P.D. James; Scotland Yard's Adam Dalgliesh investigates the murder of a drug dealer found dead in the basement of a book club. His key witness is a single mother named Sally Jupp who had brought her eight-week-old son with her to the club to visit her former co-workers. The investigation leads Dalgliesh to the country home of the Maxie family, where the young woman is now employed. Mysterious deaths occur, and the detective must deal with a multitude of suspects, evasive answers, and his growing attraction to Deborah Riscoe.

P.D. James; Scotland Yard's Adam Dalgliesh is searching for a "back seat strangler" who has already murdered four people. When an unpopular forensic scientist is found dead in a British government laboratory, Dalgliesh discovers that almost everyone there could be a suspect. When another body is found nearby, the detective must race against time to find the killer.

P.D. James; Investigating a savage death at an exclusive psychiatric clinic, Dalgliesh is caught in a whirlwind of political intrigue and deceit.

P.D. James; The new CEO of a respected London publishing house is found dead and Commander Adam Dalgliesh thinks that the reasons for his death lie in his less-than-reputable past.

P.D. James; Scotland Yard's Adam Dalgliesh is called to investigate when a government minister receives threatening letters. The Minister's own household is a challenge. His exquisite wife makes no secret of her adulterous affair with a fashionable surgeon. His only daughter, deeply involved in left-wing politics, has rejected her Conservative father. He is even resented by his own, strong-willed mother, whose favored son was killed in an IRA terrorist ambush. Dalgliesh has barely started on the case when a series of bizarre deaths turn the informal investigation into an urgent assignment.