Blue Murder

On the morning after her team's crushing defeat in a cheerleading competition, Melanie Gaskell discovers her mother, Helen, bludgeoned to death in the garage. Helen had also coached the cheerleaders, and Janine realizes that the squad harbors emotions more sinister than team spirit.

For 15 years, Bernard Aspen served a life sentence while his family protested his innocence and campaigned for his release. When someone drowns him in a prison washroom, Richard sees only one way to catch the killer...go undercover inside the jail, risking his own life in the process.

Someone strangled veterinarian Ruth Turner on her daily run near bucolic Hunter's Low. Janine and her team find illicit sex and illegal activities roiling under the placid surface of the community. And a series of arsons, which may or may not be connected to the murder, complicates their investigation.

Jack Taylor-charismatic leader of an up-and-coming rock band-dies in his apartment after a sold-out concert. The investigation takes Janine and Richard deep into Manchester's music scene, where personal and professional jealousies run riot.

While mulling over a promotion that would take her off the squad, Janine supervises a case involving an illegal Belarusian immigrant and private investigator found murdered in a parking lot. At the same time, DS Tony Shap launches a covert investigation of his own.

After a key informant winds up dead, Shap's involvement strains relations on the squad and puts his career in jeopardy. Meanwhile, the tangled affairs between the Belarusian's employer and the family whom he was watching reveal even more motives for murder.