Restless and uncertain of her future in the wake of World War I, former battlefield nurse Bess Crawford agrees to travel to Yorkshire to help a friend of her cousin Melinda through surgery. But circumstances change suddenly when news of a terrible accident reaches them. Bess agrees to go to isolated Scarfdale and the Neville family, where one man has been killed and another gravely injured. The police are asking questions, and Bess is quickly drawn into the fray as two once close families take sides. When another tragedy strikes, the police are ready to make an arrest. What dark truth is behind these deaths? And what about the tale of an older murder --- one that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the Nevilles?

Scotland Yard sends Inspector Ian Rutledge to Benton Abbey, a grand manor with a storied past. The lady of the house claims she saw a violent murder --- but there is no body, no blood. She also insists she recognized the killer: Captain Nelson. Only it could not have been Nelson because he died during the war. Everyone in the village believes that Lady Benton’s losses have turned her mind --- she is, after all, a grieving widow and mother --- but the woman Rutledge interviews is rational and self-possessed. And then there is Captain Nelson: what really happened to him in the war? The more Rutledge delves into this baffling case, the more suspicious tragedies he uncovers.

The Great War is over --- but in Ireland, in the wake of the bloody 1916 Easter Rising, anyone who served in France is now considered a traitor, including nurse Eileen Flynn and former soldier Michael Sullivan, who only want to be married in the small, isolated village where she grew up. Even her grandmother is against it, and Eileen’s only protection is her cousin Terrence, who was a hero of the Rising and is still being hunted by the British. Bess Crawford had promised to be there for the wedding. And in spite of the danger to her, she keeps that promise --- only to be met with the shocking news that the groom has vanished. Eileen begs for her help, but how can Bess hope to find him when she doesn’t know the country, the people or where to put her trust?

A peaceful Welsh village is thrown into turmoil when a terrified boy stumbles on a body in a nearby river. With little to go on, the village police turn to Scotland Yard for help in identifying the body. When Inspector Ian Rutledge is sent from London to find answers, he is given few clues --- a faded military tattoo on the victim’s arm and an unusual label in the collar of his shirt. They eventually lead him to the victim’s identity: Sam Milford. By all accounts, he was a good man and well-respected. Then why is his death so mysterious? Rutledge uncovers a web of lies swirling around a suicidal woman, a child’s tragic fate, another woman bent on protecting her past. But where among all the lies is the motive for murder?

Chief Inspector Brian Leslie is sent to Avebury, a village set inside a great prehistoric stone circle not far from Stonehenge. A young woman has been murdered next to a mysterious, hooded, figure-like stone, but no one recognizes her --- or admits to it. Despite a thorough investigation, it appears that her killer has simply vanished. Asked to take a second look at Leslie’s inquiry, Scotland Yard detective Ian Rutledge also finds very little to go on in Avebury, slowly widening his search beyond the village --- only to discover that unlikely (possibly even unreliable) clues are pointing him toward an impossible solution, one that will draw the wrath of the Yard down on him, and very likely see him dismissed if he pursues it.

Sister Bess Crawford, who has been working with the severely wounded in England in the wake of the Great War, is asked to carry out a personal mission in Paris for a Matron at the London headquarters of The Queen Alexandra’s. When she locates Lawrence Minton, she finds a bitter and disturbed officer who is well on his way toward an addiction to opiates. He tells her that he doesn’t care if he lives or dies, as long as he can find oblivion. But what has changed him? What is it that haunts him? He can’t confide in Bess, because the truth is so deeply buried in his mind that he can only relive it in nightmares. The officers who had shared a house with him in Paris profess to know nothing. Still, Bess is reluctant to trust them even when they offer her their help.

An astonishing tip from a grateful ex-convict seems implausible --- but Inspector Ian Rutledge is intrigued and brings it to his superior at Scotland Yard. Alan Barrington, who has evaded capture for 10 years, is the suspect in an appalling murder during Black Ascot, the famous 1910 royal horse race honoring the late King Edward VII. His disappearance began a manhunt that consumed Britain for a decade. Now it appears that Barrington has returned to England, giving the Yard a last chance to retrieve its reputation and see justice done. Rutledge is put in charge of a quiet search under cover of a routine review of a cold case. But his sanity is suddenly brought into question by a shocking turn of events.

The Great War has ended, and battlefield nurse Bess Crawford has been assigned to a clinic for amputees. She does her best to help them, but it’s clear that they have nothing to go home to. Their officer, Captain Williams, writes to describe their despair, and his own at trying to save his men. Bess feels compelled to look into their situation, so she travels to Wales but is told Williams has left the valley. Fearing that he intends to kill himself, Bess follows Williams to an isolated, storm-battered peninsula. Deserted by her frightened driver, Bess is stranded among strangers suspicious of outsiders. She quickly discovers these villagers are hiding something, and she’s learned too much to be allowed to leave.

A restless Ian Rutledge drives aimlessly, haunted by the past, and narrowly misses a motorcar stopped in the middle of a desolate road. Standing beside the vehicle is a woman with blood on her hands and a dead man at her feet. She swears she didn’t kill Stephen Wentworth. A stranger stepped out in front of their motorcar and fired a single shot before vanishing into the night. Although he is a witness after the fact, Rutledge persuades the Yard to give him the inquiry, since he’s on the scene. But is he seeking justice --- or fleeing painful memories in London? When a second suspicious death occurs, the evidence suggests that a dangerous predator is on the loose, and that death is closer than Rutledge knows.

Though the Great War is nearing its end, the fighting rages on. While waiting for transport back to her post, Bess Crawford meets Captain Alan Travis from the island of Barbados. Later, when he’s brought into her forward aid station disoriented from a head wound, Bess is alarmed that he believes his distant English cousin, Lieutenant James Travis, shot him. Then the Captain is brought back to the aid station with a more severe wound, once more angrily denouncing the Lieutenant as a killer. But when it appears that James Travis couldn’t have shot him, the Captain’s sanity is questioned. Still, Bess wonders how such an experienced officer could be so wrong.

During a heavy rainstorm in England, a driver loses control on a twisting road and is killed in the crash. Was it an accident due to the hazardous conditions? Or premeditated murder? Investigating this perplexing case, Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge discovers that the truth is elusive --- and that the villages on the South Downs, where the accident happened, are adept at keeping secrets, frustrating his search. Determined to remain in the shadows, this faceless killer is willing to strike again to stop Rutledge from finding him. This time, the victim he chooses is a child, and it will take all of Rutledge’s skill to stop him before an innocent young life is sacrificed.

A wounded officer is brought to battlefield nurse Bess Crawford’s aid station, where she stabilizes him. The odd thing is, the officer isn't British --- he's French. But in a moment of anger and stress, he shouts at Bess in German. When Bess reports the incident to Matron, her superior offers a ready explanation. The soldier is from Alsace-Lorraine, a province in the west where the tenuous border between France and Germany has continually shifted through history, most recently in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, won by the Germans. But on which side of the war do his sympathies really lie? When the French officer disappears in Paris, it’s up to Bess to find out why, even at the risk of her own life.

On the north coast of Cornwall, an apparent act of mercy is repaid by an arrest for murder. Four young women have been accused of the crime. A shocked father calls in a favor at the Home Office. Scotland Yard is asked to review the case. However, Inspector Ian Rutledge is not the first Inspector to reach the village. Following in the shoes of a dead man, he is told the case is all but closed. Even as it takes an unexpected personal turn, Rutledge will require all his skill to deal with the incensed families of the accused, the grieving parents of the victim, and local police eager to see these four women sent to the infamous Bodmin Gaol.

An explosion and fire at the Ashton Gunpowder Mill in Kent has killed over a hundred men, and suspicion and rumor raise the specter of murder. While visiting the Ashton family, Bess Crawford finds herself caught up in a venomous show of hostility that doesn’t stop with Philip Ashton’s arrest. The only known witness to the tragedy is now at the Front in France, and he refuses to tell Bess anything that will help the Ashtons. Bess has no choice but to risk her own life to protect this man from a clever killer intent on preventing either of them from ever reaching England.

On a fine summer’s day in June 1914, Ian Rutledge pays little notice to the assassination of an archduke in Sarajevo. An Inspector at Scotland Yard, he is planning to propose to the woman whom he deeply loves, despite intimations from friends and family that she may not be the wisest choice. Meanwhile, a widow’s death will set off a series of murders across England, seemingly unconnected, that Rutledge will race to solve in the weeks before the fateful declaration in August that will forever transform his world.

Home on leave, Bess Crawford is asked to accompany a wounded soldier confined to a wheelchair to Buckingham Palace, where he is to be decorated by the King. The next morning when Bess goes to collect Wilkins, he has vanished. Then comes disturbing word from the Shropshire police, complicating the already-difficult situation: Wilkins has been spotted, and he’s killed a man. If Bess is to save her own reputation, she must find Wilkins and uncover the truth.

A society wedding becomes a crime scene when a man is murdered. After another body is found, the baffled local constabulary turns to Scotland Yard. Though the second crime had a witness, her description of the killer is so strange it’s unbelievable. In going over the details of the case, Inspector Ian Rutledge is reminded of a dark episode he witnessed in the war. To stop a murderer, will the ethical detective choose to follow the letter --- or the spirit --- of the law?

As a young girl, Bess Crawford was living on the Northwest Frontier of India where her father, a colonel in the British army, was stationed. When one of his most trusted officers is accused of murdering his parents, the soldier disappears deep in the Khyber Pass and presumed dead while trying to flee India. Now, 10 years later, Bess is a World War I field nurse and comes across an injured soldier who may be the accused murderer from her father’s ranks.

In the summer of 1920, an unidentified body appears to have been run down by a motorcar. When signs point to murder, one small clue leads Inspector Ian Rutledge to a firm built by two families famous for producing and selling the world's best Madeira wine. Lewis French, the head of the English enterprise, is missing, but is he the dead man? And is Matthew Traynor, French's cousin who heads the Madeira office, somehow involved?

While visiting France in the summer of 1914, Lady Elspeth Douglas is stranded at the port city of Calais with a sea of travelers, soldiers and refugees trying to leave the continent after the Germans invade Belgium at the start of World War I. She begins heroically carrying water to weary soldiers near the front, where she is rescued from a German shelling by Captain Peter Gilchrist. Once she is safely home in England, she cannot forget the gallant captain.

In the spring of 1918, battlefield nurse Bess Crawford discovers the body of an officer --- a family friend --- who has been murdered. Before she can report the terrible news, Bess falls ill, the latest victim of the Spanish flu epidemic. By the time she recovers, the murdered officer has been buried, and the only other person who saw the body has hanged himself. Or did he?

Troubled investigator Ian Rutledge wrestles with a startling and dangerous case that reaches far into the past when a false confession from a man who is not who he claims to be leads to a brutal murder.

Three World War I survivors have been murdered in the quiet English countryside two years after the war. Scotland Yard Inspector Rutledge has been called in --- but with only a few clues to go on and the pressure building, he must gamble everything to find answers. 

When World War I battlefield nurse Bess Crawford takes leave, returning home to England from France, she stumbles upon a stranger needing her help --- a situation that leads her into a murder mystery in which she becomes a major suspect.