DEAD END: A call-out to a murder saves D.I Bill Slider from having to finish his canteen lunch, but presents him with the problem of a dead conductor. In life Sir Stefan Radek was seriously famous and terminally unpleasant, but neither of these facts seem reason enough to gun him down in a neo-Byzantine church in Shepherd's Bush.

BLOOD LINES: A celebrated music critic seems to have committed suicide just before appearing on a live television show, but Slider suspects it is murder when it is shown that the body had been interfered with and when he learns that the victim had quarreled violently with his fellow panelists.

KILLING TIME: Only half-recovered from an assault from the last villain he encountered, Slider is forced to investigate the murder of an erotic dancer, finding himself having to question lap-dancers, prostitutes, pimps and cabinet ministers, and discovering one of his fellow officers has dubious links with all of them.