The butchered body of a woman is found in a rubbish dump and the investigation into her murder leads Susan and Luke onto the trail of a baby-smuggling operation based in the Ukraine.

The owner of a gallery specialising in Islamic art is discovered in the boot of a submerged car. Armed with a clue found in the dead man's flat, Alembic and Stone head for a casino, but their investigation is destined to end in further tragedy.

When an unearthed skull opens a murder investigation, Stone orders a facial reconstruction of the skull and the photographs go to press, prompting a woman to come forward claiming that the face in the photo belongs to a man who raped and strangled her sister several years earlier. When Dumfries informs them that a different man was convicted of that murder, Stone and Alembic dig further and unearth a web of lies surrounding the previous investigation.

A wealthy Turkish businessman killed in a drive-by shooting at first appears to have been an unlucky casualty of a turf war between Kurds and Turks, until a pathologist's report reveals that he had died of a heart attack before being shot and had also been poisoned.

A 25-year-old woman and her lover are found dead in a hotel room, shot through the head with with the same single bullet. The man, Alan Scobie, is identified as a notorious criminal on remand for manslaughter, but it isn't clear which of the two was the original target.

When a 16-year-old girl disappears from her home, leaving a blood-spattered bedroom behind, Susan and Luke start trying to track down the missing teenager, hoping that she may still be alive. Meanwhile, the mysterious death of a City trader who is shot in the neck with an arrow proves a tough case to crack.