1816: Napoleon has at last been defeateed, but victory brings no peace to the English.

The cost of war strikes deep into the country- there is a raging inflation, discharged soldiers join the ranks of the unemployed, wages tumble and the bread price soars- and hungry men are easily stirred to protest.

Amid this turbulence, Heloise and James stand guard over Morland Place- for its spirit as much as its fortunes- when a tragic accident strikes at the very heart of the family, taking one person on whom they all depend. On top of this, a devastating scandal brings the Morland name into...

1659: Cromwell's protectorate is drawing to a close, and the restoration of the monarchy can only improve the fortunes of the Morland family. The years of civil war and their aftermath have left Morland Place in dire straits, but with the return of the King, Ralph Morland believes he can rebuild the family estates. For his beautiful and ambitious cousin, Annunciata, the Restoration means a journey to London - one that leads to the amours and intriges of Charles's court and to the unlocking of her mysterious past.
A new and kinder age is dawning - a time for healing wounds - but more...

1689: the Resoration enabled the Morland family to restore their own fortune, but now the Jacobite rebellion brings another threat to their security.

Annuciata Morland, fiercely loyal to the Stuart cause, follows her beloved king, James II, into exile. She leaves her gentle grandson, Matt, to oversee Morland Place in her absence. Without her wise presence, Matt finds himself in an arranged marriage to India Neville and at the mercy of a woman as heartless as she is beautiful. After a lonely and sheltered life he lurches between the exquisite pain of love and the torment of deep despair....

1795: the shadow of Bonaparte has fallen across Europe and touches each member of the far-flung Morland family.
As the century draws to a close, Jemima Morland wearily ackowledges that her life is also nearing its end, but she has scant peace as her unpredictable children behave ever more incomprehensibly: James's marriage to Mary Ann in closer to falling apart; Lucy's marriage de convenance is in the balance - her affair with Lieutenant Watson an open scandal; Mary bears a daughter on board her husband's ship during the battle of the Nile; and William supports a mistress whose marriage...

DEAD END: A call-out to a murder saves D.I Bill Slider from having to finish his canteen lunch, but presents him with the problem of a dead conductor. In life Sir Stefan Radek was seriously famous and terminally unpleasant, but neither of these facts seem reason enough to gun him down in a neo-Byzantine church in Shepherd's Bush.
BLOOD LINES: A celebrated music critic seems to have committed suicide just before appearing on a live television show, but Slider suspects it is murder when it is shown that the body had been interfered with and when he learns that the victim had quarreled...

GONE TOMORROW: Inspector Bill Slider is called to cope with a disfigured corpse grotesquely left in a children's playground. His enquiries plunge him into the shadow world behind the fashionable facade of Shepherd's Bush, among the victims of the Welfare State and the crime barons who prey on them; a world where no one is what they seem, and lying to the police is second nature. Slider's thankless task is to convince the witnesses, against all available evidence, that honesty really is the best policy. And with his lover Joanna away, fate seems suddenly determined to strew his private life...

1630: after long years of peace the reign of Charles I brings brutal civil war to England.

The clash between King and Parliament is echoed at Morland Place when Richard brings home a Puritan bride while his brother, Kit, joins Prince Rupert and the Royalist cavalry, leaving their father Edmund desperately trying to steer a middle course between the fighting factions.

As the war grinds on, bitterness and disillusion replace the early fervour, and the schisms between husband and wife, father and son, grow deeper. Edmund struggles grimly through it all in an attempt to keep the Morland...

1720: political intrigue besets the kingdom as the Stuarts try to claim the throne occupied by the Hanoverians and the Morlands have to use all their wiles to keep their fortunes intact.
Jeremy Morland, sole heir to his father's will, has no option but to marry to cold-hearted Lady Mary to secure Hanoverian protection and safeguard his inheritance. Then the rebellion of '45 and the bloody massacre at Culloden thrust his daughter Jemima into the spotlight as the saviour of the family.
Independent, single-minded, and a rare beauty, Jemima is a capable caretaker of the Morland heritage....

1831: as England emerges from the post war depression, the country is changing, and the birth pains of the Reform Act bring it to the brink of revolution.

The violent times breed violent acts, both outside and inside the Morland family. Sophie's life is shattered by a hideous crime. Rosamund learns that achieving her dreams brings as much pain as pleasure. Heloise, mourning her beloved James, lets control of Morland Place fall into chaos- Benedict has to flee his home and makes a life amongst the railway pioneers, while Nicholas now has the freedom to indulge the dark side of his nature....

ORCHESTRATED DEATH
Middle-class, middle-aged and, according to his partner, menopausal, Detective Inspector Bill Slider is never going to make it to the Yard. Passed over for promotion again, the last thing he needs in his life, or on his patch, is an unidentifiable, naked female corpse.
A priceless Stradivarius and a giant tin of olive oil are the only clues in an investigation that takes the steely-eyed, furry-headed detective all the way from the exotic backstreets of Shepherd's Bush to far-flung Birmingham.

DEATH WATCH
When a noted womaniser dies in mysterious circumstances...