Shirley Peters is dead. Murdered. Her body is found twelve hours later in her own home. Just one of the many sordid domestic crimes hitting the city. Tony Macliesh, her rejected boyfriend, is the obvious prime suspect and he's just been picked up off the Aberdeen train and put straight into custody. But then another woman is sexually abused and throttled to death. And suddenly there appears to be one too many connections between these seemingly unrelated crimes. Because Detective-Inspector Resnick is sure that the two murders are the work of one sadistic killer - two lonely hearts broken by one maniac. And it's up to Resnick to put the record straight - and put the bastard where he belongs.

About the Author

JOHN HARVEY is the author of the richly praised sequence of ten Charlie Resnick novels, the first of which, Lonely Hearts, was named by The Times as one of the '100 Best Crime Novels of the Century'. In 2004 William Heinemann published Flesh and Blood, the first novel featuring retired Detective Inspector Frank Elder, which won the CWA Silver Dagger in 2004. He is also a poet, dramatist and occasional broadcaster.

Prizes

'John Harvey's Resnick novels are far and away the finest British police procedurals ever written' GQ 20010730

Reviews

British detective Charlie Resnick--middle-aged, overweight, divorced and disillusioned--investigates the murders of two women who shared nothing except their use of the local paper's lonely-hearts column to meet men. ``Harvey introduces an appealing and memorable new series character in this, his seventh mystery,'' commented PW . (May)