We Solve Murders

The story opens with the murder of influencer Andrew Fairbanks, found dead off a yacht with a bag holding almost a million dollars. At the same time, Amy Wheeler is working as close protection for famous novelist Rosie D’Antonio on Rosie's private island in South Carolina. Rosie is hiding there because Russian oligarch Vasiliy Karpin was enraged by a fictionalized version of himself in one of her novels. In England, Steve Wheeler, Amy’s retired detective father-in-law, is living quietly in Axley after the death of his wife Debbie, trying to keep his life small and manageable.

Jeff Nolan, head of Maximum Impact Solutions, realizes Andrew’s death is linked to two earlier murders: Bella Sanchez in St Lucia and Mark Gooch in Ireland. All three victims were clients of his firm, and all three deaths point toward a former client, François Loubet, an expert money smuggler who hides behind layers of encrypted communication and intermediaries. Jeff also sees a disturbing pattern around Amy: she was near each killing. Amy independently notices the same pattern after Andrew dies near Rosie's island. Feeling isolated and afraid she is being framed, she confides in Rosie, who becomes an active partner rather than just a client.

Meanwhile Steve, reading about Andrew because Amy is in South Carolina, notices that Andrew’s trip was arranged through Vivid Viral Media in Letchworth Garden City. That seemingly random English company begins to connect his quiet life to the larger case. Before Amy can return safely, danger comes directly to the island. Kevin, the ex-Navy SEAL helping protect Rosie, turns on Amy at gunpoint. Rosie, who has begun to trust Amy, smashes Kevin with a trophy and traps him in the panic room, allowing Amy to escape. Amy now believes François Loubet is targeting her personally. At the same time Jeff is attacked in London and goes off-grid after leaving Amy a warning: Loubet has been using Maximum Impact clients to move money, and someone inside the company is helping him under the name Joe Blow.

Amy and Rosie flee the island and start investigating Andrew’s death themselves. They break into Sheriff Justin Scroggie’s suspiciously luxurious house, only to find him dead before they can question him. Using his corpse to unlock his computer, they learn Scroggie was corrupt and had killed Andrew himself. His files also show that he stole part of the money found with Andrew. Gunfire outside the house makes clear that others are cleaning up loose ends. Amy and Rosie go off-grid, hide with Rosie’s friend Barb, and call Steve to America. Steve arrives in South Carolina, gains access to airport CCTV with help from customs officer Carlos Moss, and finds a crucial lead: Andrew was met by a red-haired woman who carried one of his bags.

At Barb’s retreat, Steve, Amy, and Rosie compare the three murders and find the deeper pattern. Bella, Mark, and Andrew were not just clients; they were influencers flown abroad on apparently ordinary jobs, then murdered almost immediately after arriving. Files taken from Scroggie reveal that blood samples had been planted at crime scenes. Amy realizes someone may have stolen her own blood from Maximum Impact’s mandatory testing program in order to frame her physically for the murders. By then Rob Kenna, a Dubai-based broker who arranges killings for François Loubet, has already hired Eddie Flood to kill Amy. Steve and the others briefly outmaneuver Eddie, then fly to St Lucia to investigate Bella’s death.

In St Lucia they learn Bella was picked up by the same red-haired woman seen with Andrew, and that the same distinctive brown holdall traveled with both victims. They also discover that Bella, like Andrew, was tied to moved cash and a corrupt local policeman. When they confront local criminal Nelson Nunez, he ambushes them, unsure whether he has been paid to kill Amy or someone else traveling with Rosie. Steve breaks free, shoots Nelson and his nephew, and turns the interrogation around. Under pressure, Nelson confirms Bella was killed by a local cop and gives Steve a crucial clue: the person using the name François Loubet sounded English, not French.

Back in England, Steve’s friends investigate the Letchworth angle. Tony Taylor befriends Felicity Woollaston, the elderly talent agent whose company has effectively become the front for Vivid Viral. Felicity has been receiving large monthly payments to let her respectable office act as cover for business she barely understands. Bonnie Gregor, an aspiring influencer, meanwhile is thrilled to be offered a lucrative trip through the same machinery, showing how new couriers are still being recruited. Amy, Steve, and Rosie continue to Ireland to investigate Mark Gooch’s death, while suspicion swings wildly inside Maximum Impact. Henk van Veen accuses Jeff; Jeff later reappears alive in Axley after faking his death and accuses Henk of being Joe Blow. Steve then finds another pattern in the client files: Max Highfield received referral fees tied to dozens of the compromised clients, making him look central to the scheme.

That suspicion does not hold. Rosie and Steve later meet Max in Dubai under cover of pitching him a film and discover that he is vain, selfish, and connected to the network through referrals, but too oblivious to be the hidden mastermind Steve hoped he was. In London, however, Amy reaches the real answer. Jeff, Susan Knox, and Amy study the referral files together. Jeff begins to suspect Amy herself, arguing that her assignments lined up with key clients and Max’s introductions. Amy turns the trap around. She wounds Jeff, hides with him behind a boardroom mirror, and watches Susan’s reaction. Susan does not call the police. Instead she calls François Loubet, asks for more money, reports that Amy has shot Jeff, and urges Amy by phone to finish Jeff off. That proves Susan, not Jeff, is the insider who has been feeding information, deleting evidence, and helping frame Amy.

In Dubai, the final identity falls into place for Steve. He follows Rob Kenna’s associate Mickey Moody, an apparently ordinary older man who golfs, talks about his dead wife, and avoids attention. Steve has already learned that Loubet sounded English, and he notices that Mickey’s shoulder tattoos commemorate Elizabeth and Louisa, or “Lou” and “Bet.” Combined with Mickey’s hidden fortune, his insistence on invisibility, and video evidence linking him to Rob Kenna’s murder after Rob became unreliable, Steve realizes that Mickey Moody is François Loubet. Loubet had built a laundering network by using Vivid Viral to send financially vulnerable influencers abroad as unwitting cash couriers, while Susan Knox helped from inside Maximum Impact. When Jeff challenged the operation, Loubet responded by having Bella, Mark, and Andrew murdered publicly as warnings, with Amy’s stolen blood planted at the scenes so she could be blamed if needed.

Once Susan and Mickey are exposed, Amy is cleared and the conspiracy collapses. Rob Kenna has already been killed by Loubet for failure. Eddie Flood, who at first seemed like another relentless assassin, turns out to have drifted away from the job; after recognizing Rosie, he becomes more interested in getting her to read the crime novel he has written than in finishing Amy. Vasiliy Karpin is also ruled out as Rosie's active threat when Rosie learns he canceled his planned revenge long before. Bonnie is stopped before she can carry a suspicious holdall through customs, and later Felicity and Tony open it to find more than a million pounds in cash tied to Mickey’s operation. Felicity, ashamed of her role as a willfully blind front, offers to use the money to help Bonnie build a real career and promises her own commission to the families of Andrew, Bella, and Mark.

In the aftermath, Jeff and Henk reconcile, Susan Knox and Mickey Moody end up in prison, and the surviving characters decide what to do with the lives the case has disrupted. Amy no longer wants to be an assassin or protector for hire. Instead she wants to build a detective agency dedicated to murders that official systems have failed to solve. Rosie agrees to invest, and Steve at first resists, clinging to Axley, his routines, and Debbie’s memory. Sitting on Debbie’s bench, however, he understands that remaining frozen in grief is not what Debbie would have wanted. He joins Amy, Rosie backs them financially, and the three launch a new venture with a simple name that captures their strange new partnership: We Solve Murders.