The Suspicions of Mr Whicher

When three-year-old Saville Kent is found brutally murdered at the elegant Road Hill House on the edge of a sleepy English village, the local community is rocked. On the orders of the Home Secretary, Inspector Jonathan 'Jack' Whicher is despatched to the countryside to restore justice. Behind the seemingly respectable middle-class facade of the Kent family, he discovers adultery, insanity and jealousy in a world populated by gossiping servants, a wicked stepmother and rebellious children. The case proves the most difficult of his career. And when he reaches his shocking conclusion there is uproar and bewilderment...

Inspector Jack Whicher is back, but he has left the Metropolitan Police under a cloud and his days as a detective are behind him. But when he saves a respectable country lady from a violent robbery in a dangerous quarter of London, he learns that the woman, Susan Spencer, is desperately hunting for her vulnearble young niece, Mary. Mary has come up to London in search of a young man, Stephen Gann, who has made her pregnant. Susan commissions Jack Whicher as a "private inquiry agent" to find her niece and Whicher is drawn irresistibly into a disturbing and puzzling murder case, which brings him up against wealthy and powerful figures and throws him into conflict with his former colleagues in the Metropolitan police.

Jack Whicher is hired by his one-time political master, former Home Secretary Edward Shore, to investigate threats made against his son Charles, who has recently returned to London from India with his young family. Shore fears entanglement in a scandal could have devastating repercussions for his career and insists the detective carry out the investigation without involving his former Met colleagues, even after a murder occurs. Whicher's pursuit of justice takes him to the most dangerous corners of the Docklands, but also brings him into contact with a woman who starts to melt his long-frozen heart.

Whicher is hired by West Country landowner Sir Henry Coverley to take on a seemingly straightforward case of infidelity, following the client's young wife as she meets her lover in London. However, when a key witness mysteriously fails to attend the divorce hearing, the investigation takes a dark twist, leading the private inquiry agent into the heart of the English countryside and to the most disturbing and destructive of secrets.