Written by Victoria Blake

Blake, Victoria - Sam Falconer 01 - Bloodless Shadow (Trudy Harris)

Four times world judo champion, Sam Falconer now runs the Gentle Way investigation agency in London. But when her brother, Mark, asks her to return to Oxford to investigate the disappearance of a young woman, Sam find herself confronting a past she hoped she had left behind.

Blake, Victoria - Sam Falconer 02 - Cutting Blades (Julie Maisey)

The year hasn't got off to the best of starts for PI Sam Falconer. London is frozen in a January blizzard, and everywhere she goes, Sam has the creeping feeling of being watched. When she's asked to investigate the disappearance of a talented young rower from Oxford University, she hopes it will take her mind off her increasing paranoia. Harry was a stunning athlete, one of the most naturally gifted rowers the Oxford coach had ever seen. Then, just as the trials for the Boat Race were beginning, Harry literally vanished into the snow. Following the treacherous, icy waters of the Thames from Putney to Oxford, Sam begins to pick at the seams of the ruthlessly competitive world of rowing. Beneath the apparent camaraderie, there's a simmering current of jealousy and resentment. Harry haunts her - an elusive figure just beyond reach. Then a body surfaces in the water - and it's not Harry's. In discovering the truth about his disappearance, Sam must open a Pandora's Box of secrets, with deadly consequences.


Blake, Victoria - Sam Falconer 03 - Skin and Blister (Trudy Harris)

When a student is found dead in his rooms at St Barnabas College, Oxford, it looks nothing more than an unfortunate suicide. A week later, when Sam Falconer's brother disappears, Sam begins to see a disturbing connection between the events. Then her mother receives a Catholic mass card, announcing that a funeral mass is to be said for their son. Sam begins desperately trying to trace her brother's last movements, attempting to locate the mysterious man he'd spent time with in the days before his disappearance. Behind it all is the nagging fear it could be connected to her father and the murders he committed in Northern Ireland in the seventies. As the trail leads from Oxford to Iraq and back to the troubles in Ireland, Sam learns just how strong blood ties can be ...


Blake, Victoria - Sam Falconer 04 - Jumping the Cracks (Trudy Harris)

Oxford: the city of dreaming spires and lofty knowledge. Or so they say. But for private investigator Sam Falconer, it seems to be a place of sin and secrets. And Sam's better placed than most to know - she grew up in an Oxford college and now she's back to set up a branch of her detective agency. And as ever, cases have a way of finding Sam. Soon she has a vanished man to find, a museum display of shrunken heads to protect, and - as a near-fatal chase proves -her own skin to save. For Sam, like the Oxford antiquities she's tracking, it seems the secrets of the past aren't easily escaped. A taut mix of classic crime, modern noir and psychological drama, this is Blake at her very best.