XP1 - Bitch Spray: A Team Crosspatch novel

DS Susan Cross joined the detectives at the main Policing Centre in Sevenoaks on a wave of optimism. Six months later she is mired in a dead-end role and considering leaving the force when the DCI leading the major crimes teams enters the squad room. To her surprise she is to lead one of his teams and when the CEO of a popular chain of fashion boutiques is brutally murdered, DS Cross finds herself leading the investigation.

Ian Davison was a major star of the theatre just a few years ago, but stepped back to take the director's role. Now he has his own theatre company. But it is deep in debt and has been desperately short of cash. His wife Laura has already bailed him out once and is unwilling to do so again. When she is brutally murdered he inevitably comes under suspicion. Did he have her killed to refinance his theatre?

Constable Harpreet Pandya is working in a busy South London police station on the night shift. An intelligent girl, she is being stifled acting as an unofficial assistant to most of the other officers at the station. When a young actress comes in late one evening with a story of assault she hopes she may be allowed to investigate the incident, but the Sergeant hands off the case to another jurisdiction. It seems like she will remain just a useful clerical assistant to whoever needs her. Then DS Cross comes in looking to find out what happened to the young actress...

Constable Sandeep Varma hasn't been in the police for long when she catches the eye of DS Cross and is soon displaying some surprising abilities.