A seemingly simple murder leads a Newcastle DCI with a criminal past to a dark underworld in this mystery by the author of Open Grave.An eighteen-year-old petty criminal is brutally tortured and left in a farmer's field to die. DCI Jack Lambert and his team think they have it all figured out. It's a robbery gone wrong. Suspicion immediately falls on the man who called it in.What Jack doesn't realise is that this is just the beginning. An escaped prisoner, an attempted hit, and a seemingly unending trail of violence and retribution follows. As the mystery unfolds, Jack begins to suspect the existence of a secret, but powerful, syndicate operating on the very edges of the North East's criminal underworld. With the situation spiralling out of control, Jack finds himself at a crossroads—one which could lead him back into the kind of life he has spent a career running away from. Time is running out, and this case might not only cost Lambert his job, but...

In the British city of Newcastle, a pair of bodies leads a police detective into a dark place...DCI Jack Lambert is no stranger to inner demons, having struggled with his own since the admission about his sexuality. But when two bodies are discovered entwined in an open grave, Lambert must put his personal worries aside and work the case. Then, when a local thug turns up dead on the banks of the River Tyne, the DCI's criminal past comes back to haunt him. Meanwhile, a local celebrity singer claims that she is being stalked. Could there be a link to the killings? As the bodies start to pile up, Lambert and his colleagues realize the motive lies in the past and the killer is taunting them—but they may not be able to catch the murderer before one of their own ends up in an open grave.