When respected surgeon, Dan Marsden, is shot dead days before his retirement and his teen daughters, Mira and Karen, are abducted, DCI Stanhope and the team face a race against time to track down the killer and save the sisters. Orphaned by a missile attack in Baghdad, a young girl being pulled from the rubble of her building became an iconic image of the Iraq conflict. Brought to Britain for treatment, little Mira was adopted by Dan and his dutiful wife, Laura, under the watchful eye of a family friend. Joined by new addition, DC Barry Kelman, it's not long before the case takes a violent and unexpected turn striking at the heart of Vera and her team.

Vera investigates a fatal stabbing outside a busy Newcastle nightclub. Identifying the victim as ex-Met Officer, John Warnock, the only clues are an empty flat and an unregistered car with six thousand pounds hidden in the boot. With the help of her loyal team, they track John's next of kin to a local farm run by his sister, Maggie. Having recently returned to Newcastle, John had been working at Finches, a large brewery run by Maggie's fiancé, Sam Harper. Lisa Strachan, John's childhood sweetheart, admits to rekindling their affair in recent months. Delving deeper into John's world, Vera uncovers a secret relationship with Sam's daughter, Eva and an under-hand plot to spy on the brewery for a multi-national company eager to buy out the family business. But lawyer Katrina Lennox insists he was called off the case months ago. So why did he continue to spy on Sam Harper?