Summer 1942. DI Tom Tyler is making a fresh start in Ludlow, Shropshire. On the outskirts of town, St. Anne's Convalescent Hospital has been established in an old manor house to help victims of the war to recover. After a horrifying double murder is discovered on the grounds, Tyler must figure out how the crime could have occurred in such a secluded and presumably impenetrable place, where most of the patients are unable to walk or are blind, or both.
In nineteenth century Toronto Dolly Merishaw, a midwife and abortionist, is found beaten to death. It is up to Detective William Murdoch to discover who her killer was. To do so he must first break the silence that surrounds her line of work and speak with women from every level of the city's social hierarchy to discover who among them may have been willing to kill to keep their secrets to themselves.
Constable Oliver Wicken dies in what appears to be a suicide. However, when new evidence is discovered, Detective William Murdoch is asked to investigate further. During the investigation, he begins to suspect that the suicide is not what it seems.
The Rhodes family are wealthy, turn-of-the-century Britons living in Toronto. Detective William Murdoch handles a case that exposes not only the dysfunctional nature of the family, whose young French-Canadian maid has been discovered dead, drugged, and pregnant in the snow, but also the peculiarities of a class-conscious society.
