Former Inspector Frank Foote has left the Winnipeg police force and gone into home renovations, but after tearing down a wall on a job one day and finding the skeleton of a small female who has been imprisoned there, he finds himself following the leads to a photographer who specialized in taking photos of the recently deceased for their families.

Cherry Ring was not a happy child in 1954. She detested the baby brother who had usurped her place as center of the Ring family. So one day in a jealous rage she bit brother Pete on the face. This was no tiny nip, but a full-bore, skin-ripping bite through the cheek. Pete required skin grafts and was scarred for life. Cherry knew she'd been naughty, and she was sorry, but that bite marks a divide between her and Pete that lasts a lifetime.They grow up, and Pete simply ignores Cherry. It's as if she doesn't exist for him. Her mother, Nora, never trusts Cherry again. Her father dies when she's 9 and, finally, when she's in university, her mother and Pete move away. Cherry can finally live her own life, free from guilt.Forty years after Cherry's bite, she's settled and happy in her Norwood Flats home. Then strange things start to happen, and Cherry wonders if you really can ever leave your past behind, even if you were just 4 when it all started to go wrong. Luckily that nice police inspector Frank Foote lives in the neighborhood.

PREQUELOn a spring morning in 1925 Sunny Palmer disappears from her baby carriage in Picardy's restaurant in downtown Winnipeg. It happens in seconds when big sister Violet and her mother wander up to choose their treats from the dessert display. As those first minutes turn to days, months, then years, the Palmer family collapses and gradually glues itself back together in a new form.The Dirty Thirties are in full swing. On a hot summer day in June of 1936 two drifters looking for work turn up in the Palmers' back yard. They are among the legions of men criss-crossing the country looking for work. Violet's father, Will Palmer, a local attorney with few construction skills, invites the men to pitch their tent and stay on to build a garage for his new Buick. But he's on his guard. One of the men, Jackson Shirt, seems a little too well-educated and much too handsome to ring entirely true. He's just Violet's age, 17, but Will senses he has more than his share of secrets.A wayfaring friend of the drifters drops by occasionally to watch them work. If anything blameworthy occurs in the neighborhood—theft, noise, even illness—these three outsiders come under close scrutiny. When polio strikes that August, suspicion turns to savagery. And Jackson Shirt's secrets are revealed.

Beryl Kyte, a letter carrier who lives in the Winnipeg neighborhood of Norwood Flats, goes out for a hike one beautiful spring Sunday and literally trips over a body in the woods of the St. Vital Park. It's a dead woman with mushrooms sprouting in her mouth. In a panic Beryl struggles out to the main road and manages to hail a cellphone-toting passerby who notifies the police. Among the many officers who arrive on the scene is Inspector Frank Foote whom Beryl has seen around her neighborhood. A badly shaken Beryl is questioned and escorted home.It isn't long, however, before another body turns up and then another. As she follows the horrific discoveries in The Winnipeg Free Press, Beryl thinks she sees a pattern emerging. Beryl hadn't been of much help to the police in the case of the first dead woman—she'd only tripped over the body, after all—but when things begin happening around her own home, she wishes they could be of some help to her. But she can't even make the call for the crimes taking place in her yard—someone has been deadheading her lobelia, and someone has put a pretty little collar on her cat–will just make the police think she's crazy—except maybe that nice Inspector Frank Foote.

Inspector Frank Foote's quiet Winnipeg neighbourhood is greening into summer when a dead baby is discovered in his neighbour's rain barrel. The tiny body has evidently been in the rain barrel for some time, and there are no obvious leads in the case. Frank is a cop, and he's seen a lot of crime scenes, but this one is a little too close to home. Meanwhile, Gus Olsen, who made the gruesome discovery, is a little worried about a mysterious woman who is cruising their quiet neighbourhood in her Lincoln Town Car. He's been meaning to talk to Frank about her, but somehow there never seems to be an opportune moment. Gus doesn't want to bother Frank, who already has his hands full trying to take care of his household and his three children while their mother dries out in an addiction treatment centre. Frank is a good father, he tries to be a good husband, and he hopes he is a good cop. But, like all of us, Frank has a few old secrets that he is ashamed of. And when Ivy Grace suddenly...

Inspector Frank Foote's quiet Winnipeg neighborhood is greening into summer when a dead baby is discovered in his neighbor's rain barrel. The tiny body has evidently been in the rain barrel for some time, and there are no obvious leads in the case. Frank has seen a lot of crime scenes, but this one is a little too close to home.Meanwhile, Gus Olsen, who made the gruesome discovery, is a little worried about a mysterious woman who is cruising their quiet neighborhood in her Lincoln Town Car. He's been meaning to talk to Frank about her, but somehow there never seems to be an opportune moment. Gus doesn't want to bother Frank, who already has his hands full trying to take care of his household and his three children while their mother dries out in an addiction treatment center.Frank is a good father. He tries to be a good husband, and he hopes he is a good cop. But like all of us, Frank has a few old secrets that he is ashamed of. And when Ivy Grace suddenly resurfaces after a long absence, one thing is certain: before this summer ends, Frank will have to confront his past.

A grisly discovery behind the wall of an old house in Winnipeg leads former Inspector Frank Foote into the past and down the trail of the unusual Mrs. Mortimer, who'd had a short-lived business in the 1960s taking photos of the recently deceased for their families

In the spring of 1964, troubled teenager Cookie Blue is found dead in the Red River.Blue Vengeance follows her younger brother Danny and Cookie's friend Janine through a lazy Winnipeg summer, as they plot to kill the despised teacher they blame for Cookie's death.