Wire in the Blood

DI John Rebus is a hard drinking, unkempt, womanizing police officer whose job is his whole life. He is the most senior and most experienced DI at his station. He has a mysterious past that his partner DS Siobhan Clarke learns about from time to time through various comments Rebus makes. She is a young woman who wants to succeed, but does not have much of a personal life. She feels being paired with Rebus jeopardizes her career because of his unorthodox methods, but she is also fascinated by the man and is extremely loyal. DI Rebus' boss is Chief Superintendent Templar, a woman who was one of Rebus' lovers in a distant past. Their relationship is now one where they barely tolerate each other.

Sir Paul Berowne - a prominent Government Minister - turns to his old friend Adam Dalgleish following a series of threatening letters delivered to his London home. The minister's wife is in an adulterous affair with a prominent surgeon and she makes no secret of it. Berowne's only daughter is involved in left-wing politics and rejects her conservative father. Adding to his woes, his own mother favoured her other son who was killed in an IRA terrorist ambush over Paul. The informal investigation has barely began when Dalgliesh is faced with a series of bizarre deaths that turn the case into an urgent assignment.

Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh investigates the death of Alice Liddell who ran a home for unwed mothers. One of the residents there is Sally Jupp, who was a witness in a drug-smuggling and murder investigation in London. Sally works at the local manor house for the Maxie family, and it is apparent that eldest son Stephen has more than a passing interest in her. When a murder occurs at the Maxie residence, the question is whether it is related to the London investigation or was committed for a completely different reason altogether.

When Dr. Edwin Lorrimer, a forensic scientist working at a private laboratory is found killed, Detective Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh is sent to investigate. Dalgliesh had been in the area a few months previously investigating the murder of a young woman found in an abandoned car. There are several suspects: Lorrimer's subordinate, Clifford Bradley, who despises him; the new head of the laboratory, Maxim Howarth, who is jealous of his sister's relationship with him; a colleague, Paul Middlemass, who had a fight with Lorrimer. There is also a gruff and likely unethical policeman who was on the grounds of the laboratory at the time of the killing and a local pathologist who is raising his two young children after his wife leaves him for another man. When one of the suspects is also murdered, Dalgliesh learns a key piece of information.

In the eighteenth century, London is a city filled with prostitutes, pimps, gamblers and villains. In a time before the invention of modern policing procedures, the novelist Henry Fielding and his blind brother John, battle the perilous streets of Covent Garden in their quest to clean up the crime-ridden city.

When a student nurse with a penchant for petty blackmail is lethally poisoned during a routine procedure, Commander Dalgliesh and Inspector Massingham have to discover which, of the many guilty secrets held by the staff and students at Nightingale House, was a strong enough motive for murder.