Yorkshire Killings

When a young girl is snatched from a West Yorkshire town there are eerie similarities with a cold case from many years earlier. It can't be the same killer, can it? 1994. Eighteen-year-old Adrian Brown spends his days working at the local newspaper, and his evenings in his local pub. But under this ordinary surface lies a haunting story. Aged ten, Adrian was kidnapped by a shadowy figure known as the Lollipop Man, who had abducted three children before. Adrian was the only one to escape. When another child goes missing, the media whips up a frenzy that the Lollipop Man has returned. Journalist Sheila Hargreaves, troubled with memories of her involvement in the reporting of the previous abductions, is determined to dig deeper, atone for what she did nearly a decade ago and bring a killer to justice.

October, 1995. Adrian Brown's second year studying at Leeds University is a blur of throbbing bass line and neon-lit nights out. However, a shocking encounter with a pale, older man he met in a basement club has the power to sober him up. Sheila Hargreaves, who has grown fond of Adrian following their brush with the Lollipop Man a year ago, has a book coming out about the murders and is busy with a new TV show, Yorkshire Crimetime. Busy doesn't quite cover it though when she has to pick up the pieces for her erratic co-presenter Tony Tranter. And then Tony goes missing and doesn't turn up hungover but stabbed to death in the shadows of a railway arch. His death seems to be linked to a recent number of sometimes deadly attacks on men. Moving from shadowy corners of the city to the glare of the TV studio lights, Sheila and Adrian find themselves on the path of another killer.