Master of the moor: As a boy, Stephen Whalby took to his beloved moor to escape trouble at home. Trouble follows him there as an adult, however, when women's bodies begin turning up among the rocks, heather, and bogs. Stephen finds no refuge when D.I. Manciple--a rude outsider, unwelcome in the village of Vangmoor--targets him as the prime suspect. Vanity dies hard: In the town of Salstead, the lives of two friends seem to take different trajectories. Wealthy, aging Alice Fielding finally finds happiness with a much-younger husband, while widowed Nesta Drage plunges near poverty when her business fails. After Nesta mysteriously disappears, Alice vows to find her--and discovers a tangled web of secrets among those she trusted most. The secret house of death: Susan Townsend, a newly divorced single mother, wants to remain aloof from the gossip so relished by the other women in her suburban neighborhood. But when she happens upon the bodies of two adulterous lovers, her quiet life vanishes, along with her safety. The double: Peter Milton becomes involved with Zoe, the apparant "double" of his girlfriend Lisa. Can Lisa survive the superstition predicting her death? And is Zoe really what she seems?