Adam Creed books in order

London. A city where no-one feels safe and one man's crime is another man's justice.

A paedophile is brutally murdered in his own home, and to protect other known offenders the police must haul the families of their victims down to the station for questioning. It's just another day in the life of D. I. Will Wagstaffe; better known to friends and enemies alike as Staffe.

In this case nothing is simple, least of all Staffe's personal life. There's heartache from Sylvie, his estranged lover, and the dark shadow of Jessop, his mentor. And as he digs for answers into the grime of the city he finds the boundaries between right and wrong have been blurred, but the main question remains: just how far would you go to protect your children?

THE STREETS AREN'T SAFE

A murdered woman is discovered in a City hotel room: Elena Danya, high-end prostitute. Another working girl, her friend, is found dead. Then aristocratic bad-girl Arabella, another friend of Elena's, goes missing.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE CITY

The evidence points to a voyeuristic predator, but D.I. Will Wagstaffe is not convinced. Instead his investigation leads towards three ruthless and dangerous men: a City banker, a Russian oligarch and a Turkish playboy. But are even more powerful figures lurking in the shadows? 

YOU CAN'T KILL THE TRUTH

As Staffe's inquiry takes him deeper into deadly territory suddenly the women in his own life are under threat ...

A woman is discovered beneath the London streets, barely alive. Soon after, DC Josie Chancellor finds an abandoned, newborn baby close to Leadengate station. DI Will Wagstaffe puts woman and baby together. The woman is Kerry Degg, a burlesque singer, as well as a rotten wife and mother. 

Kerry has bad friends, a dodgy husband and no idea about what it takes to build a family. As Kerry clings to life, Staffe hears only discord: from a well- connected West London gangster and a forgotten politician; from a maligned sister and an unborn population to whom someone, somewhere, is determined to give voice.

Staffe ventures from Whitehall's clubland to Soho's fleshpots trying to make his way through a labyrinth of trails that leads above and below ground to another woman, seemingly forced - like Kerry Degg - to bear her child in captivity.

And as DI Will Wagstaffe will discover, the simplest thing in all the world - to bear a child - lies beneath the actions of the powerful and the desperate. Will he manage to rescue both mother and child in time?

In Almagen. a small village in the Andalucian mountains. Staffe nurses himself back from the brink of death One day his friend. Manolo. takes Staffe to visit Almeria and tells him about a body that has been found buried in an old greenhouse by the Mediterranean.

Staffe becomes inexorably drawn to the case and befriends a journalist. Raul. who presents the killing as a simple case of drug-trafficking gone wrong. but it soon emerges that this murder mirrors the methods of torture used during Spains brutal civil war. When Raul plunges to his death in a drunken car crash. Almagens own secret past slowly rises to the surface.

A reformed Sicilian criminal, Carmelo Trapani, has been kidnapped and his search for the the aged Carmello leads Staffe all the way back to a terrible act at the Battle of Cable Street.

Meanwhile, Staffe's own loyal servant,, DS Pulford, is in Pentonville awaiting trial for the murder of Jadus Golding, the very man who attempted to murder Staffe, leaving wounds from which Staffe is still recovering and it suits some in the heirarchy to see Pulford go down. Can Staffe save Carmelo without leaving Pulford to the political vultures?

As he battles find the man who murdered his own assailant, pressures also mount from within and Staffe's heart falters - in every way. His job is on the line and when he least expects it, his own past puts a gun to his head.