Raine and Hume

A bloodstained coat. Three missing women. One dead body. Detective Mary Hume reckons she's seen it all. But she's never seen anything like this. It begins with the discovery of a broken body in a lift shaft in an old Victorian warehouse. The postmortem reveals the bloodstains on the dead man's coat belong to three different people. DNA identifies one of them as Julie Cross, whose body was discovered six months earlier, covered in horrifying wounds. Maverick ex-police officer Raine was hired to look for Julie. She didn't find Julie in time. But she's determined to find out who killed her. So, who does the rest of the blood belong to? Chalk-and-cheese detective duo Raine and Hume are in a race against time to uncover the truth before more young women die.

Detective Mary Hume stares at the crime scene in confusion. She's in an empty flat. Peeling wallpaper. A bloodstained chair in the middle of the room. But no body. Her sergeant hands her a burner phone. On it is a video clip. It shows a woman. Tied to the chair in the flat, a carving knife pressed to her throat. Placed in the woman's lap is a piece of cardboard. Written on it in blood-red is one word: DEADTOWN. The phone was handed in to Charing Cross police station the day before. The woman in the video is Melissa Clarke. A true crime blogger famous for exposing London's most notorious cold cases. Just what did Melissa dig up that got her killed? To find the answers, Mary calls on maverick ex-police officer Raine. She can reach people-and places-that Mary can't. When a second body is discovered, the two detectives realize that someone is playing twisted mind games with them. Can they pull the pieces of the puzzle together before more people die?

AN ABSOLUTELY GRIPPING CRIME THRILLER WITH AN ASTONISHING TWIST. Can you crack the code? Detective Mary Hume is on the trail of a vicious serial killer. A killer who leaves a baffling code carved into the skin of his victims. The first victim, a young man, lies spreadeagled in his stylish Soho flat. Carved deep into his hairless chest-while he was still alive-are the numbers 1-4-3. The second victim is a vicar-murdered and mutilated in his own church, his body posed kneeling in the front pew. Etched into his torso are more cryptic numbers. Detective Inspector Mary Hume knows that to crack the case, she must crack the code. And to do that, she needs the help of maverick ex-police officer Raine, who can reach places-and people-that Mary can't. Now the killer has their next victim in sight . . .