by Margaret Murphy (2006)
When Megan Ward goes missing, suspicion falls on the stalker seen outside her house. The police would love it to be so simple, but the closer they look the more mysterious Megan herself becomes. They find no photos, no passport, no family or friends from an earlier life, only the corrupted computer files in Megan's strangely impersonal room. Meanwhile Patrick Doran, owner of Safe Hands Security, is living his own nightmare. A hacker has breached his computer network, where he thought he had safely buried his past. Then Megan's landlady is murdered - and the shadowy Megan re-emerges. The woman who doesn't exist becomes very real, very elusive and very dangerous.
Martin Edwards
The magnificent Dungeon House and gardens overlook Cumbria's remote western coast with its mix of beaches, dunes, and fells, Roman ruins, and nuclear plant. Twenty years ago the wealthy Whiteleys called it home. But not a happy one. Malcolm Whiteley had begun to disintegrate under financial and emotional pressures. He suspected various men in their social circle of being his wife's lover.
Jean Chapman
Out on a morning run, ex-Met officer John Cannon vaults a stile, becomes ensnared in a discarded fishing line - and entangled in trouble. For there is a macabre discovery at the far end of this line, leading John into a search for a missing au pair, which puts him into conflict with the local police and involvement with international crime. He discovers that the local Health Spa has much to conceal, with its security guards and dogs patrolling the grounds. But the Portuguese owner is a ruthless businessman, and Cannon faces danger every step of the way ...
Nicholas Rhea
While seeking the legendary Holy Trough of Blackamoor, D I Montague Pluke comes across a corpse; the dead man, Pluke discovers, has been shot. It is soon established that the victim was a suspect in a murder investigation, and so the eccentric Pluke is pitched headlong into an investigation, which spans both sides of the Pennines, leading him from the beauty of the great outdoors to the seamy backstreets of Manchester.
Mari Hannah
Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels finds herself haunted by her inability to solve a brutal double murder. Then the brutal killing of a man on Newcastle's Quayside opens up another opportunity for Daniels to get it right, and her first case as Senior Investigating Officer. But when Daniels recognises the corpse, she fails to disclose that fact, and that puts her personal life in jeopardy. She finds herself being watched, and as she steps ever closer to finding the killer, that killer is only a breath away from claiming his next victim...