A summer of endless rain in the Peak District leaves the officers of Derbyshire's CID with a problem. They have discovered a man's body lying in shallow water, but torrential rain has swollen the rivers and flooded the roads, making travel difficult and forensic examination impossible. And that's not all. The absence of DS Ben Cooper, on extended leave after an arson attack, has left a serious gap. DS Diane Fry is a reluctant temporary replacement,...

The newspapers call them the Savages: a band of home invaders as merciless as they are stealthy. Usually they don't leave a clue, but this time they've left a body. As the toll rises, it's up to DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry to track down the killers. But the enemy isn't who they think it is.

For decades Pity Wood Farm has been a source of employment for poor workers passing through Rakedale, migrants with lives as abject as the labour they sought. But now it seems a far worse fate may have befallen some of those who came upon this isolated community.

It was an ordinary house fire with tragic consequences. A wife and two children dead. But for DS Diane Fry and DC Ben Cooper the ordinary always means trouble. Trouble like a bereaved family living in fear. Trouble like the assassination of an elderly woman living alone in the Peak District. What could be the motive?

A May Bank Holiday in the Peak District is ruined when an eight year-old girl drowns among crowds of visitors in the tourist hotspot of Dovedale. For Detective Constable Ben Cooper - a helpless witness - the incident is not only traumatic, but it leads him to become involved in the tangled lives of the Neilds, the dead girl's family.

For the Peak District hamlet of Shawhead, there's only one road in and one road out. Its handful of residents are accustomed to being cut off from the world by snow or floods. But when a lorry delivering animal feed is found jammed in the narrow lane, with no sign of the driver except for a blood-stained cab, it's the beginning of something much more sinister.

As if three bodies on her hands isn't enough, snow and ice have left half of E Division out of action and Fry is forced to partner DC Murfin. Her former partner Ben Cooper is on a trail of his own, however - one as cold as the Peak District January.