The Dentist

The first installment in the DS George Cross mystery series introduces Detective Sergeant George Cross, a detective with Asperger's syndrome in the Major Crime Unit (MCU) of the Avon and Somerset police in Bristol, England. Cross is meticulous and socially blunt, with an obsessive adherence to procedure that gives him a 97 percent conviction rate, even as his manner alienates nearly everyone around him. He is drawn to cases involving the dispossessed because he identifies as an outsider himself.

Cross arrives by bicycle at a crime scene on the Downs, a green expanse near the Clifton gorge, where the body of an elderly homeless man has been found. Uniformed officers dismiss the death as a routine crime, but Cross disagrees: The victim still clutches a carrier bag containing six cans of strong cider, a valuable commodity on the streets that no attacker would leave behind. At the scene, Cross meets Alice Mackenzie, a new trainee Police Staff Investigator, and his partner, DS Josie Ottey, a Black single mother in her late thirties.

At the mortuary, Cross discovers details the pathologist missed: The victim was violently strangled, his trachea broken. He wore two wedding rings engraved with a date and the initials "H, L, C," and scleral contact lenses, a rare type used for a condition called keratoconus. Cross assigns staff to trace the lenses and sends dental records for wider distribution. Mackenzie begins researching weddings matching the rings' engravings on her own initiative. Cross reprimands her for acting without authorization but tells her to expand the search nationwide.

Cross and Ottey trace the victim to Shaftesbury House, a run-down homeless shelter, where the man was known as "Lenny." He left around 8 p.m. with a friend called "Badger," an ex-army veteran, and the two were arguing. Cross identifies Badger as Corporal Terence Whitby, a decorated Iraq war veteran. Cross deduces that the anniversary of a key battle falls on the coming Sunday and stakes out a comrade's grave near Clevedon. Badger appears and comes willingly.

In multiple interview sessions, Badger admits the argument was about cider Lenny accused him of stealing. He admits he "must've done" it, and DNA evidence places him at the scene. DCI Carson, Cross and Ottey's politically minded boss, orders Badger charged. Cross objects: The crushing force used to break Lenny's trachea indicates a deliberate killing inconsistent with Badger's account of a drunken punch. Carson overrules him.

Mackenzie cross-references wedding and lens records and identifies the victim as William Leonard Carpenter, a Bristol dentist who disappeared around 2006 and was declared dead seven years later. Cross visits the Carpenter family home and meets Leonard's three daughters: Catherine, the eldest, who runs the family dental practice with her husband Alan Gosling; Gillian, the middle sister; and Jessica, the youngest, who still lives in the house. Gillian accuses Catherine and Alan of pushing to declare Leonard dead to seize the practice, while Jessica begs them to stop.

Jessica reveals that their mother, Hilary Carpenter, was murdered 17 years earlier in an unsolved case. Hilary was strangled while having tea in the garden, possibly with her killer. Leonard became obsessed with solving the crime, building a research archive in his study. He never believed the man who confessed from prison, a Polish builder named Wawryniec Wojtchak, was guilty, especially after Wojtchak retracted the confession. Leonard eventually disappeared. Cross takes the archive boxes back to the office.

Carson orders Cross to stop investigating, but when Cross reveals that Leonard's wife was also murdered, Carson grudgingly permits him to continue under the guise of a cold-case inquiry. Cross visits Badger in prison and recovers Leonard's belongings from the gorge, finding a key to the Carpenter home, a Polish shopping voucher, and a photograph of footprints from Hilary's crime scene. Jessica confirms the house alarm was triggered six weeks before Leonard's death, meaning Leonard secretly returned to retrieve the photograph.

Reviewing both Leonard's archive and the original police files, Cross notices that DCI Stuart MacDonald, the original Senior Investigating Officer and Cross's former superior, systematically shut down promising leads, particularly regarding a car seen speeding from the scene. Cross visits the retired MacDonald, who attributes his poor performance to his wife Sheila's cancer treatment at the time.

Cross travels to Manchester to interview Wojtchak, who insists he did not kill Hilary. Under patient questioning, Wojtchak reveals he arrived at the house after the murder, found Hilary's body, panicked, and ran, though he called the police anonymously. He also saw a car with trade plates, temporary plates used in the motor trade, speeding away and damaging a parked car. Cross confirms with Jeremy Baker, the owner of the damaged car, that it sustained red paint transfer and a broken Jaguar headlight emblem, and that the incident was reported to police but never followed up.

Cross investigates Alan Gosling's financial history, exposing past bankruptcies and a debt to a dangerous investor that Alan proposed clearing with a share of the dental practice, a plan Hilary blocked. Cross reads Hilary's diary entries calling Alan a "fraud" and a "Walter Mitty with an edge." Catherine confirms Alan drove a red Jaguar at the time, but the trade plates do not fit his profile.

The investigation leads Cross to Clay Motors, a dealership near Swindon owned by Malcolm Clay. A former employer, Brendan Davies, reports that Clay was fired for borrowing a red Jaguar XJR without permission around the time of Hilary's murder. Cross visits Sheila MacDonald and learns that Clay was one of many children the MacDonalds fostered, their longest placement, and the only one they adopted. Cross makes a critical connection: Clay was the boy injured in Hilary's 1988 car accident, in which his parents were killed and he lost a leg. Hilary went through the windscreen but saved Clay's life by stemming arterial bleeding with her scarf.

Cross traces the Polish shopping voucher from Leonard's rucksack: Its reverse side contains an article about 3D scanning technology that can identify individuals with prosthetic legs through footprint pressure analysis. Cross deduces that Wojtchak sent this to Leonard, who realized the crime scene footprints could prove someone with a prosthetic leg was present at Hilary's murder. Leonard returned to Bristol, retrieved the photograph, and confronted MacDonald before being killed.

The Chief Constable authorizes a full investigation. Cross secures Badger's release and arrests Clay. Davies's tip leads to a mechanic willing to testify he repaired the damaged Jaguar. Cross presents 3D scan results from Leicester University confirming that the person standing over Hilary's body had a prosthetic left leg. Clay confesses: He arranged to meet Hilary to thank her for saving his life, but when she admitted she believed she caused the accident, he lost control and strangled her. Clay also confesses to Leonard's murder.

Cross accepts Clay's first confession but is troubled by the second. While practicing organ at his local church, he recognizes that Clay's account of Leonard's death had a rehearsed quality unlike his raw confession to Hilary's killing. Cross checks the Bristol City football fixture list and discovers that Clay and MacDonald were in Clay's hospitality box at a League Cup semi-final the night Leonard died. Their false claim of being at home was designed to provide an alibi for someone else.

Ottey arrives at the MacDonald house to arrest Stuart for perverting the course of justice. Cross arrives separately and walks past the stunned Ottey and MacDonald to the front door, where Sheila stands with resigned recognition. Cross arrests her for Leonard's murder. Sheila explains that when Stuart told her Leonard had returned with evidence pointing to Clay, she recognized Leonard at Shaftesbury House, where she volunteered. She followed Leonard and Badger onto the Downs, and after their fight left Leonard incapacitated, she strangled him to protect Clay, the foster son she considered her own. Clay agreed to take the blame out of gratitude.

Clay is charged with Hilary's murder, Sheila with Leonard's, and MacDonald faces charges for perverting the course of justice. Cross declines the team's invitation to celebrate at the pub and returns to the church to practice organ.