Books in the Lake District Cold-Case Mysteries series

'You'd never believe it to look at me now, but once upon a time I killed a man'Historian Daniel Kind is finding winter in the Lake District tough, especially as his relationship with Miranda seems to be on the rocks. Far from the bright lights of London, Miranda feels increasingly isolated, and Daniel fears that she will just up and leave. She wouldn't be the first. Years ago, Emma Bestwick left her cottage and never came back, her disappearance never resolved, much to the chagrin of DCI Hannah Scarlett, head of the local Cold Case Review Team.But recently there are been calls to the local newspaper dropping hints about Emma's death. With the case reopened, Hannah and Daniel are thrown together again, and soon discover that someone is desperate to preserve the secrets of the past, whatever the cost.

When Orla Payne was seven years old, her brother Callum mysteriously vanished. Shrouded in complicated family matters, namely their parents' divorce and the suicide of their uncle, there were no clear leads about his disappearance. The case was eventually dismissed, as the police concluded their uncle killed himself out of guilt over murdering Callum, despite the fact that the boy's body was never found.Twenty years later, Orla is still haunted by the tragedy and remains convinced of her uncle's innocence. Through working at the residential library, a position she took in order to be near the Hanging Wood where the terrible events took place, Orla gets to know historian Daniel Kind. It is he who recommends she contact DCI Hannah Scarlett, head of the local Cold Case Review Team, to see if she'll be able to help in finding out the truth.But Orla's drunken, incoherent phone call leaves Hannah confused and she's left doubting if there is anything to be done on such a long-dead case. But when Orla is found dead, she reconsiders, partly out of sense of duty and partly out of guilt, and discovers that investigating the past can throw up some very dangerous truths indeed.

Hannah Scarlett's cold case team are looking into the three-year-old mystery of the disappearance of Lily Elstone. Their investigation coincides with the disappearance of another teenage girl, Shona Whiteley, whose father Nigel lives in the Dungeon House, despite its tragic history - twenty years earlier, his uncle Malcolm Whiteley shot his wife and apparently killed his daughter before shooting himself. But as Hannah's team dig down into the past, doubts arise about what exactly happened at the Dungeon House twenty years ago...