Whicher is hired by his one-time political master, former home secretary Edward Shore, to investigate threats made against his son Charles, who has recently returned to London from India with his young family. Shore fears entanglement in a scandal could have devastating repercussions for his career and insists the detective carry out the investigation without involving his former Met colleagues, even after a murder occurs. Whicher's pursuit of justice takes him to the most dangerous corners of the Docklands, but also brings him into contact with a woman who starts to melt his long-frozen heart.
Hired by wealthy West Country landowner Sir Henry Coverley, private inquiry agent Jack Whicher takes on a divorce case in which he follows Sir Henry's young wife as she meets her lover for a romantic assignation in London. When one of the key witnesses mysteriously fails to attend the divorce court, an apparently simple case of adultery spirals into something darker, leading Whicher into the heart of the English countryside and to the uncovering of the most disturbing and destructive of secrets.
