Meet John Milton. He considers himself an artisan. A craftsman. His trade is murder. Milton is the man the government sends after you when everything else has failed. Ruthless. Brilliant. Anonymous. Lethal. You wouldn't pick him out of a crowd but you wouldn't want to be on his list. In this second dip into his case files (see 1000 Yards for a further novella), Milton is sent to Italy to investigate the death of a colleague from Group 15.

Beatrix Rose has been betrayed. Her husband has been murdered and her daughter, Isabella, abducted. She flees to the Hong Kong underworld to plot her revenge. Those who wronged her will pay. Beatrix is the most dangerous woman you’ve ever met. She was an assassin for The Firm, the beyond top secret agency that did the dirty work for the British Secret Services. She is lethal. Ethically flexible. Totally ruthless. And you know what they say about payback.

On Christmas Eve, DCI Mackenzie Jones is called to a shooting at a remote farmhouse. Ralph Mallender believes his father lies dead inside. When three more bodies are discovered, it's clear a festive family gathering has turned into a gruesome tragedy. At first it seems like an open and shut case: a murder suicide committed by Ralph's volatile brother Cameron. Then new evidence makes Mack suspect the man who reported the crime is in fact the perpetrator. But Mack isn't the only one with a stake in the case.

In the city of Cairo, a sandstorm is coming. Group Fifteen operative and ex-MI6 officer Charlie Cooper is working undercover as a political negotiator. Attending a conference surrounded by diplomats, businessmen, and lobbyists, nobody would suspect what he really does for a living. Also in their midst is Aisha, a Saudi activist whose protests against human rights abuses have made her an enemy of her country's regime. It isn't just Cooper visiting Cairo under false pretenses. A hit squad has been sent to eliminate Aisha and their reputation precedes them.

An Underground carriage in London is destroyed by a suicide bomber. The injured and the dead litter the platform. But as a crowd forms at street level, Michael Pope knows that this is only the beginning. Pope, head of top-secret Group Fifteen, is tasked with finding the perpetrators of this atrocity and bringing them to justice, any way he can. He knows that the answers to many of his questions will lie at the end of the money trail, but he also knows that whoever funded and organized the attack will kill again for their freedom.