Jessica Daniel series: Think of the Children/Playing with Fire/Thicker Than Water – books 4 – 6

Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel is back! In books four, five and six of the bestselling series by Kerry Wilkinson, Jessica finds that, not only are the crimes in Manchester getting more complicated, but her personal life is hotting up too . . .

Think of the Children

Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel is first on the scene as a stolen car crashes on a misty, wet Manchester morning. The driver is dead, but the biggest shock is the discovery of the body of a child wrapped in plastic in the boot of the car.

A thin trail leads Jessica to a list of children’s names abandoned in an allotment shed. With the winter chill setting in and parents looking for answers, Jessica must find out who has been watching local children, and how this connects to a case that has been unsolved for fourteen years.

Playing with Fire

Seven years ago Martin Chadwick set fire to a Manchester pub, not knowing a teenager was sleeping inside. Chadwick’s release from prison is imminent, with journalists gearing up for a good old-fashioned media lynching.

If that’s not enough to keep her occupied, a private investigator is doing a fine job sticking his oar in, it looks like there’s a schoolgirl suicide ring in operation, her car is working a little too well, and the endless rain continues to pound her northern home. Jessica’s personal and professional life is in the balance – giving her barely enough time to focus on the person in her midst seemingly intent on burning everything to the ground.

Thicker than Water

A teenager’s body is discovered in an apparently random house in Manchester. The puzzle deepens when a journalist points out that someone placed an obituary for him just days before his disappearance.

A string of clues point to a club whose owner has an unhealthy interest in Jessica, but then something happens which makes her question the very core of her beliefs. She is left to turn to the one person she knows she can rely on . . . but is that trust misplaced?