A maniac on the loose
A detective on the edge

JAKE SAWYER is feeling the heat. Returning to duty after an enforced psychological break, he’s called in to investigate the murder of a young woman found near one of the Peak District’s key beauty spots.

Sawyer is intrigued by the unusual mix of extreme violence and decorative presentation, and when the death is connected to the earlier killings of three other local women, he joins a task force of regional detectives in a hunt for the man the media are calling The New Ripper.

As the UK sweats in a record-breaking heatwave, a fifth woman goes missing, and the killer contacts the police, personally challenging Sawyer to catch him before he claims her as his next victim.