Sam is called in by ex-Detective Inspector Leslie Peterson, now a Coroner's officer, who is investigating the ditching of a helicopter ferrying crew to a gas rig with 14 passengers and two crew on board.

All Sam's skills are required when 10 more bodies are recovered from the North Sea, and the piecing together of the jigsaw of evidence begins in earnest with her pathology team.

A small-time criminal is the prime suspect in a gangland murder. Sam Ryan believes he may be innocent.

Sam challenges the police after an indepenedent postmortem into McNally's apparent suicide. Further deaths take place.

Sam searches for the identity of a victim of a cinema fire. A medical artist helps her reconstruct the face, but the result causes some embarrassment for the police.

The identity of Body 10 reveals that a violent criminal may have been wrongly convicted of a murder. Sam and DCI Connor are eager to get the truth.