Yorkshire, 1983. Lorraine Quick's life was looking up with a promotion that took her away from the grim Memorial Hospital and all its bad associations. But now Lorraine has her work cut out for her building a PR-friendly team out of the ragtag staff of the infamous Windwell Asylum as it transitions into a modern, top-security unit housing some of the most dangerous criminals in the country. And then Lorraine discovers a brutal murder has taken place on site despite the fifteen-foot-high perimeter wall and heavy-duty locks.

Between the asylum's lingering reputation for violence, the haunting underground tunnels of the old institution and the arrival of almost-old flame DS Diaz to investigate the murder, events are coming to a head for Lorraine at the old asylum.

For readers who love a tense and twisty medical thriller like Freida McFadden's Ward D and Leslie Wolfe's The Surgeon. The bleak, Yorkshire moorland setting and Thatcher's beleaguered NHS provides a chilling backdrop for an impossible-to-put-down crime thriller. The dark side to the profession that purports to 'do no harm' has perennial fascination with readers. The follow-up to Bailey's chilling Sharp Scratch, Isolation Ward similarly draws upon the author's time working at the - heart of the NHS, including Ashworth top security psychiatric hospital.