After Rachel Childs, a former journalist, suffers an on-air mental breakdown, she lives as a virtual shut-in. In all other respects, however, she enjoys an ideal life with an ideal husband. Until a chance encounter on a rainy afternoon causes that ideal life to fray. As does Rachel's marriage. As does Rachel herself. Sucked into a conspiracy thick with deception, violence, and possibly madness, Rachel must find the strength within herself to conquer...

Covering a polo match for the Observer, Emma's job is to take note of the real players off the field, Newport's well-bred elite. But the fashionable facade is breached when Emma is confronted with a crime scene. An intruder from the polo match lies dead at the foot of a grand staircase at Chateau sur Mer.

Local reporter Lucy Stone finds her swanky Mother's Day brunch with her brood marred by two mothers who use their teenage daughters in elaborate games of one-upmanship that go too far when one of the teenagers is shot to death.

"A riveting thrill ride of a novel from a captivating new series, 1989 confirms internationally bestselling author Val McDermid as one of crime fiction's true masters. It's 1989 and journalist Allie Burns is growing up. Older and maybe wiser than the hustling young hack we met in 1979, she's running the northern news operation of the Sunday Globe, chafing at losing her role in investigative journalism and at the descent into the gutter of the UK tabloid...