A week before Christmas Debbie Stansfield's life falls apart. Her son - her funny, cheeky, kind Richard - has been found hanging from a tree at the Seven Sisters. The police think its suicide but Debbie won't - can't - accept it. Her son would never kill himself. Not her Richard. No way. Richard's four friends know something about his death. Detective Inspector Lorraine Hunt can feel it. The teenagers are clearly terrified about something - something that scares them more than the police. But they're not about to tell....

1985: A man runs for his life - exhausted, wounded, hunted remorselessly by a woman assassin known only as The Head Hunter. At the end, he has just enough energy to spit in her face. 2001: Sixteen-year-old Kerry Lumsdon runs across the same terrain. She runs to win and she runs to forget. When a headless body is found in the wastelands of the Seahills Estate, Detective Inspector Lorraine Hunt is called in to investigate. Kerry and Lorraine, different ages and from different worlds, come together when Claire Lumsdon, Kerry's sister, is violently kidnapped.

He watches them from afar. He knows who they are and where they are. He is waiting in the dark.... A stranger stalks the streets of Houghton le Spring and he is getting too close for comfort for Detective Inspector Lorraine Hunt. Selina, the daughter of Lorraine's partner, DS Luke Daniels, is a beautiful and wilful 16-year-old with a dark past. Just as it seems she's finally getting back on her feet, she's attacked. Is Selina's past catching up with her? Or is there an even more sinister motive to the assault?

A family which rules the world. A group of women no one would suspect. A diabetic girl on the run. DI Mike Yorke never mixes work and play - but his latest case on Holy Island has come a little too close to home. Aunt May is in a coma. Street kid Smiler is seeing doom at every turn. Childhood friend Dave is obsessively praying. The Drugs factory has been broken up, the enslaved children rescued and the monastery restored to the monks.

DI Mike Yorke is coming home. After three months in London, he’s looking forward to being back in the north east – but he’s barely off the train before he’s deep into the most bizarre case of his career. A viciously flogged corpse. Children disappearing. Horrific new street drugs. And buried somewhere is a deadly secret that will lead him down paths so dangerous, he will question the very fabric of society.