Her name was Abigail Winterburn - at least that's what the newspapers said. They also said that she was wanted in connection with the disappearance of her stepson. But Abigail couldn't remember her stepson - she couldn't even remember being married. And so began a search to find the missing pieces of her life... and the reason why she had lost her memory.

In the early years of Queen Victoria's reign Abel Lackland's children are grown up. Two of his sons have followed their father into medicine. The other, Jonah, now married to Lilith's daughter, has achieved his dream of a career on the stage. However, the reality of being an actor is harsher than he ever imagined - it is a daily struggle to provide for his wife and children. Suddenly something comes into their lives that drives a wedge between them.

When a severed leg is found on the banks of the Thames, Dr George Barnabas, female forensic pathologist and determined investigator, is summoned to the macabre scene. But with no sign of the rest of the body, she cannot say how the man died.Her next case is equally bizarre: a terribly burned woman in a first-floor flat - and the fireman thinks the fire started in the body itself.George, despite budget battles with the hospital boards and squabbles among her lab staff, desperately wants to pursue these with the local Detective Chief Inspector - her lover, Gus Hathaway - but he has been so tied up on another big case that she has barely seen him for a month. George has to surpress a guilty flash of relief that he must surely return to his own patch now and run the investigation.But he doesn't, and his deputy wont let her near the case. George, frustrated but feisty as ever, can only puzzle: is the arson victim linked to the missing body? Only when Gus himself gets into trouble can she at last begin to delve on his behalf. Soon she is on the trail of a crime more tortuous and criminals more dangerous than either she or Gus bargained for.Third Degree is the third of Claire Rayner's much praised mysteries featuring George Barnabas, now established as an exciting and engaging series from a master storyteller. The drama of life in hospital is interwoven with life on the streets and life on the beat in a tale that is compulsively clever and entirely readable.

No one had seen her leave. Numbed by the inexplicable events of the evening, Harriet Darnell found herself running down the dark path away from the bleak mansion she hated, away from the cruel husband she feared. There was no time to question, no time to plan. She was free for the first time in her life, free perhaps for ever...Soon she was away from the house, away from the town, on a train bound for London. But no one — not her husband, nor the townspeople, nor even the conductor who collected train tickets — no one had seen her leave...

Orphans Amy and Fenton arrive in London determined to find fame and fortune on the stage, like their grandmother, the legendary Lilith Lucas. However, Amy also harbours another desire - to discover her family. Her search is destined to rekindle a feud that has smouldered for years. While she cannot fully understand the intricacies of the hostilities, she can not deny her passionate feelings for a man who has a connection with both families.