On the day of Charles and Diana's wedding, Rebecca Monroe's mother locked herself in the bathroom and never came out. Was it because her squidgy chocolate log collapsed or because Rebecca's grandmother married her first cousin? Can we never know why we do what we do?

Madeleine William has a lot on his mind. Firstly there's The Alaska Factory, the band he plays in. Secondly, there's Madeleine, his high-maintenance girlfriend whose idea of a night of passion is an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical followed by a doorstep peck on the cheek. Lastly, there's the bizarre murder he's just witnessed.

Private eye Kate Brannigan confronts betrayal and cold-blooded greed as she investigates the alien world of medical experimentation and the underbelly of the rock music business.

When a teacher is found dead, having apparently committed suicide, his friend Pierre Hoffman takes over class 4F and finds himself responsible for a group of strangely subdued, well-behaved and yet menacing pupils. Over the weeks that follow, he receives a series of signals that cause him to question the circumstances of his colleague's suicide.

The first novel in Quintin Jardine's bestselling Bob Skinner crime series