‘This is crime writing of the very highest order’ The Times
Manchester-based private eye Kate Brannigan thought it would be safe to let her boyfriend help out with her investigation. But now he’s behind bars and she’s been left caring for his eight-year-old son.
Soon Kate finds herself drawn into the world of drug traffickers, child pornographers, and violent gangland enforcers – bringing her face to face with death in the most terrifying investigation of her career.
Val McDermid is a No.1 bestseller whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages, and have sold more than sixteen million copies. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009, was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2010 and received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award in 2011. In 2016, Val received the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. In 2017, she received the DIVA Literary Prize for Crime and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She is also the patron of the Scottish Book Trust. Val writes full time and lives in Edinburgh and the East Neuk of Fife.