Two cases from the DCS Palmer and the Serial Murder Squad series.

Succession.

When James Dawn, the boss of South London’s major crime family is assassinated in the Walworth road by scooter killers suspicion falls on Jim Dooley the boss of the West End Drugs business but there are others in the frame including James uncle Stan who thinks he should have been made boss when Jame’s dad retired, or Johnny Robinson and his North London gang and all the time working her intrigue and double dealing behind the scenes is James Dawn’s wife, Eve. And then it all becomes murkier when Dooley is hit and dumped in the Thames. Blood samples lead Palmer and the team towards Eve’s loyal men. Will they break under questioning in custody? Eve’s bringing a major money launderer into the picture, somebody her husband had thrown out of the country for skimming his washed money. It was a ploy by Eve to get access to the Dawns foreign accounts and as soon as she has that the launderer meets his end too. The final proof falls into place and Palmer is after Eve, she runs and a cat-and-mouse chase over a couple of days through London with Eve using all the tricks a mob boss’s wife has learned over the years to escape custody making deals with Johnny Robinson on a partnership basis but in the end he hangs her out to dry and Palmer manages to just in time stop a Panama bound plane on the runway at Heathrow and haul Eve off.

The Black Rose.

Geoffrey and Linda Hanley run a Garden Centre in Harrow. Geoffrey and Linda Hanley are dead. Forensics discover their death is from arconite poisoning, arconite is derived from a popular garden plant. Their deaths coincide with Geoffrey Handley breeding the first truly black rose which will make him very rich indeed and this raised Palmer’s suspicions. The investigation leads to rival Garden Centre owners the Blooms who have been stealing cuttings of the black rose with the help of Handley’s manager Jim Riley. Riley gets cold feet when the thefts turn to murder and past murders involving the Blooms and their acquisition of other Garden Centres in the past come to light. The Blooms have the rose and many growing cuttings and Riley decided to trash them before the Blooms can exhibit the Black rose at Chelsea Flower Show on the Royal Visit Day. Bloom is aware of the plan is after Riley to kill him and they face one another in the Blooms greenhouse where Riley accidently kills Bloom with a pair of shears. Riley runs, he doesn’t want to be arrested before he can stop the false claim to own the Black rose that Bloom’s wife will make at Chelsea. He gets into Chelsea through the staff entrance and makes his way around the back of the main marquee and alters the signage on the Black rose to say the Handleys were the breeders. When the rose display is opened in front of HRH and the sign seen the media go wild, HRH has to be removed by security and Mrs Bloom faces questions. She is unaware at this time of her husband’s death. Riley flees the scene Palmer’s Squad are after him although by this time Palmer knows the Blooms’ past and the fact that Riley was being blackmailed. The end twist is quite different as Riley comes into custody and, on the quiet, Palmer, who realises Riley was blackmailed and duped into siding with the Blooms in stealing the Black rose, liaises with the executors of the Handley’s estate which has no family beneficiaries to get Riley given a chance to make it work in tandem with the Handley’s accountant who we have found out earlier embezzled enough money from the company to set it back on an even keel.