A Nick Belsey Novel

'A twisting spiral of lies and corruption' Val McDermid From the hilltop he could see London, stretched towards the hills of Kent and Surrey. The sky was beginning to pale at the edges. The city itself looked numb as a rough sleeper; Camden and then the West End, the Square Mile. His watch was...

London is steaming under a summer of filthy heat and sudden storms - and Detective Nick Belsey, of Hampstead CID, is trying to stay out of trouble. But then somebody sets him a riddle. How does a man walk into a dead-end alley and never come out? And then reappear - to snatch a girl, to dump a body beneath a London skyscraper, to send Belsey a package of human hair? The answer lies underground, where the secrets degenerating beneath the city's sickly glitter are about to see the light of day.  

Amber Knight is hot property - pop star, film star, front-page gossip. DC Nick Belsey is less celebrated. He can't shake his habit of getting into serious trouble and his career at Hampstead CID is coming to a dishonourable end. He is currently of no fixed address - squatting in a disused police station round the corner from Amber's swanky Primrose Hill mansion. But a knock on the door from a frantic and confused woman looking for her missing son is about to lead Belsey straight into the heart of Amber's glittering life.

Nick Belsey's on the run. Touching down in Mexico City, he doesn't have much in the way of funds, but he has a new continent and surely that's enough to start afresh. But it's not as easy as that. An idyllic interlude in a coastal village is interrupted when men turn up who seem to know exactly who he is. And they have some very urgent questions.