Mary Denslow

In 1954, at the start of the Cold War, the Soviet military offered four political prisoners their freedom if they participated in an experiment requiring them to remain awake for 14 days while under the influence of a powerful stimulant gas. The prisoners ultimately reverted to murder, self-mutilation, and madness. None survived. In 2018, Dr. Roy Wallis, an esteemed psychology professor at UC Berkeley, is attempting to recreate the same experiment. What begins innocently enough, however, morphs into a nightmare.

Los Angeles, 1954. Sending a pair of mass murderers to the chair got his name in the papers, but veteran fighter pilot turned detective, Augy Small, couldn’t celebrate. The culprits confessed, but the cops only ever found one body. Who had the killers died to protect? Katya Tyler, a Russian enigma with a wad of cash in one hand and a hit list in the other, claims to have the answers. First, she wants Augy’s help to bring down a massive underground network of human traffickers. As the case unfolds, every clue is an echo of his past.

It was not the first time best-selling author Sheila Armstrong had died on stage, but it would most certainly be the last. DCI Alex Warren and his girlfriend, DI Sandra McKinnon, return from a short holiday, but hardly manage to step from the plane before they're called to investigate the suspicious death.

Just as his partner Sandra is due to give birth, DCI Alex Warren is sent to lead a difficult and sensitive investigation. Why has a young Asian girl been sexually assaulted and murdered in the home she shares with her Scottish boyfriend? Families are brought under intense scrutiny as Alex and his team look for answers. Potential motives of racism, Islamophobia, hate, jealousy, and honor killing all have to be considered. But who is behind the killing...and what is the real reason?