At first glance, Oliver Cowie — devoted family man, respected educator, all-round good guy — seems an unlikely murder victim, until he's found in a pool of blood, bludgeoned to death in his study. But scratch the surface and it turns out there's no shortage of suspects, ranging from his own wife to feuding colleagues, a vengeful ex-pupil, disgruntled parents, and a rather too-familiar family cleaner.

A well-liked security guard is found stabbed to death, leaving behind his terminally ill wife. Could this pillar of the community have been killed in a drug deal gone wrong, as the evidence initially suggests? Max and Priya discover that the victim had an unsavoury past filled with violence, racism, and hooliganism, and that his death is the latest tragedy in a decades-old cycle of violence.

Robyn Romano, social media sensation and wife of restaurateur Julia Romano, is reported missing. As the race to find Robyn alive pivots to a murder investigation, Max gets a taste of the combustible Romano clan, whose long-standing tensions and disagreements over the running of their eponymous Chelsea eatery may reveal how Robyn met her fate. 

Stonemason Andrew Knightley is pushed under a London Underground train during the morning rush hour. DI Max Arnold and his partner, DS Priya Shamsie, together build a picture of a lonely, devout, and troubled man who believed a spirit was leaving him vengeful Biblical messages. But the killer is flesh and blood, and a more earthly explanation may be found in the truth of Knightley's life.