Detectives Nick O'Malley and Kate Benson work in Special Unit 2, a secret precinct of the Chicago Police Department whose sole charge is to protect the city's citizens from Links, a malicious paranormal species that is the missing link between man and beast.

A young teacher begins work at a tough Liverpool comprehensive, where he has to deal with racism, homophobia and his students' poor backgrounds.

The 20 January 1931 slaying of Julia Wallace remains unsolved, despite an ongoing stream of investigative writers giving an impression that a solution to the crime has been found through a surfeit of working hypotheses.