NICCI FRENCH

Monday: five-year-old Matthew Faraday is abducted. His face is splashed across newspaper front pages. His parents and the police are desperate. Can anyone help find their little boy before it is too late?

Psychotherapist Frieda Klein just might know something.

One of her patients describes dreams of seizing a boy who is the spitting image of Matthew. Convinced at first the police will dismiss her fears out of hand, Frieda reluctantly finds herself drawn into the heart of the case. A previous abduction, from twenty years ago, suggests a new lead – one that only Frieda, an expert on the minds of disturbed individuals, can uncover.

Struggling to make sense of this terrifying investigation, Frieda will face her darkest fears in the hunt for a clever and brutal killer.

Psychotherapist Frieda Klein thought she was done with the police. But once more DCI Karlsson is knocking at her door.

A man’s decomposed body has been found in the flat of Michelle Doyce, a woman trapped in a world of strange mental disorder. The police don’t know who it is, how he got there or what happened – and Michelle can’t tell them. But Karlsson hopes Frieda can get access to the truths buried beneath her confusion.

Painstakingly, Frieda uncovers a possible identity for the corpse: Robert Poole, a jack of all trades and master conman. But the deeper Frieda and Karlsson dig into Poole’s past, the more of his victims they encounter – and the more motives they find for murder. Meanwhile, violent ghosts from Frieda’s own past are returning to threaten her.

Unable to discover quite who is telling the truth and who is lying, they know they are getting closer to a killer. But whoever murdered Poole is determined to stay free – and anyone that gets too close will meet the same fate.

Ruth Lennox, beloved mother of three, is found by her daughter in a pool of her own blood. Who would want to murder an ordinary housewife? And why?

Psychotherapist Frieda Klein finds she has an unusually personal connection with DCI Karlsson’s latest case. She is no longer working with him in an official capacity, but when her niece befriends Ruth Lennox’s son, Ted, she finds herself in the awkward position of confidante to both Karlsson and Ted.

When it emerges that Ruth was leading a secret life, her family closes ranks and Karlsson finds he needs Frieda’s help more than ever before.

But Frieda is distracted. Having survived an attack on her life, she is struggling to stay in control and when a patient’s chance remark rings an alarm bell, she finds herself chasing down a path that seems to lead to a serial killer who has long escaped detection. Or is it merely a symptom of her own increasingly fragile mind?

Because, as Frieda knows, every step closer to a killer is one more step into a darkness from which there may be no return.

When psychotherapist Frieda Klein left the sleepy Suffolk coastal town in which she grew up she never intended to return. Left behind were friends, family, lives and loves but alongside them, painful memories; a past she wouldn’t allow to destroy her.

Then, years later, an old classmate appears in London asking Frieda to help her teenage daughter and long buried memories resurface. Death soon follows, leaving Frieda no choice but to return home to confront her past. And the monsters no one else believed were real . . .

Through a fog of conflicting accounts, hidden agendas and questionable alibis, Frieda can trust no one as she tries to piece together the shocking truth, past and present. Before another innocent dies.

When a bloated corpse is found floating in the River Thames the police can at least sure that identifying the victim will be straightforward. Around the dead man’s wrist is a hospital band. On it are the words Dr F. Klein.

But psychotherapist Frieda Klein is very much alive. And, after evidence linking her to the murder is discovered, she becomes the prime suspect.

Unable to convince the police of her innocence, Frieda is forced to make a bold decision in order to piece together the terrible truth before it’s too late either for her or for those she loves.

Thirteen years ago eighteen-year-old Hannah Docherty was arrested for the brutal murder of her family. It was an open-shut case and Hannah’s been incarcerated in a secure hospital ever since.

When psychotherapist Frieda Klein is asked to meet Hannah and give her assessment of her, she reluctantly agrees. What she finds horrifies her. And Frieda is haunted by the thought that Hannah might be as much of a victim as her family; that something wasn’t right all those years ago.

And as Hannah’s case takes hold of her, Frieda soon begins to realize that she’s up against someone who’ll go to any lengths to protect themself.

Psychotherapist Frieda Klein has believed serial killer Dean Reeve escaped justice for years. Despite what the police say, she is convinced he’s still alive. And finally she has the evidence.

Because under her floor is the rotting corpse of an ex-policeman who she’d hired to hunt for Reeve.

Now the police have to take her seriously.

It’s clear that whoever did this is very dangerous and must be found, but it’s also clear that they’re not finished with Frieda – or those she loves most.

As Frieda is about to learn – it’s always darkest just before the dawn.

And as Hannah’s case takes hold of her, Frieda soon begins to realize that she’s up against someone who’ll go to any lengths to protect themself.

On a north London high street, a runaway vehicle crashes to a halt, but the man in the driving seat was murdered a week earlier.

On Hampstead Heath, a bonfire blazes: in the flames lies the next victim.

As autumn leaves fall, a serial killer runs amok in the capital, playing games with the police. The death toll is rising fast, and the investigation is floundering.

But this is no ordinary killer, and every new victim is intended as a message to just one woman – psychologist Freida Klein.

And the message is very simple.

You’re next . . .