This boxset contains five dramatisations of Minette Walters stories, featuring: The Ice House; The Scolds Bridle; The Echo; The Dark Room and The Sculptress.

The Ice House (Dir. Tim Fywell, 1997): Since the disappearance of her husband, David, ten years earlier, Phoebe Maybury had been under suspicion and Inspector Jack Walsh had mounted an intensive investigation, but in the absence of a corpse the case had remained unsolved. The discovery of a body in the ice house, ten years on, is only the start of a dark, complex and chilling tale.

The Scold's Bridle (Dir. David Thacker, 1998): It was the scold's bridle, decorated with nettles and daisies and strapped to the old woman's face, that made Dr Sarah Blakeney shiver. In the Middle Ages it had been an instrument of torture for curbing the tongues of nagging women...

The Echo (Dir. Diarmuid Lawrence, 1998): Homeless Billy Blake - pavement artist, poet, drunk and occasional thief - is found starved to death in the garage of wealthy architect Amanda Powell. How long had he been holed up there, just yards from food and shelter? What led him to Amanda's home? How did this seemingly well-educated man fall upon such hard times? Why are his hands and forearms scarred and misshapen by burns? And why did Amanda insist n paying for the funeral?
It emerges that Amanda's husband disappeared some years ago, along with £10m. from the merchant bank where he worked, while her sometime lover Nigel DeVriess made a killing by buying out the software company implicated in the fraud. Billy, meanwhile, bears a striking resemblance to missing diplomat Peter Fenton, whose wife committed suicide after some shock discovery. But if Billy isn't Amanda's husband, what is it that connects them?

The Dark Room (Dir. Graham Theakston, 1999): A tale of lost love, murder and amnesia, surrounding a young female fashion reporter, Jane Kingsley (Dervla Kirwan). After being unceremoniously jilted by her fiance, she goes into a coma, only to wake to allegations that she attempted to commit suicide, and that she also faces a murder charge...

The Sculptress (Dir. Stuart Orme, 1996): Twenty Two Stone Olive Martin (Pauline Quirke), earned her nickname 'The Sculptress', because of the gruesome way in which she killed and disembowelled her mother and sister.

When Rosalind 'Ros' Leigh (Caroline Goodall), is commissioned to write a book about Olive and when she first meets her in prison cannot hide her fear. But gradually she starts to believe that Olive is innocent. And if Olive didn't do it, who did?

When Ros meets ex-policeman Hal Hawksley (Christopher Fulford), who found Olive and the bodies, her confusion deepens. She embarks on a dangerous investigation that unravels a web of corruption and lies - and puts her own life at risk...