When the body of a successful criminal barrister is found outside a chic Kensington hotel, it looks at first like a suicide. For colleagues and friends, her death comes as a huge shock - Marianne Shearer was at the pinnacle of her career, wealthy and stylish - but for the police the case is open-and-shut.There's something strange about the circumstances, though, something that prompts fellow lawyers Thomas Nobel and Peter Friel to dig deeper. Little by little, they discover that al...

Mr Logo is a familiar figure in the courts, frequently accused of indecent assault, but invariably acquitted due to lack of evidence. He is frustratingly familiar to the Crown Prosecutor Helen West, who again has just failed to prosecute him. This isn't the only set-back in her life: her long-term relationship with Geoffrey Bailey is even more brittle, and she has to deal with the insubordination of her office clerk, which unwittingly sets in motion events which push Mr Logo's rage and dar...

Eileen Cartwright is a woman who knows how to get what she wants. And she wants her handsome solicitor, despite the fact that he is already married.She plots the murder of his wife with chilling ease - but chooses an amateur for the job. He is quickly caught, but proving Eileen's involvement is tougher for the police as meticulous planning and influence put her seemingly above the law. Brought together for the first time, Helen West, crown prosecutor, and Geoffrey Bailey, detective...

Pip Carlton is a devoted husband and a highly respected pharmacist, cherished by his loyal customers in Herringbone Parade. When his wife dies in her sleep, without cause and without pain, he is distraught. Comforted by his caring assistant, Pip struggles to take up the threads of his life, ignoring the rumours about Margaret's death, relieved that the police are content to shrug off the mystery.But Helen West, Solicitor and Crown prosecutor, fresh from hospital herself, refuses to ...

Beautiful, volatile Jessica has long since burned her boats in the village by the sea where she was born. She longs to return, but first she needs to secure the love of the powerful man who has spurned her obsessive adoration.Sarah Fortune, her older, cynical friend, is keen to distance herself from her usual haunts and welcomes the chance to leave London in the hope that she might she be able to effect a reconciliation between Jessica and her mother. Pennyvale both charms and dist...

The warmth of him, the glorious warmth, was fading by the minute.In a huge old school house by the sea, full of precious paintings, Thomas Porteous is dying. His much younger wife Di holds him and mourns. She knows that soon, despite her being his sole inheritor, Thomas's relatives will descend on the collection that was the passion of both of their lives.And descend they do. The two needy daughters, who were poisoned against their father by their defecting mother,...

Richard Beaumont hoped to see the elusive crow on the Dover cliffs. Instead he sees a young woman falling to her death.No-one recognises her, no-one has reported her missing and Richard returns, shaken, to his wife, but instead of finding solace in Lilian's company, he locks himself away and obsessively paints the scene of the woman's broken body on the rocks. His cool behaviour towards her takes Lilian to the flat below and the worldly-wise company of Sarah Fortune. But Sarah, onc...

When the naked body of a woman is found near the Essex commuter village of Branston the locals are as baffled as they are shocked. A crime of passion? Surely not here. But when Crown Prosecutor Helen West and Detective Superintendent Geoffrey Bailey scratch at the thin veneer of gentility they discover a hidden world of passion, envy and betrayal - primed and ready to explode . . .

Helen West's personal life is in need of repair, and she decides the first move is to tidy up her home, helped by her cleaning lady, Cath, who is trapped in a miserable marriage. Working by day with domestic violence cases, Helen finds it too easy to turn a blind eye to Cath's unhappiness, but then her personal and professional lives collide as she witnesses the destructive forces of love and guilt, and finds herself applying her own version of justice.