Washoe County Library System

Searching for truffles in a wood, a man and his dog unearth something less savoury-a human hand. The body, as Chief Inspector Wexford is informed later, has lain buried for ten years or so, wrapped in a purple cotton shroud. The post mortem cannot reveal the precise cause of death. The only clue is a crack in one of the dead man's ribs. Although the police database covers a relatively short period of time, it stores a long list of Missing Persons....

Former Chief Inspector Wexford returns from retirement to solve a most unlikely case: the mystery of who killed the three people whose corpses were last seen at the bottom of a coal hole in A Sight for Sore Eyes (1999). In the decade since Franklin Merton left St. John's Wood in 1998, Orcadia Cottage has changed hands twice by the time Martin Rokeby pulls up a manhole cover in his backyard and shines a light down a dark shaft to reveal not only the...

In Britain, Chief Inspector Wexford hunts for eco- terrorists who abducted five people, including his wife. They threaten to kill them unless the government halts the construction of a highway through scenic countryside.

Inspector Wexford is plunged into the ubiquitous, secretive realm of domestic violence, where meting out justice is a complex and often delicate business. He knows that these hidden family dramas of humiliation and violence may spill their bounds--and death will claim another victim.