Vera

Vera Stanhope is reunited with her first mentor after his home is firebombed and his teenage daughter badly injured in the blaze. Having survived an apparent murder bid, her old friend then makes a tragic decision, leaving Vera to find out why.

What connects the murder of a well-respected social worker and a famous case in which a child was drowned by his own mother? The answer seems to lie in a book the murdered woman was writing—until Stanhope's prime suspect ends up drowned, too.

The authorities at a local army base are keen to declare the death of a decorated Afghanistan War veteran a suicide, but Stanhope has other ideas. Yet when a fellow soldier confesses to the killing, the detective doesn't believe that either and continues to pursue the investigation wherever it leads.

When a young man is found dead with heroin in his body and a stolen credit card in his wallet, Stanhope and Ashworth suspect he led a life his possessive mother knew little about. Only when they learn details of the mother's own life does a motive for murder emerge.