A brilliantly written London Noir from a master of the genre

Mason Cross

‘A firecracker of a novel’

Eric van Lustbader (The Bourne Legacy)

When two bodies are found brutally murdered on a building site in Battersea, DS Calil Drake is first to the scene. Drake sees an opportunity: to solve a high-profile case and repair his reputation after a botched undercover operation almost ended his promising career in the Violent Crimes Unit.
Assigned to work with a new partner, the enigmatic forensic psychologist Dr Rayhana Crane, and on the hunt for an elusive killer, Drake’s investigations lead down the dark corridors of the past – to Iraq and the destruction they witnessed there.
With a community poised on the brink of violence and their lives on the line, Crane and Drake must work together to catch the killer before vengeance is unleashed.

‘Enthralling’ Guardian

‘Vivid, energetic’ Sunday Times

‘Richly evocative’ Independent

‘Excellent’ Literary Review

Review in French magazine Telerama

Private Investigator Makana, in exile from his native Sudan and increasingly haunted by memories of the wife and daughter he has lost, is shaken out of his grief when a routine surveillance job leads him to the horrific murder of a teenage girl. In a country where honour killings are commonplace and the authorities seem all too eager to turn a blind eye, Makana determines to track down the perpetrator. He finds unexpected assistance in the shape of Zahra, a woman who seems to share Makana’s hunger for justice.

Seeking answers in the dead girl’s past he travels to Siwa, an oasis town on the edge of the great Sahara desert, where the law seems disturbingly far away and old grievances simmer just below the surface. As violence follows him through the twisting, sand-blown streets and an old enemy lurks in the shadows, Makana discovers that the truth can be as deadly and as changeable as the desert beneath his feet