Parish & Richards, Volume 7: Books 19-21

Parish and Richards are given the case of a beautiful naked mutilated woman who seems to have walked away from her life. Xena and Stick must find out whether the killer of an eight year old girl has returned 24 years later to finish what he started. After the death of a DI from Romford, the Chief Constable asks Kowalski to come back initially for a month to solve the case. Bronwyn isn’t happy though, she want him to investigate the murder of prostitutes in different foreign ports. Jerry, Shakin’ and Joe are allocated a pro-bono case involving domestic violence and murder, but all is not what it seems. For Parish and Richards, what begins with the discovery of a small heart carved into the forehead of a murdered young woman, turns into the search for a prolific serial killer called The Lover, and involves the Met’s Serious Crimes Investigative Team (SCIT) descending on them to lead the investigation. Xena and Stick investigate when a mother and three children are murdered at a farm, which also has a Donkey Sanctuary where they get up close and personal with Huckleberry and Pickle. Their main suspect – the father – is missing, but are things that simple? Jerry, Shakin’ and Joe have to write a report on the unsolved murder of Emily Hobson, but when they begin to check out the facts they uncover something a lot more sinister. A ten-year-old boy comes into Abacus Investigations and asks Kowalski to find his missing mum, because he thinks that his dad might have murdered her and disposed of the body, but things are a lot more complicated than that. Parish and Richards are given the case of a thigh bone found on waste ground, but one thigh bone leads to a number of other dis-articulated bones. Xena and Stick have the case of a young female shop assistant who has been bludgeoned to death in a sex shop, but finding the murderer is not straight-forward. Jerry, Joe and Shakin’ are given the task of writing a report on a recent conviction based on the recovered memory of a woman from twenty-six-years ago, but all is not what it seems. Kowalski and Bronwyn take the case of a female research assistant from Leicester University who supposedly committed suicide on Hemsby beach in Norfolk. Also, DCI Nibley receives a birthday card from his father, who disappeared forty years ago after murdering his wife and two of his three children.