DCC Bob Skinner has a failed marriage on his hands, and a death on his conscience, but little time to deal with either as he faces the biggest challenge of his career within the secret corridors where dark power is wielded. As his hunt develops, he goes to the very top - the Prime Minister - lest he himself becomes collateral damage.
"If we are right about this, the stakes are higher than anything I’ve ever faced." Gangsters have infiltrated Edinburgh. MI5 are on their case and, unknown to DCC Bob Skinner, have set up a drug-dealing sting to flush them out. The resulting mayhem throws everyone into confusion until they realize the gangsters are preparing a hit on one of the Royal family. Meanwhile two policemen mourn the loss of a son and a daughter in mysterious circumstances, and another witnesses his son being abducted. Is someone trying to wreak revenge on the police force? Are the crimes linked?
The hair-trigger thrillers of Quintin Jardine, one of Scotland's top-selling crime writers, have been highly praised for their ingenious plotting and powerful emotional drama. With Bob Skinner, Edinburgh's toughest cop, at the center of the action, they form a first-rate, robustly entertaining series of police procedurals.
The heat is on for DCC Bob Skinner, Scotland's most revered and, in some circles, most feared cop. His career hangs by a thread, as a recent illness gives his enemies a weapon to use against him. A body found in the detritus of a flood is identified as the hated brother whose existence he has kept hidden for years.
DCC Bob Skinner has witnessed the aftermath of murder countless times. Yet nothing could have prepared him for identifying the strangled bodies of his wife's beloved parents, killed at their lakeside cabin in New York State. Driven by cold rage, Skinner quickly muscles in on the investigation, and soon he's found links with three other cases where the killing is too professional to be the result of a burglary gone wrong. But can he penetrate the multiple layers of intrigue to unearth the killer?
