"One hot August day in 1994, 75 holidaymakers are ferried to an uninhabited island off the North Norfolk coast. Only 74 return alive. A young man has been stabbed and left to bleed to death in the island's surf. The case is never solved. Twenty years later, the new chief constable decides the murder is ripe for a re-evaluation using state-of-the-art forensics. DI Peter Shaw is in charge of the case and summons all 75 original suspects to a mass DNA...

When a body is discovered beneath the waves off Scolt Head Island, the contents of the dead man's pockets lead Detective Inspector Peter Shaw to suspect an outbreak of 'samphire wars': a turf battle for control of the prized sea asparagus which sells for a small fortune along the affluent North Norfolk coast. Or does the killer merely want it to look that way? Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant George Valentine is investigating a series of break-ins targeted...

Detectives Shaw and Valentine are on the case when the exhumed coffin of a murdered pub landlady is found to contain the body of a young man.