Dead End: A call-out to murder saves DI Bill Slider from having to finish his canteen lunch, but it presents him with the problem of a dead conductor. In life, Sir Stefan Radek was seriously famous and terminally unpleasant, but neither of these facts seem reason enough to gun him down in a neo-Byzantine church in Shepherd's Bush... Blood Lines: A celebrated music critic seems to have committed suicide just before appearing on a live television show, but Slider suspects it's murder when he learns that the victim had quarreled violently with his fellow panelists. Killing Time: Only half-recovered from an assault from the last villain he encountered, Slider is forced to investigate the murder of an erotic dancer, finding himself having to question lap dancers, prostitutes, pimps, and cabinet ministers.