it is apparent that eldest son Stephen has more than just a passing interest in her. The night after they announce their engagement, Sally is found strangled in her bed. The question is whether her death is related to the London investigation or a completely different reason altogether. Her engagement created a good deal of ill feeling among the Maxies and several guests in the house with any one of them having a motive to kill her.

Frustrated with his career, Commander Dalgliesh is invited to Toynton Grange, a home for the disabled, by his old teacher, Father Baddeley, who is resident there. But unbeknown to Dalgliesh, something happening at the Grange is making the Father uneasy, and Dalgliesh quickly finds himself investigating a series of mysterious deaths.

Sir Paul Berowne - a prominent Government Minister - turns to his old friend Adam Dalgleish following a series of threatening letters delivered to his London home. The minister's wife is in an adulterous affair with a prominent surgeon and she makes no secret of it. Berowne's only daughter is involved in left-wing politics and rejects her conservative father. Adding to his woes, his own mother favoured her son who was killed in an IRA terrorist ambush over Paul. The informal investigation has barely began when Dalgliesh is faced with a series of bizarre deaths that turn the case into an urgent assignment.