Young Tom French was found dead, lying in a marsh on the Norfolk coast, with his head bashed in and his binoculars still around his neck. One of the best birders in England, Tom had put the village of Rushy on the birdwatching map. Everyone liked him. Or did they? George Palmer-Jones, an elderly birdwatcher who decided quietly to look into the brutal crime, discovered mixed feelings aplenty. Still, he remained baffled by a deed that could have been motivated by thwarted love, pure envy, or something else altogether.

A routine weekend visit by the Gillibry Bird Observatory Trust is made memorable by the owner’s announcement that he is going to sell the island. A sale would mean the end of the Observatory, which for some of the birders made life worth living. A fire in Charlie Todd’s cottage added to their distress. And when, next morning, after a fierce storm, they found Charlie dead in a bird hide, their pleasant September weekend assumed a dangerous new face.

It was winter. Cold and clear, a different sort of day for this coast where the westerly winds usually blew rain and cloud. Detective Inspector Matthew Venn is standing by his kitchen window when he first spots them. Two young girls, facing away from him, seemingly staring towards something in the distance. They are holding hands, and they are alone.

Newlyweds Jim and Sarah were welcomed home from their honeymoon to the Scottish island of Kinness with a huge celebration and the whole island was present to witness the bitter end. But did Jim’s younger sister Mary fall? Or was she pushed? George Palmer-Jones, retired birdwatcher and amateur detective, suspected the latter, but proving it would be difficult—no one wanted to upset the balance of the island’s ancient relationships.

Old college friends Rob, Oliver and Mick reunite on a bird-watching tour to America. It is the first time in 20 years the three have been together—since the fateful holiday to America during which they met the enigmatic Laurie.... The tour party is hoping for spectacular sights at High Island on the Upper Texas coast, but as the rain pours down and the birds descend, Mick is discovered dead. Back in Britain, PIs George and Molly Palmer-Jones are working on a minor fraud case with name of Brownscombe Associates attached. 

A rare and unrecorded sea bird captures all the birders attention whilst right under their noses the most fanatical birder of them all disappears. Later, Greg Franks’s corpse, the head bludgeoned, is found floating in the sea. Had it not been for Greg Franks, amateur detective George Palmer-Jones would not have been on the bird watching trip in Cornwall to the first place. He had been hired by Greg Franks’s anxious parents to try and persuade their errant son to return home.

Pandemic lockdowns have Ruth Galloway feeling isolated from everyone but a new neighbor - until Nelson comes calling, investigating a decades-long string of murder-suicides that’s looming ever closer. 

A visit to her local prison brings DI Vera Stanhope face to face with an old enemy: former detective superintendent and now inmate John Brace. Brace was convicted of corruption and involvement in the death of a gamekeeper - and Vera played a key part in his downfall. Now Brace promises Vera information about the disappearance of Robbie Marshall, a notorious wheeler-dealer who disappeared in the mid-'90s, if she will look out for his daughter and grandchildren.

James was in high spirits because he’d finally completed his long awaited autobiography. He didn’t leave a suicide note. But even more suspiciously the record of his life’s environmental achievement, his magnum opus, has gone missing. Troubled, Meg calls in amateur sleuths George and Molly Palmer-Jones to investigate. They soon uncover that life in the Morrissey family is not as idyllic as it seems—relations with ex-wife Cathy are not as friendly as Meg makes out and James appears to have fallen for another women.

Ursula Ottway’s beautiful cottage is wanted by her landlord, politician Marcus Grenville, so he can convert it into a holiday residence. So when Ursula discovers that the illegal use of poisoned bait on Grenville’s land has killed not only a rare bird of prey but her two beloved cats, she storms to his house and threatens revenge. Shocked and saddened to find Ursula’s body the morning after this conflict, Molly and her husband, George, decide to piece together a picture of Ursula’s last days. 

Life seems perfect in the quiet community of Valley Farm. Then a shocking discovery shatters the silence. The owners of a big country house have employed a house sitter, a young ecologist, to look after the place while they're away. But his dead body is found by the side of the lane - a lonely place to die. When DI Vera Stanhope arrives on the scene, she finds the body of a second man. What the two victims seem to have in common is a fascination with studying moths - and with catching these beautiful, intriguing creatures.

As the snow falls thickly on Newcastle, the shouts and laughter of Christmas revelers break the muffled silence. Detective Joe Ashworth and his daughter Jessie are swept along in the jostling crowd onto the Metro. But when the train is stopped due to the bad weather, and the other passengers fade into the swirling snow, Jessie notices that one lady hasn't left the train: Margaret Krukowski has been fatally stabbed. 

DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but her hippy neighbors keep her well supplied in homebrew and conversation, and somehow bonds have formed. When one of them goes missing, Vera tracks the young woman down to the Writer’s House, a country retreat where aspiring authors work on their stories. Things get complicated when a body is discovered, and Vera’s neighbor is found with a knife in her hand.

As the first anniversary of the formation of the Kings Lake murder squad approaches, there is a problem—they've run out of murders. As a result, they are given the task of reviewing unsolved cold cases. One of these comes back to life in unexpected ways as the team try to discover the identity of the young woman whose body was found in the Norfolk countryside two decades ago. And even if they can give her a name, how can they possibly find her killer after so many years?

When Inspector Vera Stanhope finds the body of a woman in the sauna room of her local gym, she wonders briefly if, for once in her life, she's uncovered a simple death from natural causes. But a closer inspection reveals bruises around the victim's throat, and Vera quickly realizes she has a murder on her hands.