Bill Slider Series

The late Mr Lionel Bygood, who looks, to all intents and purposes, like an old-fashioned sort of gentleman, has been bashed in the head with a bronze statue, in what Doc Cameron describes as “our old friend the Frenzied Attack”. It soon emerges that Mr Bygood was a philanthropist, well-known locally for giving help and advice to all who needed it, from all walks of life. But with all signs pointing to the victim knowing his killer, Bill Slider and his team find themselves embroiled in an investigation that provides scant evidence or possible motive, but all too many suspects…

A middle-aged man jumps under a tube train at Shepherd's Bush station, and a teenage girl is killed in a hit-and-run, in a country lane puzzlingly far from her home on the White City Estate: two unrelated incidents which occupy DCI Bill Slider and his team during a slack period. At least it's a change of speed after the grind of domestics, burglaries and Community Liaison. But links to a cold case—another dead teenager, pulled out of the River Thames—create doubts as to whether they are indeed unrelated. And slowly a trail of corruption and betrayal is uncovered, leading Slider and his firm ever deeper into a morass of horror.

Antiques expert Rowland Egerton, the darling of daytime TV, has been stabbed to death in his luxurious West London home. The press are going to be all over this one like a nasty rash: the pressure's on Slider for a result, and soon. Egerton's partner, the bulky, granite-faced John Lavender, found the body; did he also do the deed? Or was it a burglary gone wrong? A missing Faberge box and Impressionist painting point that way. But as Slider and his team investigate, none of the facts seem to fit. And it soon becomes clear that the much-loved, charming Mr Egerton wasn't as universally loved, or perhaps as charming, as Slider was first led to believe…

A young couple discover human remains buried in the garden of their new house: could this be the resting place of 14-year-old Amanda Knight, who disappeared from the same garden two decades before, and was never seen again? The problem comes almost as a relief to DCI Slider, still suffering from the fallout of his previous case. He is not popular with the Powers That Be, and his immediate boss, Detective Superintendent Porson, reckons that at least this little puzzle will keep Slider out of trouble. After all, this is the coldest of cold cases. Most of the suspects and principal players are now dead too, and all passion is long spent. Or is it?

The body of a smartly-dressed businessman turns up in the yard of Eli Simpson's car workshop. But there's no ID in the pockets and Eli swears he's never seen the man before. Then a girlfriend turns up with a name, and claims the victim told her he was someone's “right hand man”. But old fractures and scars suggest a more colourful past. For “right hand man”, DCI Bill Slider and his team read “enforcer”. So who was Mr King? Who was he the muscle for? What did he have to do with the Davy Lane project, and the blackmailing of an MP? And, most crucially, what did he know that made someone decide to terminally muscle the muscle?

Felicity Holland is missing. She left her handsome West London house to go to her weekly pottery class and didn't come back. She's a mature, sensible woman with a stable home life and a happy marriage - no reason to abscond. Her distraught husband is convinced she must have been snatched. DCI Bill Slider and his team know that when a woman goes missing, you have to move fast if there's to be a hope of finding her alive. But with no evidence of foul play - nothing to go on at all - where do you even start looking? The clock is ticking. But as Slider tries to retrace the last known movements of Felicity Holland, he is led ever further down a dark and twisted path into the secret past of this beautiful, enigmatic woman.

The woman lies dead at the foot of the stairs. It's obvious what happened: she tripped and fell. But PC D'Arblay, called to the dilapidated West London villa by an anonymous tip-off, can't shake the feeling that's exactly what someone wants him to think. It was the deep head wound that killed her - but her dying fall left no blood trail, so what was it she hit her head on? DCI Slider, of the Shepherd's Bush murder squad, is soon convinced D'Arblay's right. But with no motive, no murder weapon and no idea even who the victim is, Slider faces steep odds to get a result . . . while each painstaking step towards the truth brings him closer to a ruthless, evil killer.