Samantha Laschen, a doctor specializing in post-traumatic stress disorder, has moved to the Essex Coast with her small daughter, Elsie, to escape the problems of her London life, or so she thinks. Fiona McKenzie barely survived the savage, murderous attack which left her parents dead. Now she is in need of sanctuary and the police see Sam as the ideal person to offer her a safe house. Already overburdened with the demands of a new job and her mercurial lover Danny, Sam reluctantly agrees to take her in. But as Fiona makes her way into the hearts of her hosts, Sam discovers that the risks she has foreseen are nothing compared to the terrifying danger she actually faces.

At the monastery in Shrewsbury in 1138, the gardens are flourishing under the expert tending of Brother Cadfael. His workshop boasts all sort of medication for every kind of ailment. Then one Gervase Bonel, who had planned to leave his valuable manor house to the Abbey in exchange for a house run by the monks where his comfort will be guaranteed for life, is poisoned with Cadfael's own concoction intended for aching joints. As the monk investigates he finds a web of family intrigue, where suspicion has fallen on someone he is certain is innocent.

After losing his ophthalmology practice to AmeriCare, a giant conglomerate, and then his wife and two daughters in an airline tragedy, Dr John Stapleton's life is reduced to Ashes. He re-trains in forensic pathology and moves to the cold, indifferent, concrete maze of New York. There Stapleton believes himself past caring - yet his suspicions are aroused as virulent and lethal illnesses begin to strike the young, the old and the virulent regardless.